William Shawn was an American magazine editor who edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.
17 Facts About William Shawn
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William Shawn traveled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he worked at the local newspaper, The Optic.
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William Shawn returned to Chicago and worked as a journalist.
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William Shawn's temperament contrasted with that of the magazine's founder Harold Ross.
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Lillian Ross recalled that William Shawn believed in the value of every life, even that of Hitler.
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William Shawn rose to assistant editor of The New Yorker and oversaw the magazine's coverage of World War II.
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William Shawn had been trying to get a story out of John Hersey for years.
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John Hersey 8.
In 1946, William Shawn persuaded Ross to run Hersey's story about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the entire contents of one issue.
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William Shawn left for a few months shortly after that to write on his own, but soon returned.
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William Shawn's quiet style was a marked contrast to Ross's noisy manner.
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Whereas Ross constantly wrote letters to his contributors, William Shawn hated to share anything, especially on paper.
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William Shawn's shyness was office legend, as were his claustrophobia and fear of elevators; many of his colleagues maintain that he carried a hatchet in his briefcase, in case he became trapped.
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William Shawn would buy articles and then not run them for years, if ever.
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William Shawn gave writers vast space to cover their subjects, and nearly all of them spoke reverently of him.
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In 1988, William Shawn received the George Polk Career Award in recognition of his lifelong achievements.
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Ross claimed that William Shawn was active in the upbringing of her adopted son, Erik.
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The publication of the memoir was controversial, in part because William Shawn deeply valued his privacy.