Stephen
B. Shepard
Winner of 2005 SAJA Journalism Leader Award
at SAJA Convention, June 16-19, 2005
Stephen
B. Shepard is the founding dean of the Graduate School of
Journalism at The City University of New York. The school will offer
an innovative three-semester MA degree in journalism, starting in
2006.
From
1984 to 2005, Mr. Shepard was editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek, the
largest business magazine in the world. During his tenure, BusinessWeek
won many major journalism awards, including four National Magazine
Awards (two for General Excellence), 11 Overseas Press Club Awards
and four Gerald Loeb Awards. BusinessWeek was a National Magazine
Award finalist 23 times on Mr. Shepard’s watch— nine of
those for General Excellence. Additionally, the magazine’s worldwide
circulation grew 40 percent, to 1.2 million under Mr. Shepard’s
editorial stewardship.
Mr. Shepard began his journalistic career in 1963 as an editorial
trainee at The McGraw-Hill Companies, BusinessWeek’s parent.
He joined the magazine in 1966, serving in various domestic and international
posts for ten years. He was also an adjunct professor at the Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism from 1971 to 1976, and co-founder
and first director of the school's prestigious Knight-Bagehot Fellowship
in Economic and Business Journalism. Mr. Shepard left BusinessWeek
in 1976 for Newsweek, where he was senior editor for national affairs.
In 1981, he became editor of Saturday Review. He returned to BusinessWeek
as executive editor in 1982 and became editor-in-chief in 1984.
In 1999, Mr. Shepard was inducted into the American Society of Magazine
Editors Hall of Fame and received the Gerald M. Loeb Foundation Lifetime
Achievement Award for business journalism. In 2000, he received the
Henry Johnson Fisher Award, the magazine publishing industry’s
highest honor. And in 2003, he won the President’s Award from
the Overseas Press Club. Mr. Shepard was president of the American
Society of Magazine Editors from 1992 to 1994. He served on the Board
of Visitors at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
from 1998 to 2004. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,
the Overseas Press Club, and the Century Association.
A native New Yorker, Mr. Shepard graduated from the Bronx High School
of Science, received a bachelor's degree in engineering from the City
College of New York and a master’s degree in engineering from
Columbia University. He and his wife, Lynn Povich, have two children,
Sarah and Ned.