John H. Colburn, newspaper editor and publisher, was born in Columbus, Ohio on April 13, 1912, the son of Stanley and Alverta C. (Kundts) Colburn. Beginning his newspaper career in 1930 as a cub reporter - copy boy on the Columbus Evening (Ohio) Dispatch, Colburn joined the Associated Press in Columbus in 1935 and during World War II worked in Europe as an AP correspondent. After the war, Colburn was named executive editor of the AP World Service in London and secretary of Associated Press Ltd. but was soon transferred to AP headquarters in New York. In May 1949, he went to Richmond, Virginia to be the managing editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a post he held for fourteen years. Colburn left Richmond to be the editor and publisher of the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle and Beacon for the next nine years, 1963-1972. From 1972 to 1975 Colburn was vice-president of Landmark Communications Inc., a mass-media corporation located in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 1975 became president of its Community Newspaper division located in Shelbyville, Kentucky. He is scheduled to return to the corporate staff of Landmark Communications Inc. in Norfolk late in 1977.
Colburn has been associated with many professional organizations in various roles in his long newspaper career. He is a past director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (ANPA) and of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and former chairman of ASNE's committees on Fair Trial-Free Press and Freedom of Information and of the ANPA Federal Laws Committee. He has been a member of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and a past president (1959-1960). He has also held membership on the Journalism Advisory Board of Ohio State University; the Communication Advisory Council of the American Management Association; and the Federal Laws Committee of the American Newspaper Publishers Association.
In 1961-1962, Colburn directed a criteria study by a group of newspaper editors who drafted a code, “What Makes a Good Newspaper,” designed to help the public and the press evaluate newspapers. He received the 1962 University of Arizona John Peter Zenger Award for “effective work in support of the freedom of the press,” and in 1963 was recognized by Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Press Club for “distinguished service to journalism as a vigilant crusader for freedom of information.” The first Liberty Bell Award given by the Wichita Bar Association was presented to Colburn in 1964 for “recognition of community service which strengthens the effectiveness of the American system for freedom under law.” In 1969, Colburn received the University of Minnesota Award “For Distinguished Service in Journalism” for a “long career of enduring achievement in the highest levels of journalism.”
Colburn married Margaret MacFaden on September 5, 1936, but the marriage ended in divorce in January 1944. Colburn's second marriage was to Florence Angier Jackson on June 29, 1945; they have two children, Charlotte Chane and Kristine.
