Giles working on book about BJ’s 1970 Kent State coverage

Former BJ executive editor Bob Giles, who is working on a book about the Beacon’s coverage of the 1970 Kent State shootings by the Ohio National Guard, reports that he is “feeling much better” after his stent implant following a cardiac episode.

Bob Giles

Bob emailed:

“I am plugging away on my book on Kent State. I am planning to include brief sketches of the staffers who were part of the coverage.”

Bob has contacted me from time to time requesting information about the BJ coverage, which Bob and Al Fitzpatrick handed to the late Pat Englehart.

Pat whipped everyone into action and was #1 person responsible for the BJ’s Pulitzer for its coverage of the 4 dead and 9 wounded at Kent State by the Guard.

His latest email sought more information about Lacy McCrary, particularly Lacy’s health since his 2015 stroke.

Bob added:

“I am so grateful to Harry Liggett for creating BJ Alums and to you for continuing it faithfully after Harry passed. It has been very helpful to me in gathering information about our BJ colleagues.”

It’s been my pleasure to keep BJ alums informed about each other since Harry passed me the torch.

Bob and wife Nancy live in a former state mental hospital ... the restored building, that is, for their condo.

Bob added:

"Nancy and I live in Traverse City, Michigan, near Lake Michigan with beaches, lovely views and great sunsets. Our address is 800 Cottageview Dr, apt 319. Our condo is in an imaginatively restored former state mental hospital."

Boy, is that a straight line for a lot of BJ responses from the character there when Bob and I were at 44 E. Exchange Street!

Depauw University graduate Bob retired in 2011 as curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.  

He was at Ol’ Blue Walls from 1958-75, left for the Rochester (New York) Democrat & Chronicle and Times Union, where he was executive editor and left Rochester to become editor and publisher of the Detroit News.

 

 

At Detroit, he had a hand in the News’ Pulitzer in 1994. Bob also has been a Pulitzer juror 9 times.