From business editor to philanthropist
In October of 1961, legendary business journalism advocate R.K.T. (Kit) Larson organized a three-day meeting that led to the birth, three years later, of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
About 60 business journalists attended the gathering. They met in Norfolk, where Larson was associate editor of The Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star. Vermont Royster, the editor of The Wall Street Journal, and pollster George Gallup were featured speakers. Among the attendees was Kenneth Baldwin Jr., then the business editor of the afternoon Ledger-Star.
“I remember the principals quite distinctly,” Baldwin says.
To this day, Baldwin also remembers and has sustained his early commitment to business journalism – so much so that he has emerged as one of the cause’s leading financial backers.
Baldwin was a major supporter of SABEW’s successful, year-long campaign to match a $50,000 grant from the Challenge Fund for Journalism. The more than $100,000 that the society raised from the challenge grant and matching gifts will enable the organization to undertake a sweeping overhaul and upgrade of its technology, thus significantly improving the services it offers members.
Baldwin’s support came in the wake of a $500,000 donation he made earlier this year to his alma mater, the University of South Carolina.
That gift, to the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, established the Baldwin Business and Financial Journalism Endowment Fund. It was the largest gift the school has ever received that is aimed at teaching and learning. Income from the endowment will support training, research, symposia, lecturers, visiting professors, student assistantships and related programs.
Greg McCune, president of SABEW, hailed Baldwin for his support of business journalism. The organization plans to explore prospects for working with the University of South Carolina on programs to enhance business journalism education, McCune said.
Baldwin was managing editor of The Gamecock, the university’s student newspaper. He worked for the Associated Press, the Greenwood Index-Journal, the Columbia Record and WCOS-AM/FM/TV before joining Landmark Communications, parent firm for the Norfolk dailies, in 1956.
In 1963, he went into management, overseeing Landmark’s personnel and human resource programs in Greensboro, N.C. Later, he served as president of the Newspaper Personnel Relations Association, which eventually merged with the Society for Human Resource Management.
Baldwin retired in 1986. He lives in Columbia, S.C.
