Sir Harold Matthew
Evans was born in Patricroft, Eccles, a part of that “dirty old town” Salford,
on June 28, 1928. From such grim beginnings, he went on to brighten the pages
of newspapers across the world. He also led a campaign for more informed journalism. Even in his last years, as print newspapers folded across the globe in the face
of the challenge of the Internet, Evans continued to argue strenuously that financial
investment in good journalism would be the saviour of newspapers, that consumers
would still prefer quality and accurate journalism over the half-baked nonsense
that appears online. Evans was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to
1981, including the period when I worked for that newspaper as an Irish rugby
correspondent. The evil Rupert Murdoch, a man who should be charged with crimes
against humanity, acquired the Times group in 1981 and Evans was
appointed editor of the daily Times but soon fell out with the
Dirty Digger. Evans had set up the Sunday Times’ brilliant Insight investigative
team, most notable for its exposure, through Australian journalist Philip
Knightley, of the dangers of thalidomide, which caused children to be born with
severely deformed limbs. This campaign was the subject of a documentary, Attacking the Devil: Harold Evans and the Last Nazi War Crime. Evans was knighted in
2004 for his services to journalism and in 2011 he became editor-at-large
of the Reuters news agency.
Evans started his
career as 16-year-old reporter for a weekly newspaper in Ashton-under-Lyne,
Lancashire. He became a sub-editor then assistant editor on the Manchester Evening
News, moving on to be editor of a regional daily, The Northern Echo,
in 1961, at just 33. He joined The Sunday Times in 1966. In 1984, Evans
moved to the United States. He died of congestive heart failure in New York
City on September, 23, aged of 92.
Ephram Edward Benguiat was born in Brooklyn on October 27, 1927. He started his design career by working, in his words, as a “cleavage retoucher” during the restrictive period after World War II, when the Hays Code imposed restrictions on nudity in motion pictures. Benguiat’s role involved airbrushing and other techniques to do away with nudity in published works. He went on to study graphical design, calligraphy and typography at the Workshop School of Advertising Art under the Russian-American graphical artist and calligrapher Paul Standard. He was hired as a designer by Esquire magazine in 1953 and subsequently went on to join Photo Lettering Inc as a design director in 1962. It was here that he worked on utilising photo technology for commercial typography and lettering. He helped set up the International Typeface Corporation in 1970. Benguiat died of cancer at his home in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, on October 15, 12 days before his 93rd birthday.
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