John Reginald “Reg” Murphy, a 1960 Nieman Fellow, who worked as an editor and publisher at newspapers across the country, died on Nov. 9, 2024, at his home in St. Simons Island, Georgia. He was 90 years old.
During his long career in journalism, Murphy worked as an editor at The Atlanta Constitution and was publisher for both the San Francisco Examiner and The Baltimore Sun. He additionally served as president and CEO of the National Geographic Society from 1996-1998.
Murphy is perhaps best known for surviving a politically motivated kidnapping in 1974 when he was the editorial page editor for The Atlanta Constitution. He was taken hostage by a man who had criticized what he called the “lying, leftist, liberal news media” and the anti-Vietnam stance taken by the Constitution. Murphy was released after two days when the paper paid a $700,000 ransom. His abductor, who claimed to be the leader of a paramilitary group, was soon apprehended and sentenced to 40 years in prison, but was released on parole after nine years.
The incident took place just two weeks after the widely covered abduction in California of Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a far-left militant group.
Murphy later spoke about dealing with the trauma of the event by thinking about his passion for golfing and reliving golf games in his mind. He volunteered with the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) and served as president of the group in 1994 and 1995.
Life as a journalist
Born on Jan. 7, 1934, Murphy grew up in Gainesville, Georgia. He started working as a reporter at the Macon Telegraph while still a student at Mercer University and joined the staff full time in 1952, covering news, sports and later, state politics after opening the paper’s Atlanta bureau in 1955.
Two years after his Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University ended in1960, Murphy joined The Atlanta Constitution (now The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) as the political editor. He left in 1965 to become managing editor of Atlanta magazine but returned to the Constitution as editorial page editor in 1968.
In 1975, a year after his kidnapping, Murphy moved to California and became editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner. In 1981 he returned to the East Coast to become the publisher of The Baltimore Sun, where he worked to modernize and diversify the newsroom. Murphy remained there after the publications were sold to the Times Mirror company and served as chairman of the papers before resigning in 1991.
Five years later, he became president of the National Geographic Society, where he was involved in the development of for-profit ventures, including TV movies and foreign-language editions of National Geographic magazine.
Murphy is the author of “Uncommon Sense” (1999), a biography of former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, who had served in the Carter administration, and was co-author with his Atlanta Constitution colleague Hal Gulliver of “The Southern Strategy” (1971), about the Nixon administration’s appeal to white segregationist for votes.
Murphy was a member of the Board of Trustees at Mercer University and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the school in 1975. Mercer renamed its Center for Collaborative Journalism in his honor in 2023 and it is now called the Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism. In 2024, the Omnicom Reg Murphy Scholarship in Journalism was established and will be awarded to up to 10 Mercer students annually for the next 10 years. Murphy was a member Omnicom’s board.
Murphy is survived by his wife, Diana Mather Murphy; a sister, Barbara McConnell of Gainesville, Georgia; two daughters, Karen Cornwell and Susan Murphy; and two grandsons.
In an interview with Mercer University in 2023, Murphy talked about his chosen profession: “Journalism is, in my mind, sacred,” he said “It is a sacred trust to tell the truth and to try to give people enough freedom to be able to find the truth and then to pursue it.”
Additional reading:
The Washington Post
Reg Murphy, editor and publisher who survived a kidnapping, dies at 90
As a top editor at the Atlanta Constitution, he was held for a $700,000 ransom. He was later the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner and the Baltimore Sun.
The New York Times
Reg Murphy, Newspaper Editor Whose Kidnapping Made Headlines, Dies at 90
He made his mark on newspapers in Atlanta, San Francisco and Baltimore, but may be best known for having been abducted in Atlanta in 1974.
The Baltimore Sun
John ‘Reg’ Murphy, former Baltimore Sun publisher, dies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reg Murphy, the editor who was kidnapped in 1974, has died
Mercer University
Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism
