Al Neuharth

Founder, Freedom Forum

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Al Neuharth

Al Neuharth is the founder and senior advisory chairman of the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The Freedom Forum funds and operates the Newseum, the First Amendment Center and the Diversity Institute.

Neuharth was chairman of the Freedom Forum from 1986 to 1997, and was a trustee of the foundation and its predecessor, the Gannett Foundation, from 1965 to 1999.

He is founder of the nation's most widely read newspaper, USA TODAY, and former chairman and chief executive officer of Gannett Co.

Neuharth has authored eight books. His autobiography, Confessions of an S.O.B., had a long run on The New York Times and other bestseller lists. The hardcover book had five printings by Doubleday. World paperback rights were sold and the book has been translated into five foreign languages.

He writes a weekly column for the domestic and international editions of USA TODAY called "Plain Talk." It also appears in other newspapers.

Neuharth was born on March 22, 1924, in Eureka, S.D. At age 11, he took his first job as a newspaper carrier and later as a youth worked in the composing room at the weekly Alpena (S.D.) Journal. After graduating from Alpena High School, he served as a combat infantryman in World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star.

After the war, Neuharth attended the University of South Dakota, where he majored in journalism. When he graduated in 1950, he joined The Associated Press in Sioux Falls, S.D., as a reporter.

In 1952, he and a friend launched a statewide weekly tabloid called SoDak Sports. The newspaper failed financially. In 1954, broke and in debt, Neuharth got a job as a reporter on the Miami Herald. Over the next seven years, he was promoted from reporter through many editorial positions to assistant managing editor. In 1960, he was named assistant executive editor of the Detroit Free Press. Both are members of the Knight Ridder newspaper group.

Neuharth joined Gannett as general manager of its two Rochester, N.Y., newspapers in 1963. In 1966, he assumed the added role of president of Gannett Florida and started a new newspaper, TODAY, later renamed Florida TODAY.

Neuharth is married to Dr. Rachel Fornes, a Cocoa Beach, Fla., chiropractor. They have six children. Neuharth also has two children by his first marriage.

Neuharth resides in Cocoa Beach in a renovated log cabin called Pumpkin Center. He does his writing there in a beachside treehouse that overlooks the Kennedy Space Center launch pads.

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Founder's message
A message from Al Neuharth, founder of the Freedom Forum.  01.01.00