Reg Murphy, editor and publisher who survived a kidnapping, dies at 90
As a top editor at the Atlanta Constitution, he was held for a $700,000 ransom. He was later the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner and the Baltimore Sun.

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Reg Murphy in 1977, when he was serving as publisher of the San Francisco Examiner. (Jim Palmer/AP)

By Harrison Smith
November 15, 2024 at 10:40 p.m. EST

Reg Murphy, a journalist and publisher who survived a bizarre, politically motivated kidnapping in 1974 while editing the Atlanta Constitution, and who went on to hold top jobs at the San Francisco Examiner, Baltimore Sun and National Geographic Society, died Nov. 9 at his home on St. Simons Island, Georgia. He was 90. ... His wife, Diana Murphy, confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.

A soft-spoken Georgian with a thick Southern drawl, Mr. Murphy started his newspaper career in the early 1950s, reporting on state politics for the Macon Telegraph and the Atlanta Constitution. He went on to a decades-long career in publishing, maintaining a strong financial track record while trying to cut costs, grow audiences and safeguard journalism at publications including the Sun and its sister paper, the now-defunct Baltimore Evening Sun. ... “Journalism is, in my mind, sacred,” he said in an interview last year for Mercer University in Georgia. “It is a sacred trust to tell the truth and to try to give people enough freedom to be able to find the truth and then to pursue it.”

Although Mr. Murphy spent years chasing stories and looking for ways to engage with readers, he was perhaps best known for the rare instance in which he made headlines himself. Kidnapped on Feb. 20, 1974, he was held captive for 49 hours by a man who criticized the “lying, leftist, liberal news media,” rambled on about Jews in the government and claimed to be the leader of a paramilitary group called the American Revolutionary Army.

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Mr. Murphy’s plight became public knowledge after he was allowed to speak on the phone that night with Jim Minter, managing editor of the Constitution. ... “I’ve been kidnapped,” he said. ... “Well, then you’re in a helluva shape, Reg,” Minter joked. “No one’s going to pay anything for you.” He hung up the phone, according to an account in the Journal-Constitution, and cracked to colleagues that Mr. Murphy must be out drinking. Soon he had an aide call Mr. Murphy’s then-wife, Virginia, who raised alarm bells when she told him Mr. Murphy had left with a stranger.

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Mr. Murphy in 1974 after he was released by his kidnapper. He was joined by his then-wife, Virginia. (AP)

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Mr. Murphy at the National Geographic Society's headquarters in Washington in 1996. (Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post)

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By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago.follow on X @harrisondsmith