George  Harmon

Associate Professor Emeritus-in-Service

George Harmon is a full-time faculty member at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where he specializes in business writing. At Northwestern he also serves as chairman of the faculty Committee on Naval Science and on Committee on Athletics and Recreation. He teaches business journalism, news writing and editing, reporting, public relations writing and liberal-arts courses offered through the Center for the Writing Arts. For 15 years he was Medill's news department chair.

Prior to joining Northwestern in 1980, Harmon was publisher and editor of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, a daily newspaper for Illinois' legal community. He joined the Law Bulletin from the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was financial editor. Earlier, he had been assistant managing editor for features of the Chicago Daily News, a sister newspaper of the Sun-Times. In 11 years at the Daily News, he served successively as a reporter, rewriteman, assistant city editor, financial writer, assistant financial editor, city editor, financial editor and assistant managing editor.

Since 2003 he has been a director of Paddock Publications, publisher of the Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, Ill., 151,000 daily) and Reflejos. He served seven years as a director of Home News Publishing Co., which owned the Central New Jersey Home News (55,000 daily) and 15 years as board chairman of Students Publishing Co., a $1 million company that publishes Northwestern's yearbook and daily newspaper. As a free-lance writer, he has produced articles and reviews for many newspapers and magazines and has been a part-time editorial writer for the Chicago Sun-Times.

As a consultant, he has trained more than 1,500 mid-level executives in communications skills and has acted as a writing coach and trainer for nearly 1,000 journalists.

He is the author of "Clearer Business Writing," a chapter in "The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Communications" (McGraw-Hill, May, 1997). With Prof. Louis P. Cain of Loyola University he is author of a book, "Energy: the Life of a Nation."

His degrees are from Princeton University (AB cum laude) and Loyola University of Chicago (MBA, finance), where one year he was named the outstanding MBA alum. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Harmon served three years in the U.S. Navy as an officer.

Teaching Philosophy

Phone

847-491-2092

Email

g-harmon@northwestern.edu

Course Info

201 Editing and Writing the News

301 News Writing and Reporting

423 Economy Seminar

454 Communication Skills and Persuasive Messages

470 Public Relations Strategies and Tactics

Research

Awards / Professional Organizations

Publications / Presentations