Inventory of the Charles Whited Manuscript and Oral History Interviews, 1985

Biography of Biography or History

Charles Whited was born in 1929 in West Virginia and grew up there. He served during the Korean War as a Sargent in the Paratroopers. Whited attended the University of Virginia and later worked as a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean until 1966 when he became a columnist at the Miami Herald. Whited worked in this position until July 1991 often having frequent contact with John S. Knight and his brother, James L. Knight. He wrote or co-wrote nine books including The Decoy Man: The Extraordinary Adventures of an Undercover Cop (Chicago, IL: Playboy Press, 1973) and Diving to a Flash of Gold (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1971), in collaboration with Meylach Martin.

Whited was John S. Knight's official biographer and wrote Knight: A Publisher in the Tumultuous Century, published by E.P. Dutton in 1988. Knight (1894-1981) inherited the Akron Beacon Journal from his father, Charles Landon Knight, upon his death in 1933 becoming editor and publisher. He later bought the Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press, and many other American newspapers. Knight is most known for a weekly column he wrote for almost 40 years called "The Editor's Notebook," which won him a Pulitzer Prize. Knight also is well-known for founding Knight Newspapers, Inc., which later merged with Ridder Publications, Inc. to form Knight-Ridder. The company was at one time the largest newspaper publisher in the country.

Whited won the Green Eyeshade Award for commentary in 1982 and the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain's John S. Knight Gold Medal for Excellence in Journalism in 1990. Whited died of cancer on July 10, 1991 at age 62. He dictated his last column, which appeared July 4, 1991, from his hospital bed.

Scope and Content

The Charles Whited Manuscript and Oral History Interviews consists of a typescript of the biography Whited wrote about American newspaper publisher John S. Knight in addition to various oral history interviews on microcassette tapes Whited conducted in the 1980s during his research for the book. Whited interviewed many of Knight's associates, colleagues, friends, and family including Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Chairman E.J. Thomas; Knight's son, Landon; and Ben Maidenberg, Executive Editor and Publisher of the Akron Beacon Journal.

The typescript of the book originally carried the title John S. Knight in the Turbulent Century, which is reflected in the manuscript. The typescript is organized by chapter, which also reflects the chapter titles at the time of the draft, not at the time of publication. Many of the chapter titles were changed by the publisher before the book was published and the original chapter titles are reflected in the manuscript.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to reproduce or publish materials in this collection must be secured in writing from Archival Services, University Libraries, The University of Akron.

John S. Knight Papers, 1894-1981

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Technical Requirements

Taped interviews are on Micro-cassette tapes and require a micro-cassette player

Preferred Citation

[Identification of Item], Charles Whited Manuscript and Oral History Interviews, Archival Services, University Libraries, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio

Detailed Description of The Collection