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Ralph M. Otwell

Ralph M. Otwell (BSJ51) is a member of the inaugural class of the Medill Hall of Achievement of 1997.

Otwell retired as editor of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1984 upon sale of the newspaper by Field Enterprises to Rupert Murdoch.

Having served more than a combined 15 years as managing editor and then editor, he was a top newsroom executive longer than anyone in the newspaper's history. The Sun-Times won six Pulitzer Prizes during that period. When Otwell retired, the paper was the nation's seventh-largest daily.

He became managing editor in 1968, a little more than 15 years after joining the Sun-Times. He was appointed editor in November 1976 and was named to the additional post of executive vice president in June 1980. Six years after joining the Sun-Times Otwell won a Nieman Fellowship to attend Harvard University for an academic year where he concentrated in economic and urban affairs studies.