Mervin Block is a broadcast writing coach and author. He has written news at three television networks: as a staff writer for the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" and the "ABC Evening News with Frank Reynolds" and as a freelance at NBC News.

He has written news for Ed Bradley, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, Douglas Edwards, Charles Kuralt, Roger Mudd, Edwin Newman, Charles Osgood, Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner, Frank Reynolds, Diane Sawyer, Bob Schieffer, Robert Trout and Mike Wallace.

Block teaches newswriting workshops at TV and radio newsrooms around the country.

Mervin Block's books:

• Writing Broadcast News--Shorter, Sharper, Stronger (Revised and Expanded), 2d ed. (1997)
• Broadcast Newswriting: The RTDNA Reference Guide (co-published by the Radio-Television News Directors Association, 1994)
• Rewriting Network News: WordWatching Tips from 345 TV and Radio Scripts (1990)
• Writing News for TV and Radio: The Interactive CD and Handbook (with Joe Durso, Jr., 1998)
• Writing Broadcast News and Broadcast Newswriting are being revised and reissued by CQ Press.

Block worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in Chicago, served as executive news producer for WBBM-TV, Chicago, and wrote and broadcast editorials for WNBC-TV, New York City.

He won first prize three times for TV spot-news scripts in the annual competition of the Writers Guild of America.

Block wrote a monthly column on broadcast newswriting, “WordWatching,” for the RTNDA magazine, Communicator.

He has taught broadcast newswriting at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and he has been teaching workshops in radio and television newsrooms.

Previously, he taught journalism (print, then broadcast) at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

Block holds an M.S.J. from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, and a certificate from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. At Medill, he received the Harrington Memorial Award as "the outstanding student [in the news-editorial sequence] in the graduate class."

In 2004, the Chicago Press Veterans Association chose him as Press Veteran of the Year.

Contact him at: merblo.aol.com.

[See what anchors and news execs say about him, his work and his workshops.]