Pulitzer Prize-winner Halberstam killed in car accident

Faculty members at the IU School of Journalism reacted with sadness and disappointment to the news of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam’s death on Monday. \nHalberstam, 73, was killed in a car accident Monday morning near San Francisco, The Associated Press reported. He spoke March 19 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave., as part of the IU School of Journalism’s \nspeaker series. \n“We were blessed to have him in March, and I think there will be a lot of people at Indiana and in Bloomington who will remember his visit and his presence for a long, long time,” said School of Journalism Dean Brad Hamm in a telephone interview.\nHamm heard the news Monday evening while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a speaking engagement.\nHalberstam was a passenger in a car driven by a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley when it was broadsided by another vehicle just south of San Francisco. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Halberstam was at Berkeley to speak about the craft of journalism and what it means to turn reporting into a work of history, according to the AP.\n“He was one of the most gifted journalists of our time,” Hamm said. “I thought he made a tremendous difference at Indiana when he visited. He met with everybody, and he spent time with everybody who wanted to talk to him. \n“What I admired is he was so smart and so knowledgeable, but he never made anybody feel dumb,” he said. “He listened to them, he asked questions, he spent time with them. We were very, very fortunate to have him \non campus.”\nA journalist and author, Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his reporting about the Vietnam War while working for the New York Times. He wrote 21 books, covering topics such as Vietnam, civil rights, baseball and Michael Jordan. His most acclaimed work, 1972’s best-seller “The Best and the Brightest,” chronicled the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.\nHalberstam was one of the most popular speakers in the School of Journalism’s series. During his March speech, people were turned away from the Buskirk-Chumley because the theater had already reached its capacity. \n“We honestly could have let people come in all night,” Hamm said. “We put as many people in as we could.”\nHalberstam spoke about the difficulties of the United States’ involvement in the Iraq war. \nAssociate professor of journalism Dave Boeyink attended Halberstam’s speech.\n“David Halberstam’s death is clearly a loss to journalism,” Boeyink said in a telephone interview. “And I say that even though Halberstam isn’t practicing what we traditionally think is journalism, he still has been, in his production of these wonderful books, a brilliant journalist in the way in which he’s able to gather information and present stories.”\nBoeyink was amazed with Halberstam’s insight and knowledge of the Iraq war. \n“I was particularly impressed with the way in which Halberstam, in an interview in March of 2003, actually was able to predict the problems the United States was going to face if it invaded Iraq based on his experience as a Vietnam War-era journalist,” Boeyink said. “Everything he predicted prior to our invasion of Iraq has come true.”\nThe day after his speech, Halberstam spoke to a group of reporters from the Indiana Daily Student and The Herald-Times. \nHamm said he is disappointed for all the people who will not have the chance to hear Halberstam speak. He had met the author once before his IU visit.\n“I told him when he left that I was looking forward to the third time because I knew we’d have to bring him back,” Hamm said. “I would have loved to have seen him 100 times.”