Paul William Ward (1905-1976) was a ''

Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publish ...

'' correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize for his overseas reporting "Life in the Soviet Union" in 1948.

Early life

A native of Lorain,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, Paul Ward was educated at

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

in Vermont. From 1926 to 1930, he worked for the New Bedford's

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and later joined

the Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

as a business correspondent. After three years on the staff in the Baltimore Sun, Ward was transferred to the

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

bureau, where he specialized in covering congressional and departmental affairs.

Career

In 1937, Ward was transferred to

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where he took charge of the Sun's local bureau. As a diplomatic correspondent, he participated in the coverage of the first events of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, but in 1940 he returned to the

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. He was assigned to Washington to report on

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

news and international politics until 1945. He covered the

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of 1944, the

Treaty of San Francisco The , also called the , re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war, military occupation and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and inclu ...

in 1945, the Foreign Ministers Conference in

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and

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. Beyond that, he covered local events for the

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news agency, for which he later was named a chevalier of the

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. During 1946, Ward spent some time in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, where he attended as a reporter the Foreign Ministers Conference and acquainted with the way of life in the country. The journalist reflected his experience in a series of articles "Life in the Soviet Union" that earned the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1948. From the 1940s to 1970, Paul Ward worked as The Sun's diplomatic correspondent. Six years after his retirement from reporting in 1970, Ward died at

Georgetown University Hospital MedStar Georgetown University Hospital is one of the Washington, D.C. area's oldest academic teaching hospitals. It is a not-for-profit, acute care teaching and research facility located in the Georgetown neighborhood of the Northwest Quadrant ...

at the age of 71. In 1984, his widow Dorothy Cate Ward and their children established an award in memory of the journalist. The award is recognized annually to first-year students of Middlebury College who produced outstanding essays during the academic year.

References

1905 births 1976 deaths Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners 20th-century American newspaper editors American male journalists American business and financial journalists {{US-journalist-1900s-stub