Paul Alfred Shinkman, newspaper and radio journalist, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on October 8, 1897, the son of Joseph and Emeline (Boxheimer) Shinkman. He studied at the University of Michigan, graduating with an A.B. in 1920. He would later take special courses at Columbia University, the Sorbonne, and Georgetown University, with emphasis on political science.
After graduation from college he became a cub reporter for the Grand Rapids Press, advancing to reporter for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune in 1924. By 1927, he was the Paris correspondent for the Italian Mail (for which the “Paris Rambles” column was written), as well as for the Chicago Tribune. This was the year of his first important exclusive story, which concerned Charles Lindbergh's reaction to his reception in Paris after his historic flight. In this same time period, continuing until his return to the United States in 1929, Shinkman was also the Chicago Tribune's correspondent in London. From 1929 to 1938, he was a member of the editorial staff of King Features Syndicate, New York City. He spent two seasons as a correspondent for the Central Press Association, and as a radio commentator for “The Story Behind the News.”
In 1935, Shinkman married Elizabeth Benn, the daughter of Sir Ernest and Lady Benn. In 1938, he spent the summer as a roving correspondent in Central Europe for the International News Service, writing his first interview with Lord Runciman in Prague, and gaining exclusive interviews with Premier Hodza of Czechoslovakia and Jan Masaryk, Czech Ambassador to London. Following this, he again returned to the United States and lectured throughout America on European problems leading to World War II.
From 1942 to 1944 Shinkman served as chief of the German section of the Daily Report, a publication of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service of the Federal Communications Commission of the United States. He worked two more years for the Office of War Information. In 1950, he was sent by the State Department as a consultant on mission to Berlin, taking time off from his job as radio news commentator for Station WBCC in Washington, D.C.
Shinkman spent 1951-1953 in Vienna, Austria, as foreign service officer, returning to Washington, D.C., to do a “Weekly News Commentary” for Stations WDON and WASH, a position which lasted, with some breaks in time and the renaming of the program, until his death. He became an editor of the N.E.A. News in 1957 and served in that capacity until 1963. Shinkman died in Washington, D.C. on December 19, 1975.
