Gordon Greb
| Gordon Greb | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 7, 1921 Irvington, California |
| Died | September 12, 2016 (aged 95) Chico, California |
| Education | University of California at Berkeley |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Broadcast education, history and investigative journalism |
| Institutions | San Jose State University |
| Thesis | Freedom of the Movies in Presenting News and Opinions (1950) |
Gordon Greb (August 7, 1921 - September 12, 2016) was an emeritus professor of San Jose State University, is a “distinguished broadcast educator,” historian and an investigative journalist.
Greb is a fourth generation Californian. He was born on a farm in Irvington (Alameda County), California, and grew up in Oakland and San Leandro. His father worked as a Southern Pacific railroad engineer and his mother as a housewife.
During the Great Depression, young Greb sold magazines door to door (Saturday Evening Post, Liberty), earned a few dollars selling cartoons and stories to Oakland newspapers (Tribune, Post Enquirer) and for a short time appeared on radio as a child actor (“Rusty, Boy Aviator,” KTAB, 1934).
After serving as editor of his high school newspaper and winning the Rotary Club oratorical contest supporting world peace in the spring of 1939, he completed his undergraduate degrees (AA, BA) at the University of California at Berkeley, his master’s (MA) at the University of Minnesota, and became a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University.
After Pearl Harbor, Greb volunteered for the U. S. Army and served three years in World War II (1943 to 1946). On maneuvers with the 102nd Infantry Division at Camp Swift, Texas, he contracted pneumonia, received last rites by a Catholic chaplain, needed 104 days of hospitalization to recover, and saw his outfit shipped overseas without him. He was assigned to Special Services at Fort Dix, N.J, and rose to staff sergeant while editing the camp newspaper (The Fort Dix Post) and working as a recording engineer in the WDIX studios.
In 1942 with Dave Houser, Greb initiated the Bay Area’s first local radio newscast over KROW in Oakland, California. In 1954 he formed Gordon Greb & Associates, a survey research company that measured listenership for local radio stations. In 1962 he began the Co-Ad Agency with Kenneth Roed to place advertising in college newspapers nationwide. In 1972 Greb created Newsmaker Features that syndicated his “Birthday Quiz” and “These Great People” in such dailies as the San Jose Mercury-News, Seattle Times and San Rafael Daily Independent.
In order to challenge a long-standing decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that had permitted movie censorship in eight states and 90 cities, Greb prepared a thesis calling for freedom of the movies. He offered it to the law firm of Ephraim S. London, which was appealing the New York State Board of Regents' ban on exhibition of a controversial film called "The Miracle." At the time Greb, was a graduate student at Stanford University. The result was a precedent-changing unanimous decision (9-0) protecting movies from censorship under the First Amendment in Burstyn v. Wilson, et al. (1952). The decision overruled Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that had upheld film censorship for more than 37 years. In thanking Greb for allowing him to quote his research in the oral argument, London wrote, "I am amazed that someone who is not a lawyer could have had so clear a comprehension of the legal questions involved."
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