OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Harold W. Andersen, the former publisher of Nebraska’s largest daily newspaper and first American to be president of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers, has died. He was 92.
Andersen died of natural causes late Thursday night at the Nebraska Medical Center, his wife, Marian, said Friday.
“He loved being a journalist,” she said. “That’s what drove him.”
Andersen started his career as a reporter in 1945, and was publisher and chief executive of the Omaha World-Herald from 1966 until 1989. He also served high-profile roles for groups representing newspapers around the country and the world, including the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the World Press Freedom Committee. He also served on The Associated Press Board of Directors from 1980 to 1986.
“As I look back over those 61½ years of affiliation with the World-Herald, I recall gratefully the opportunity that my World-Herald position gave me to serve the cause of press freedom nationally and internationally,” Andersen wrote in his final printed column in the World-Herald on Sept. 30, 2007.