Jon Franklin

For the sports marketing executive, see Jon J. Franklin.

Jon Daniel Franklin (January 13, 1942 – January 21, 2024) was an American writer. He was born in Enid, Oklahoma.^[1] He won the inaugural Pulitzer Prizes in two journalism categories both for his work as a science writer with the Baltimore Evening Sun.^[2] Franklin held a B.S. in journalism from the University of Maryland.^[3] He was professor emeritus of journalism at his alma mater; previously, Franklin taught creative writing at the University of Oregon and was the head of the technical journalism department at Oregon State University.^[4] He received honorary degrees from the University of Maryland in 1981 and Notre Dame de Namur University in 1982.^[2]

The Canadian television film Shocktrauma is based on the book Franklin co-wrote with Alan Doelp.

Working for The Baltimore Sun, Franklin won the first Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1979, for covering a brain surgery,^[5] and won the first Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1985, for a series about molecular psychiatry, "The Mind Fixers".^[6]

Franklin died from esophageal cancer in Annapolis, Maryland, on January 21, 2024. He was 82.^[7]

Books

• Shocktrauma (1980) with Alan Doelp
• Not Quite A Miracle (1983) with Alan Doelp
• Guinea Pig Doctors (1984) with Dr. John T. Sutherland; republished in 2003 as If I Die In The Service Of Science: The Dramatic Stories Of Medical Scientists Who Experimented On Themselves
• Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of a Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner (1986)
• Franklin, Jon (1987). Molecules of the mind : the brave new science of molecular psychology. New York: Dell Pub. ISBN 0-440-50005-2. OCLC 17958586.
• The Wolf In The Parlor: The Eternal Connection between Humans and Dogs (2009)