Merv Block

Mervin Block (MSJ59) was inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement in 2018. He has written for broadcast greats like Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner and Charles Osgood at all three major U.S. networks.

After years of active service in the Navy, Block returned to put himself through school at Medill. His career took him to The Chicago American, WBBM-TV, then on to CBS, ABC and NBC. He won first prize three times for TV spot-news scripts in the annual competition of the Writers Guild of America.

Block is as much a teacher as he is a journalist. He taught journalism (both print and broadcast) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for four years and then taught broadcast news writing part-time at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism for three decades. He wrote five books about broadcast writing that are still considered industry staples.