The Press: The Fact Finder

For his solidly researched series on desegregation problems in the Saturday Evening Post, Freelance Newsman John Bartlow Martin, 42, last week won the University of Illinois' Benjamin Franklin Magazine Award "for distinguished writing, involving original reporting in which serious obstacles had to be overcome." It was his fourth Franklin Award in five years—a record unmatched by any other writer.*

Martin's style is unpretentious, but as a fact finder he has few peers. Armed with a tiny Olivetti typewriter, a briefcase full of timetables, and a single suitcase, Martin spent 24 months on the segregation story, patiently persuading his sources—black and white alike—that...