William H. Freivogel

William H. Freivogel's picture

William H. Freivogel, journalism professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 34 years. He was assistant Washington Bureau Chief and deputy editorial editor. At SIU he was director of the School of Journalism.

 In the Washington Bureau of the Post-Dispatch he shared a job with his wife Margaret. William covered the U.S. Supreme Court and wrote legal and investigative stories about defense fraud, dioxin contamination, the failures of the Reagan EPA, Reagan administration shifts in civil rights, the Reagan attempt to kill the Legal Services Administration and series about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The work won national awards from Sigma Delta Chi, IRE, Sidney Hillman, the National Press Club and the ABA.

Back in St. Louis his editorials about John Ashcroft and civil liberties abuses were a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. He and Margaret were founders of the St. Louis Beacon which merged into St. Louis Public Radio; Margaret was the editor. Recently, William wrote more than 30 articles for St. Louis Public Radio on the legal aspects of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. The ABA awarded him a Silver Gavel for the stories in 2016.

Freivogel graduated from Stanford University in 1971 where he was co-editor of the Stanford Daily. In 2001, he graduated from Washington University Law School, which gave him the Distinguished Young Alumni award in 2007.