Albert L. Warner, noted Washington news reporter, was one of the first newspapermen to become a radio broadcaster. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1903, and educated at Amherst College (B.A., 1924) and Columbia University, Warner began his career as a cub reporter on the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1924. The following year he joined the staff of the New York Times as a clerk, rising to become legislative correspondent in Albany in 1926. As such, in 1928 Warner covered the presidential campaign of Governor Alfred Smith for the Times. In 1930 Warner joined the New York Herald Tribune and moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as its bureau chief, 1936-1939. It was in this latter year that Warner made the unusual shift to radio broadcasting.
Warner worked for the Columbia Broadcasting System as its chief Washington commentator until he resigned to enlist during mid-1942. During World War II he was chief of the War Intelligence Division of the Bureau of Public Relations for the War Department. In this capacity he was responsible for overseas correspondents, the issuance of communiques, and liaison with the Office of War Information. He also served as spokesman on war developments on the weekly radio broadcast Army Hour.
After the war, Warner was employed by the Mutual Broadcasting System, 1945-1950; from 1950 to 1956 he worked for the National Broadcasting Company as a member of the Three Star Extra team and for the American Broadcasting Company. Warner made a second change of media in 1956 when he became associate editor of U.S. News and World Report. He held this position until his retirement in 1969.
Warner has been the recipient of several honors including the Sigma Delta Chi award for excellent radio newscasting, 1940, and the Headliners Radio News award for coverage of Congressional hearings, 1948. He served as president of the White House Correspondents Association, 1935-1936, and of the Radio Correspondents Association, 1940-1941 and 1948-1949.
He died January 12, 1971.
