Journalist, author Odom Fanning, long-time NPC member, dies

Odom Olin Fanning, Washington-based science writer, died on May 8, 2011, of pneumonia and heart failure. He was 90 years old.

Over a long career, Mr. Fanning advocated for civil rights in the South, wrote for the federal government on public health, environmental policy, and marine sciences, and reported on public health, medical, marine science, and environmental protection issues. Mr. Fanning was previously a science reporter for the Atlanta Journal and the first public information officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mr. Fanning was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 8, 1920, the son of Odom O. Fanning, M.D., a general practitioner, and Susie Sandiford, a kindergarten teacher. He graduated with a B.A. in journalism from Emory University in 1942 and began his career as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal. During World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in January 1943, serving as a combat correspondent on Guam. He was present in the press office on Guam when the iconic image by A.P. photographer Joe Rosenthal of the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi arrived.

After the war, Mr. Fanning returned to the Atlanta Journal staff, covering city hall during the tenure of long-time Mayor William B. Hartsfield. He helped organize and served as the first president of the Atlanta chapter of the American Veterans Committee (AVC), the first major interracial organization in Atlanta. The chapter quickly grew to about 500 members, some 200 of whom were black. When the segregationist Ku Klux Klan began infiltrating the monthly meetings, taking names and photographing attendees, Mr. Fanning turned to Mayor Hartsfield for advice. Hartsfield asked one question: "Is the AVC a legitimate veterans' organization, free of any ties to the Communist party?" Mr. Fanning assured him it was and the mayor said, "I'll take care of it." Thereafter, a police officer was assigned to attend each meeting and the Klan's surveillance ceased.

The major goal of the AVC was to fight racial segregation. The Atlanta members contacted the chief executives of retail stores asking them to desegregate their restrooms and drinking fountains; Mr. Fanning wrote the CEO of Sears, Roebuck, the largest department store in Atlanta and in two weeks Sears desegregated the drinking fountains in the Atlanta store.

Mr. Fanning also was the organizer and first president of the Atlanta professional chapter of Sigma Delta Chi (now the Society of Professional Journalists). He created the Chapter's Green Eyeshade Awards program, which remains the largest regional journalism competition in the U.S., covering eleven Southern states.

Mr. Fanning became science editor of the Atlanta Journal in 1945, winning awards for his coverage of medical research and of the state's deplorable mental health system, including an expose of Georgia's sole public mental health hospital in Milledgeville. The Milledgeville hospital was the world's largest mental hospital, with 12,000 patients but no more than 10-15 physicians. Reports of the conditions at the hospital by Mr. Fanning and others led to reorganization of the state's mental health system.

Mr. Fanning also covered the reorganization of a federal wartime malaria control program and its expansion into what is known today as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); in 1951 he became first public information officer of the CDC. In addition to issuing news releases and assisting journalists in covering health issues, Mr. Fanning participated with CDC's epidemiologists in programs to control fly-borne diseases such as diarrhea and mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria.

In the 1950s and early 1960s Mr. Fanning served as science editor for three leading institutions: the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta; the Midwest Research Institute, in Kansas City, Missouri; and CBS Labs, in Stamford, Connecticut. In 1965, Mr. Fanning moved to Washington, D.C., and joined the Commerce Department as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology. As Special Assistant to the Undersecretary of Commerce, he supervised legislative and public information programs concerning oceanography and assisted with the establishment of the Environmental Science Services Administration. He served as public affairs officer of the National Council on Marine Resources and Engineering Development in the White House.

During his federal career, Mr. Fanning was twice assigned to the Executive Office of the President, first to coordinate the publication of President Johnson's Second Annual Report on Marine Science Affairs (1968) and then as editor-in-chief of the First Annual Report on Environmental Quality (1970) for President Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality, the first publication to discuss "environmental racism", the enactment of policies or regulations that harm the living conditions of poor or minority communities at a disproportionate rate.

Mr. Fanning joined the Energy Department at its creation in 1977 where he managed the Emergency Building Temperature Restrictions program, which encouraged a reduction in energy consumption in federal and other buildings through voluntary lowering of thermostat settings. After retiring from the government in 1983, he wrote a consumer newsletter and syndicated consumer column for several years and then served as the Washington editor for several medical publications, including Internal Medicine World Report and as the Washington correspondent for the American College of Cardiology.

Mr. Fanning was the author of three books: Opportunities in Oceanographic Careers (1969), Opportunities in Environmental Careers (1971) and Man and His Environment: Citizen Action (1975).

Mr. Fanning was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a long-time member of the National Press Club. A member of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church since 1965, he served as deacon, established the church's Men's Fellowship program, and, in 1965, co-founded Bethesda Help, a non-profit organization comprised of volunteers from many Bethesda churches and synagogues which provides emergency food and shelter and arranges for the payment of medical, prescription, and utility bills for people in need.

Mr. Fanning is survived by his wife, Elaine M. Fanning, two daughters, and three grandchildren.