Died 30 July 1987 | ||
John B. Bremner (December 28, 1920 – July 30, 1987) was an Australian-American journalist and a distinguished professor at the University of Kansas.
Biography
Bremner was born in Australia. He studied in Australia, Rome and Dublin. Bremner was an ordained Catholic priest by the time that he earned a graduate degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He worked as an editor at the Florida Catholic and as a columnist as the The Tidings, a newspaper published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Bremner also taught at the University of San Diego and the University of Iowa. In 1965, he completed a doctorate at Iowa.
Beginning in 1969, Bremner was a journalism professor at the University of Kansas. He was known for a no-nonsense approach with his journalism students that encouraged them to be skeptical and to value precise, clear language. "I work on the premise that the language in American newspapers is English – not jargon. I think that newspaper readers want and deserve both good grammar and good taste, along with good information," he said. Named the Oscar S. Stauffer Distinguished Professor of Journalism in 1977, he taught at Kansas until his December 1985 retirement.
After leaving the priesthood, Bremner married the former Mary McCue. He died of cancer at his home in Ponce Inlet, Florida. The Bremner Editing Center at the University of Kansas journalism school is named in his honor.