Don Freeman Collection

Veteran award-winning journalist Don Freeman has donated his collection of newspaper columns spanning approximately fifty years. Freeman originally hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada but spent much of his early years in the Chicago area. He earned his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois. Before choosing San Diego as his home, Freeman served as a sports staff writer for the Chicago Tribune. He joined the staff of the San Diego Union, where he reviewed plays and launched its first jazz column. For more than 35 years, he was the Union's television editor and columnist. Since 1992, when the San Diego Union merged with the San Diego Tribune, Freeman has been the paper's critic-at-large columnist. Freeman has received two San Diego Press Club awards and was designated that organization's print Headliner of the Year in 1998. His collection also includes a tape-recorded interview with Freeman, along with its transcript, conducted by Special Collections staff. Freeman reflects on his entrance into the field of journalism; his discovery of the writer who would become his idol, Ring Lardner; and his experiences interviewing many celebrities over the years, such as singers Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, actresses Marlene Dietrich and Donna Reed, and baseball legend Ted Williams. Researchers of journalism and rhetoric, as well as those interested in sports and entertainment history, will find this collection particularly appealing.