Bill McWhirter

Click here to read his article Argentina Living with Ghosts

William A. (Bill) McWhirter of the MSU J-School faculty was previously a Time magazine correspondent for 35 years. In 1965, at 23 years old, he joined Time's bureau in Saigon and spent much of the following decade covering the Vietnam War, including the fall of Saigon. As a foreign correspondent, his posts included Paris, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, the Caribbean and Central America.

Before returning to the U.S. in 1988 as a Chicago-based Senior Correspondent, McWhirter was the Bonn Bureau Chief. He covered the Falklands War and the fall of the Shah in Iran and his career with Time also included serving as Detroit bureau Chief and National Business Correspondent.

McWhirter has won several journalism awards, including the New York Newspaper Guild Page One Award as part of a team that covered the Vietnam War and a Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club for coverage of the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

McWhirter joined Time in Los Angeles after graduating with honors from Princeton University in 1963. His first working newspaper job was a summer internship at age 16 with the Springfield Leader-Press and summer posts with the Kansas City Star during college.