Harry W. Flannery, former foreign correspondent and radio commentator, was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, the son of John V. and Catherine (Flynn) Flannery, March 13, 1900. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, class of 1923, with a degree of Ph.B. in Journalism. He took graduate work at Notre Dame, the University of Berlin and elsewhere. On July 5, 1937, he married Ruth Carmody. They had one daughter, Patricia Ann, the wife of Major Kenneth E. Yoder, ASF, who served in Vietnam.
Flannery was a reporter on the Hagerstown Herald in 1916, and later reported for the Hagerstown Mail, the Baltimore Sun, Chicago City News Service, the Albany Evening News, and was editor of the Hoosier Observer, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and makeup editor on the Los Angeles Examiner. He was secretary to J.P. McEvoy, 1925-1926, when McEvoy was writing and producing for Florenz Ziegfeld. He was radio news editor for station WOWO, Fort Wayne, 1932-1933; news editor and analyst for KMOX, St. Louis, 1935-1940; Berlin correspondent for the Columbia Broadcasting System, 1940-1941; news analyst, CBS, West Coast, 1942-1948; labor and foreign affairs editor, The Catholic Digest, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1949; editor, AFL New-Reporter, 1950-1955; AFL-CIO radio coordinator, 1955-1967. During the time he was with the AFL, Flannery served for a time as news commentator on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Also while with the AFL-CIO, he produced and announced programs for MBS, ABC and a taped program sent weekly to 725 radio stations.
Flannery was the organizer of the Catholic Labor Institute in Los Angeles, a member of the Radio Writers Guild Council, the American Newspaper Guild, and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. He is a member of Broadcast Pioneers.
He authored Assignment to Berlin, 1942; co-author of Off Mike, 1944; edited Pattern for Peace, 1962; co-authored The Church and the Working Man, 1965, and Which Way Germany?, 1968. Mrs. Flannery died in 1969. Mr. Flannery taught a class in Contemporary Labor Problems and another in Labor and World Affairs for the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) Institute of Industrial Relations prior to his death in 1975.
