Donald W. Carson, a longtime journalist who championed integrating newsrooms and influenced hundreds of students at the University of Arizona, died Thursday night. He was 85.
Carson, who was in hospice care and surrounded by his family, died following multiple health complications, said his daughter Susan Cormier.
βMy father was the most loving, giving and wonderful man who was a mentor to many people, not only his children and students, but even the young members of the staff at Amber Lights where he lived,β said Cormier.
βAs early as the 1970s, Don recognized the need to more fully integrate Americaβs newsrooms with people of all backgrounds,β said Frank Sotomayor, who worked at the Los Angeles Times for 35 years and was a co-editor of βSouthern Californiaβs Latino Community,β which won a 1984 Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service.
Sotomayor also praised Carson for taking a leading role in fighting the 1994 plan by then UA President Manuel Pacheco to eliminate the journalism department in a cost-saving move. βDon had a large group of ex-students and friends who loved him and whom he energized to successfully stave off elimination of the journalism program, which has thrived since then,β said Sotomayor.
βI wouldnβt have been a journalist without Don Carson,β said Nancy Cleeland, a 1976 UA journalism graduate who was a lead reporter at the Los Angeles Times on βThe Walmart Effectβ series, which won a 2004 Pulitzer Prize. The series showed how lower retail prices had impacted international labor practices.
Cleeland said Carson inspired confidence in her. βThatβs why he was the first person I called when I found out a project Iβd worked on won a Pulitzer. He was more responsible for that than anyone,β said Cleeland. βHis legacy is a generation of inspired reporting.β
Carson, a professor emeritus, taught journalism at the UA from 1966 to 1967 and 1968 to 1997. He served as head of the journalism department from 1978 to 1985.
He was a native Tucsonan who was born Jan. 13, 1933, and a graduate of Tucson High School. He went on to the UA and received a bachelorβs in journalism in 1954.
Carson, who was bilingual, was a former reporter, copy editor and associate editor of the Arizona Daily Star. He also was a writing coach, and in the 1980s, while on sabbatical from the UA after winning Fulbright teaching awards, he traveled and wrote stories about Mexico, Ecuador and Chile. He also was lecturing Latin American journalists.
He co-authored a biography, published in 2001 with friend and fellow journalism professor James W. Johnson on Arizona Congressman Morris K. Udall.
In April, Carson was to be inducted into the UA School of Journalismβs Hall of Fame. Carson was recognized for βunprecedented contributionsβ to integrate newsrooms by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and other media organizations, said Richard Gilman, former publisher of the Boston Globe and one of Carsonβs former students.
In 1991, Carson was honored by the National Conference of Editorial Writers Foundation with the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship for helping desegregate the newsrooms of daily newspapers in the nation, according to a Star article.
He began recruiting minority students in the early 1970s and helped establish summer workshops for high school students that began in 1980. Minority enrollment at the UAβs journalism department increased from less than 5 percent to 17 percent with Carsonβs efforts at the time.
He was married for 61 years to Helen, who died in 2016. He is survived by his three children, Theresa Fortney, Mike Carson and Cormier, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
An 11 a.m. service is set for Feb. 23 at St. Odilia Catholic Church, 7570 N. Paseo del Norte. A celebration of life will follow at 1 p.m. at Hacienda del Sol, 5501 N. Hacienda del Sol Road.
