Member of a dying breed
Gregory Katz, Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign
correspondent extraordinaire, has died of complications arising from the
coronavirus, leaving a ragged tear in this country's journalistic fabric and a
hole in the hearts of his many colleagues and friends, among whom I am proud to
include myself.
Greg and I worked together for many years on
the foreign desk of The Dallas Morning News, where he was bureau chief of first
the Mexico City Bureau and later the European Bureau.
He was a member of the DMN team that won the
1994 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for a series of ground-breaking
articles about violence against women in countries across the globe.
Important journalism
Greg's contribution to that tremendous example
of good and important journalism was a story about the women of the small
Mexican city of Juchitan, who despite their positions of political authority,
still suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their husbands and
other men in the city.
In typical Katz fashion, it was a tale that
defied expectations, ran counter to conventional wisdom and revealed truths the
citizens of Juchitan would rather have remained hidden.
Greg, 67, was recovering from cancer surgery when he contracted COVID-19. He died Monday.
He was everything a foreign correspondent
should be – smart, savvy, courageous, cool under pressure and fiercely loyal to
those he trusted. In a job where logistical skills can be just as important as
journalistic prowess, Greg excelled at both.
He could arrive at the scene of a breaking
story, immediately commandeer hotel phone lines or set up satellite phones, all
the while sizing up the situation and gathering material for a first-edition
story. With Greg on the ground, you never worried about making deadline.
He covered many important stories in Mexico –
the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the assassination of presidential
candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio among them.
A close call
I remember a phone call I got from Greg during
the Zapatista conflict. He calmly told me he and another reporter had been
ambushed earlier in the day at a remote crossroads in Chiapas, narrowly
escaping injury. Thirty minutes later, he filed his story, but didn’t mention
his close call. For him, it was just another day at the office.
During the Kosovo civil war in the Balkans,
Greg suffered a detached retina, the result of a mugging in New York he had
received many years earlier. Despite his doctor’s warnings – and my persistent
nagging – Greg traveled by taxi daily to the conflicted area. He filed every
day for eight straight days.
Foreign correspondents like Greg Katz are
rapidly fading from the scene. Newspapers simply can’t afford them any longer.
As a society, and as individuals, we will be less informed, more vulnerable to
xenophobia and ignorance and less prepared to live in a world economy as a
result.
But Greg was more than just a fine journalist.
He was a stellar man – full of kindness and virtue, with a generous heart, a
forgiving spirit and unshakable integrity. In fact, his only flaw was his
unfathomable devotion to the New York Yankees. For that, we must forget and forgive.
I am heartbroken for Greg’s beloved wife, Bea Sennewald, and his daughter, Sophia. I’m not ashamed to
say that I wept when I heard the news of his death. That’s what we do when good
friends, friends with whom we’ve shared great things and who have helped shape
our lives, leave us.
Note from AP
Greg was working for The Associated Press when
he died. Here’s the note AP CEO Gary Pruitt sent to AP staffers:
I am so very sorry to
have to let you know of another death of an AP colleague. Greg Katz, our London
correspondent and formerly our acting chief of bureau in London, has died. Greg
had been ill and in the last few months had contracted COVID-19.
Greg came to the AP in
2008, from the Houston Chronicle’s London
office, where he was bureau chief for Europe and the Middle East. In 2013 he
was promoted to acting Bureau Chief for London. He did excellent work in that
role, including leading AP’s news coverage of Brexit and the election of Boris
Johnson as prime minister. His death is a loss to the AP and a loss to
journalism.
Greg, a native of
Connecticut, was passionate about news, rock and roll, the New York Yankees and
his family. He was the only journalist to cover John Lennon’s death from inside
the Dakota Apartments where Lennon lived. Greg was part of the team in 1994
that won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for a series on
violence against women around the world, when he worked at the Dallas Morning News. He is survived by his wife, Beatrice
Sennewald, and their daughter Sophia.
Even as this week has
underscored the pandemic’s dreadful course, my spirits are buoyed by all the
ways in which our AP colleagues have been providing help and support for one
another. Please remember that if you need additional support, you can speak
with your manager or HR representative, and employee assistance plan services
are available to you.
With sympathy,
Gary Pruitt
Member of a dying breed
