Background
Fromson, Murray was born on September 1, 1929 in New York City. Son of Alfred and Frances (Segal) Fromson.
Fromson, Murray was born on September 1, 1929 in New York City. Son of Alfred and Frances (Segal) Fromson.
Associate of Arts in Journalism, Los Angeles City College, 1949. Certified Japan studies, Sophia University, Tokyo, 1954.
Journalist
Fromson first went to Vietnam in 1956 to report the final departure of the French. Periodically over the next four decades he has observed the country at war and peace from the time of the United States. involvement up through the early 21st century. Both as a correspondent and producer, Fromson covered some of the major news events of the past half century, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Leonid Brezhnev years of the former Soviet Union, conflicts in Malaya, Indonesia, Burma, and developments in China.
In early 1968, while reporting the Vietnam War for Columbia Broadcasting System News, Fromson was injured by rocket fire, during the battle for Khe Sanh following the Tet Offensive.
He then returned to the United States. where he worked for Columbia Broadcasting System out of Chicago. In the United States, he reported presidential politics, civil rights, the anti-war movement, and the conspiracy trial in Chicago (the trial of the so-called "Chicago Seven").
When the Richard Nixon Justice Department threatened to subpoena journalists" notes and television outtakes in the late 1960s, Fromson proposed the formation of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. He and his Columbia Broadcasting System colleagues were awarded two Overseas Press Club awards for their reporting on the fall of Saigon in 1975.
In the year 2000, he was named a fellow in the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, a part of Harvard University.
Educator
Fromson joined University of Southern California’s journalism faculty in 1982 and soon founded and directed the Center for International Journalism. The program recruited and trained more than 100 journalists specializing in reporting on Cuba, Mexico and other Latin American nations. He was Director of University of Southern California"s School of Journalism in the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication for five years from 1994-1999 when he stepped down to work on a memoir about the Cold War.
Staff sergeant United States Army, 1951-1952, Korea, Japan. Member Asia Society, Japan American Society, National Committee United States-China Relations, Los Angeles Committee on Foreign Relations, Committee to Protect Journalists (New York, chairman western region), American Associates Ben Gurion University.
Married Dodi H. Grumbach, May 27, 1961. Children: Aliza Bental, Derek Ross.