John Callaway, WTTW-TV’s senior correspondent, will receive the NIU journalism department’s award for 1987 Illinois Journalist of the Year at the 39th annual journalism banquet Friday.

“He (Callaway) is a great interviewer. You could use him as a text for interviewing technique,” said Irvan Kummerfeldt, chairman of the NIU journalism department and head of the awards committee. “He has a different style. He gets after his point and knows how to get the information he wants out of people.”

The department uses tapes of Callaway’s television interviews as examples in class, Kummerfeldt said. He said Callaway was chosen on the basis of his “incisive interviews” and more than 30 years of journalistic accomplishments.

Journalism instructor Mary Ann Whitcomb said, “He (Callaway) has been very instrumental in forming the type of news coverage Chicago is used to.” She said she believes Callaway is a very good choice for the award.

Callaway began his career with the City News Bureau in 1956 after two years at Ohio Wesleyan University. Callaway started as a copy boy and police reporter. A year later he moved to WBBM-AM and WBBM-TV, where he worked as a reporter and documentary producer.

With only 71 cents in his pocket when he arrived in Chicago, Callaway said his big break was starting out at the Chicago News Bureau. “It was tough reporting and journalism, but that is the best way to be trained.”

After several positions with the Chicago CBS stations, including editorial director and news and program director, Callaway returned to WBBM-TV in 1973. He then moved to WTTW-TV, Channel 11, in 1974.

e now hosts a half-hour “Chicago Tonight with John Callaway” program airing twice each Monday through Thursday at 7 p.m. and midnight. This is a program which “provides his viewers insight into current newsmakers and could be a textbook for aspiring newspersons,” Kummerfeldt said.

Callaway also is director of the William Benton Fellowship program in broadcast journalism at the University of Chicago.

Callaway said he is “delighted” to be chosen for the award. “I respect the NIU journalism department very much and am very pleased to be in such company,” he said.

The journalism banquet will be held Friday, April 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, 132 N. Second St. The banquet will be followed by an awards reception honoring outstanding journalism students and Callaway.

Callaway said to prepare for a journalism career students should have “a life-long passion and interest in many different subjects and a life-long passion for reading. Any journalism student who doesn’t have that passion shouldn’t be in the field of journalism or at least won’t make it to the top. I think the key is a passionate desire to read and to experience life.”

Tickets for the banquet and awards reception are on sale in the journalism office, 107 Reavis Hall. Tickets for both events are $8 for students, $10 for faculty, alumni and others and $4 for the awards reception only.

“He (Callaway) is a great interviewer. You could use him as a text for interviewing technique.” Irvan Kummerfeldt, NIU journalism department chairman, head of awards committee.