Franklin, Ben A. 1927–2005

(Benjamin Arthur Franklin)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born November 12, 1927, in New York, NY; died of lung cancer, November 19, 2005, in Garrett Park, MD. Journalist. Franklin was an award-winning reporter who spent the majority of his career at the New York Times. Completing undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania in 1948, he was a reporter for the Annapolis Evening Capital and then the Washington, DC, Evening Star while working on a master's degree at Columbia University. Graduating in 1950, by the next year he was serving with the U.S. Coast Guard in the Atlantic during the Korean War. In 1953, Franklin, who was still in the Coast Guard until 1955, returned briefly to the Evening Star. He then worked for five years as a reporter for the Edward P. Morgan and the News program on ABC-Radio in New York City. He joined the New York Times staff as a regional correspondent for the Middle Atlantic in 1959. Franklin would remain at the Times through 1991. During these years, he covered such stories as corruption in the mining industry, the civil rights movement, and U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew's resignation. His reporting earned him a W.D. Weather-ford Award from Berea College in 1971 and the Sigma Delta Chi Award in 1973. A disagreement with his executive editor led Franklin to quit the New York Times. He spent 1991 through 1993 as a writer for Nucleonics Week, then became editor of the liberal Washington Spectator.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, November 22, 2005, p. A25.

Washington Post, November 21, 2005, p. B6.