John Hohenberg; Was Pulitzer Prize Administrator

John Hohenberg, 94, scholar, former journalist and administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes. Hohenberg, a New York native, began his career as a reporter for newspapers in Seattle and New York. He covered some of the biggest stories of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, including the 1935 trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann--the man convicted of kidnapping Charles Lindbergh’s son--and the creation of the United Nations and Israel. He later taught journalism at Columbia, the University of Tennessee and Harvard. His motto was, “Go with what you’ve got,” the command uttered by a crusty editor and repeated by Hohenberg to generations of journalism students. He was secretary-administrator of the Pulitzers for two decades, beginning in 1953, during which he helped persuade the prizes’ trustees to give up veto power and worked hard to preserve the secrecy surrounding the deliberations over journalism’s most coveted honor. Hohenberg received a Pulitzer Prize special award when he stepped down as administrator in 1976. Among his 22 books was “The Professional Journalist,” published in 1960, which became the basic reporting and writing text for many journalism schools. His other books included histories of foreign correspondence and the Pulitzer Prize. He died Sunday at his home in Knoxville, Tenn.