Melvin Mencher

Melvin Mencher, born in 1927 in New York City during the Depression era, worked as a resort hotel page boy, university life model, United Press reporter, and managed Ed Mechem's successful gubernatorial campaign in New Mexico at age 23. He earned a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism from 1962 until his retirement in 1989 or 1990, authoring the influential textbook 'News Reporting and Writing' used by over 250,000 students. Now retired, he lives in New York City near Columbia.