Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
University of Kansas' journalism school will award its prestigious William Allen White Foundation Medal for "outstanding journalistic merit" to PR professional and former Reagan and Bush I White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater. Previous honorees include Charles Kuralt, Bob Woodward and Molly Ivins. "Marlin Fitzwater is not qualified to receive the award," protested former journalism professor and White Foundation trustee Bob Giles. Fitzwater joined the White House at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, "making tasteless jibes about Mario Cuomo's Italian name and [later] leading the verbal attacks on Bill Clinton." He worked to keep Cold War tensions high in the late 1980's and said the first Gulf War defended "UN security council resolutions."
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