Corbin Gwaltney, Founder of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dies at 97

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Corbin Gwaltney, the pioneering editor and founder of The Chronicle of Higher Education in 1966, and then The Chronicle of Philanthropy in 1988, died on July 29, 2019, at his home in Potomac, Maryland. He was 97.

Gwaltney, once an alumni-magazine editor at the Johns Hopkins University, began The Chronicle as an eight-page broadsheet designed to cover colleges seriously, through excellent reporting and precise writing. The first issue was mailed to 5,000 subscribers; today The Chronicle serves millions of readers online and in print.

Fiercely independent and mercurial at times, Gwaltney, a newspaperman to his core, built The Chronicles into the leading professional publications in their sectors, combining a sophisticated devotion to language and a designer's love of fonts and photographs. He was active as the top editor well into his 70s, and he continued to speak longingly of sitting in the editor's chair until the end.

Gwaltney valued deeply the talented journalists and the fine journalism they produced. He was proudest of some of The Chronicle's earliest accomplishments, including its coverage of the 1970 killings at Kent State University, apartheid in South Africa, and the newspaper's ahead-of-the-curve coverage of the impact of AIDS on college campuses.

"Corbin was a visionary who saw at a critical moment that an essential part of American life – its colleges and universities – needed a publication of its own," said Liz McMillen, executive editor of Chronicle Intelligence, which produces issue briefs and reports for higher-education leaders and faculty members. "American higher education has never been the same. He infused The Chronicle with an ethos of journalistic integrity and editorial excellence, and inspired journalists to do reporting that informed and challenged the sector. It's impossible to think about higher education without The Chronicle."

He was an American entrepreneur at heart, constantly looking to invent new publications or try innovative approaches with emerging technologies. His company was one of the first to use computers to set type. Gwaltney grasped early on the powerful potential of the digital world, and his was one of the first media companies to publish online, in 1993, at the birth of the internet. He was also a savvy businessman, and he made sure The Chronicle erected a paywall to protect its valuable content while much of the publishing world chose to give away online content free.

His original vision was audacious – to fill a yawning gap and produce stellar journalism about American colleges and universities – and that helped create a shared national culture around higher education.

He repeated that magic in 1988 with the launch of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication born, in essence, from the ribs of the original Chronicle, and it, too, has established a national perspective about nonprofits and the world of philanthropy, fueled by journalistic rigor and an uncompromising independence.

On that publication's 30th anniversary last year, Gwaltney donated the newspaper's first-ever front page to the philanthropy collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, a sign of the pride he took in Philanthropy's founding.

"Corbin created The Chronicle of Philanthropy because he believed nonprofits and foundations were essential organizations in the United States that had for too long been ignored by the national news media," said Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. "And while he believed in celebrating the good works of nonprofits, he always encouraged our journalists to take a critical eye, pushing us to uncover wrongdoing and abuses that deserved national attention."

Born in Baltimore in 1922, Gwaltney decided at age 12 that he wanted to be an idealistic newspaper editor after reading a book called Ritchie of the News. He graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1943 and entered World War II as an infantryman, ending up a prisoner of war in 1944, an event that turned his hair a striking white, unusual for his age.

In 1950 he transformed the Hopkins alumni magazine into an award-winning publication with high-end photography and compelling articles that began a sea change in how colleges communicated with alumni. Later that decade, he began work that led to the birth of The Chronicle, which was supported in its early nonprofit years by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The newspaper originally carried no advertising, but that changed in the early 1970s with the introduction of job ads, which fueled so much revenue growth that Gwaltney and his co-founder, Jack Crowl, bought The Chronicle in 1978 and established it as a profitable business. (In 1990, Crowl sold his share of the company to Gwaltney and retired to Vermont.)

What Gwaltney valued most about The Chronicle was its independence, both journalistic and financial. He allowed no interference from advertisers, even when a major one, complaining about coverage, pulled its ads for several years. And he believed deeply in the innate intelligence of editors to make journalistic decisions, rather than relying on reader surveys or focus groups.

In his early days, the always passionate Gwaltney could be quick to anger. But, in later years, his temper mellowed, leaving a resolute passion for what he called The Chronicle: "The inanimate love of my life."

Finally, he instilled in The Chronicle's culture a deep humanity in which employees were valued highly and treated well, where mutual respect and a commitment to integrity fostered excellent work, and where having fun was a good thing, as he wrote in the company's credo: "Laughter is often heard in our offices."

Gwaltney is survived by his wife, Pamela, a former business executive at The Chronicle, who now, as owner and chair of the company, will lead the enterprise; two daughters, Jean Gwaltney and Margaret Gwaltney; a son, Thomas Gwaltney; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

SOURCE The Chronicle of Higher Education Inc.