(Newark, N.J., March 14, 2007) Allan Wolper and Doug Doyle didnt expect to make news during the radio broadcast of an interview with former New York Times journalist Earl Caldwell. But they did, and the resulting broadcast also won honors for the two Rutgers-Newark journalism/media studies faculty members. Wolper and Doyle were jointly honored by the New York Association of Black Journalists (NYABJ) with a first-place award in public affairs for the Caldwell interview. Caldwell is famous for standing up to the FBI in 1968, when he refused to cooperate with the agency about the Black Panthers, the radical group which he covered exclusively for The New York Times.
During the Caldwell interview, no one expected Caldwell to reveal anything that he hadnt mentioned in numerous past interviews. But as it turned out, Caldwell had held back one crucial and interesting fact over the years: He told listeners that he had destroyed a years worth of accumulated notes about the Black Panthers for fear that the FBI would find and use them. Caldwell had never before told his bosses at The Times, or anyone else, what he had done with the notes.
It was a chance for me to tell the world about a man they have kind of forgotten who was very important, said Wolper of the interview. He was important because he made an important stand, and that stand was not to give up a source.
Caldwell's refusal to accept the subpoena led to the formation of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of The Press and was one of three cases that led to the United States Supreme Court decision, Branzburg v. Hayes. The
court ruled that reporters had no right to refuse to testify before a grand jury.
Caldwell, a Hampton University professor, is using material from the broadcast for his memoirs.
The interview was broadcast as part of WBGOs weekly news magazine, WBGO Journal. WBGO is an award-winning NPR station based in Newark. The live interview can be heard at wbgojournal
Doyle also won a first-place award from the NYABJ for a General Features report on the death of civil rights leader Rosa Parks, and a second-place in Sports for a basketball segment, Wilt, 1962. Doyle, who teaches radio news reporting at Rutgers in Newark on a part-time basis, is also news director of WBGO, a post he has held since 1998. All of the award-winning programs were broadcast during 2006.
Doyle has been working with Wolper closely at the station since the two met in 1998. It was Wolper, he said, who suggested he should start teaching at Rutgers.