People Remembered: Alfred Balk

Alfred Balk served as an editor at four national magazines and also had a long writing career.

Alfred Balk, 80, an OPC member since 1976 and founding editor in 1974 of the World Press Review, died November 25 of colon cancer at this home in Huntley, Illinois.

Balk wrote for The Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine and other publications; edited the Saturday Review and The Columbia Journalism Review; and taught at Columbia and Syracuse Universities. He started freelancing for magazines while stationed with the U.S. Army in Japan after World War II and then joined the Chicago Sun-Times. He was elected president of the Society of Magazine Writers in 1969.

In a landmark court case, Balk refused to disclose the source of his published report on segregated housing, and a U.S. Federal District Court and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Phyllis Balk, his wife of 58 years, said at one point he read six newspapers a day and four books a week.