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John Woestendiek

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William John Woestendiek Jr. (c.1954 –June 24, 2020) was an American journalist and author. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1987 for articles "which included proving the innocence of a man convicted of murder".[1] After retiring from journalism, he started a blog, Ohmidog!, which focused on the relationships between people and their canine companions. Woestendiek wrote two non-fiction books: Dog, Inc.: The Uncanny Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend and Travels With Ace.

Early life and education

Woestendiek was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to William and Jo Woestendiek. Both of his parents were newspaper reporters and editors.[2] He graduated from Sanderson High School, Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1971, and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975.[2][3]

Journalism

Woestendiek's first job as a reporter was on the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. He then worked for the Kentucky Reader in Lexington. In 1977, he joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as an investigative reporter, and became the Inquirer's Metro columnist in 1997. Woestendiek later wrote for the Charlotte Observer. He wrote for The Baltimore Sun from 2001 until 2008.[2]

In 1987, Woestendiek received a Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer examining the trial of Terence McCracken, who had been convicted of second degree murder, robbery, and conspiracy, and sentenced to life in prison.[4][a]

Woestendiek was the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor, a guest teaching position, at the University of Montana in the fall of 2007.[5]

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Arizona Daily Star

Arizona Daily Star

The Arizona Daily Star is the major morning daily newspaper that serves Tucson and surrounding districts of southern Arizona in the United States.

Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County. By population, it is the second-largest city in Kentucky and 59th-largest city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 28th-largest city. The city is also known as "Horse Capital of the World". It is within the state's Bluegrass region. Notable locations in the city include the Kentucky Horse Park, The Red Mile and Keeneland race courses, Rupp Arena, Central Bank Center, Transylvania University, the University of Kentucky, Bluegrass Community and Technical College, and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) Headquarters.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland, and the 17th largest in the United States as of 2017.

The Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Sun is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.

University of Montana

University of Montana

The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fall of 2018. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" as of 2022.

Ace, blogs, and books

Woestendiek had adopted Ace, a rescue dog, in 2005.[6] After leaving The Baltimore Sun, Woestendiek started a blog about dogs called Ohmidog!,[2] a continuation of the pets blog he began for The Baltimore Sun in 2007.[7] As part of the pet blog, Woestendiek filmed a documentary of his attempts to determine Ace's genetic ancestry called Hey, Mister, what kind of dog is that?[8][9]

A blog post that he wrote for The Baltimore Sun put him in contact with Joyce McKinney, who had travelled to South Korea to clone her deceased pit bull, Booger. Woestendiek researched the growing field of dog cloning and published Dog, Inc: The Uncanny Story of Cloning Man's Best Friend in 2010.[10]

Along with Ace, Woestendiek decided to recreate John Steinbeck's route from Travels with Charley. He documented their adventure on his blog, Travels With Ace. His 2012 book of the same name led to an appearance on Nightline[2]

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Cloning

Cloning

Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, cloning is the process of creating cloned organisms (copies) of cells and of DNA fragments.

Pit bull

Pit bull

Pit bull is a term used in the United States for a type of dog descended from bulldogs and terriers, while in other countries such as the United Kingdom the term is used as an abbreviation of the American Pit Bull Terrier breed. The term was first used in 1927. Within the United States the pit bull is usually considered a heterogeneous grouping that includes the breeds American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, American Bully, Staffordshire Bull Terrier and occasionally the American Bulldog, along with any crossbred dog that shares certain physical characteristics with these breeds. In other countries including Britain, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is not considered a pit bull. Most pit bull-type dogs descend from the British Bull and terrier, a 19th-century dog-fighting type developed from crosses between the Old English Bulldog and the Old English Terrier.

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."

Travels with Charley

Travels with Charley

Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a 1962 travelogue written by American author John Steinbeck. It depicts a 1960 road trip around the United States made by Steinbeck, in the company of his standard poodle Charley. Steinbeck wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country on a personal level because he made his living writing about it. He wrote of having many questions going into his journey, the main one being "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that he had concerns about much of the "new America" he witnessed.

Nightline

Nightline

Nightline is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the program featured Ted Koppel as its main anchor from March 1980 until his retirement in November 2005. Its current, rotating anchors are Byron Pitts and Juju Chang. Nightline airs weeknights from 12:37 to 1:07 a.m., Eastern Time, after Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which had served as the program's lead-out from 2003 to 2012.

Personal life and death

Woestendiek's former wives were Jennifer Mitchell and Erika Hobbs.[3] Woestendiek and Jennifer adopted Joseph Yoon Tae from South Korea in 1992. His son Joe died from a car accident in 2018.[11]

On June 7, 2020, Woestendiek was hospitalized for complications from a stroke. He died at a hospice on June 24.[3]

Source: "John Woestendiek", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 11th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woestendiek.

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Notes
  1. ^ After multiple vacations and reversals, McCracken was granted a new trial and acquitted of the crimes.[4]
References
  1. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes 1987". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e Rasmussen, Frederick N. (July 6, 2020). "John Woestendiek Jr., former Baltimore Sun features reporter, dies". Capital Gazette. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Cook, Bonnie L. (June 30, 2020). "John Woestendiek, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, columnist, and author, dies at 66". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  4. ^ a b "Terence McCracken - National Registry of Exonerations". University of Michigan Law School. August 16, 2022. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  5. ^ "John Woestndiek (sic)". Montana Journalism, University of Montana. Archived from the original on June 5, 2019.
  6. ^ Woestendiek, John (December 13, 2017). "Dealing an Ace to a shuffled life". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  7. ^ "Online Journalism Goes to the Dogs". The New York Observer. May 29, 2007. Gale A165464370.
  8. ^ "About the series". Baltimore Sun. January 30, 2019. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  9. ^ Woestendiek., John. Hey, mister, what kind of dog is that? : a film (DVD video, 1997). WorldCat.org. OCLC 439234387. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  10. ^ Steelman, Ben (July 30, 2011). "Bookmarks - 'Dog, Inc.' looks at canine cloning". Star-News. Wilmington, North Caroline. ProQuest 880048701.
  11. ^ Sexton, Scott (January 23, 2019). "Father honors son with help for dogs in need of adoption at Forsyth Humane Society". Winston-Salem Journal.

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