Gup named to media chair

by Susan Griffith

Ted Gup, an award-winning journalist who has been an investigative reporter and editor for the Washington Post and a correspondent for Time Magazine, will combine an active writing career with teaching as the new Shirley Wormser Professor in Journalism and Media Writing at CWRU, effective August 16.

Gup, a CWRU alumnus, will teach the introduction to journalism course this fall. He will spend his first months back in Cleveland meeting with local editors and reporters to develop internship opportunities for CWRU students.

"We feel we have made a stellar appointment in an area in which students have repeatedly told us they want instruction," says Suzanne Ferguson, the Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Professor of Humanities and chair of the Department of English.

Although Gup spent most of the past 20 years in the Washington, D.C., area, he is well-acquainted with Ohio. He grew up in Canton, attended Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, and earned his law degree from CWRU in 1978. He worked at the Akron Beacon Journal from 1974-75 as a news reporter.

Since 1990, he has been freelancing, with his work appearing in more than 20 publications, such as National Geographic, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Sports Illustrated, Washington Post, Smithsonian, Audubon, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Parenting, and Los Angeles Times.

Gup notes many reasons why he was attracted to the CWRU position, while turning down other universities. He cited the warm welcome and enthusiasm of CWRU students for journalism classes, his familiarity with the University, his ability to create a new program as the first Wormser Professor, and the opportunity to continue his professional writing career.

The addition of the veteran journalist will provide the Department of English with the opportunity to build a strong writing program with classes in journalism and media writing, creative writing, technical and professional communication, and composition studies, according to John Bassett, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Gup, who likes the idea of journalism as part of an English program as opposed to being something separate, observes, "I think journalism dovetails with other writing."

Gup has had teaching positions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, George Washington University, the Wildbranch Writing Workshop at Sterling College in Vermont, Johns Hopkins University's graduate writing program, and as a visiting professor in the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

For the past 18 years, Gup has lectured on journalism at Georgetown University. His students have gone on to successful careers as reporters with major papers around the country.

From 1978-87, he balanced teaching with his work as a staff reporter and editor of the Washington Post's Investigative Projects Team under the leadership of Watergate reporter Bob Woodward. He was the Congressional correspondent and national projects correspondent for Time Magazine from 1987-93. He also worked for the Virginia Pilot in 1976.

His rise in the journalism profession was aided by his mentor Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post, who met Gup when he applied for an internship. Gup says Bradlee critiqued his early news stories until Gup arrived at the Washington Post seven years after they met.

For the past three years, Gup has been writing a book, which Doubleday will publish next year, on the history of covert CIA operations. Several other book projects will follow, he says.

His work over the past 25 years has been recognized with more than 20 awards and fellowships, including the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, a Fulbright Scholarship in 1985 to Beijing, and Washington Monthly Journalism Awards in 1993, 1983, 1982.

In 1981 he won the George Polk Award for National Reporting for his series on government contracts and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. He has also earned two Gerald Loeb Awards for Financial Journalism and Front Page Awards from the Newspaper Guild.

The Wormser Professorship in Journalism was established in 1998 with a $1.25 million gift from Shirley Wormser Shapero, a 1940 graduate of Flora Stone Mather College.