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Dr. Carl Jensen
Carl Martin Jensen, Ph.D
1929 – 2015
Carl was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929. His parents, immigrants from Denmark and Sweden, believed in education, hard work and the pursuit of the American Dream.
Carl was an honor student and loved reading. His favorite childhood books were the Tom Swift series. He got his first typewriter as a child and enjoyed writing stories. He also loved going to Brooklyn Dodger games at Ebbets Field and remained a loyal Dodgers fan all his life.
At the start of World War II Carl and his parents moved across the country to Arcata, Calif. Carl attended Arcata Union High School and remained lifelong friends with his graduating class of 1947.
After high school he attended Columbia University in New York and Humboldt State in California. While pursuing his education he married his first wife, Donna, and worked for the Arcata Union newspaper.
When the Korean war began Carl joined the Air Force. He attended Officer Candidate School and became a first lieutenant. He worked in military intelligence and in his spare time he entertained the troops as a disc jockey on the radio. He served most of his military career at Ramey Air Base in Puerto Rico.
After the war he returned to civilian life as a newspaper reporter in Miami, Florida. He eventually started his own paper to pursue hard-hitting investigative journalism.
Exposing political corruption in 1950s Miami was a dangerous occupation. After receiving serious threats, Carl and his second wife, Patricia, moved to San Francisco, Calif.
While in San Francisco Carl began his career as an ad man. His success in advertising eventually took him to Los Angeles where he was a vice-president at Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBDO).
After a near fatal car accident, in 1969, Carl had an epiphany. He vowed that if he survived his injuries he would make big changes in his life. He left the Mad Men lifestyle and enrolled at U C Santa Barbara to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology and a new career in teaching.
Carl began his teaching career in the Sociology department at Sonoma State University, then Sonoma State College, in 1973.
Appalled that the school didn't have a communications major he worked to develop the Communication and Media Studies department.
The academic freedom at Sonoma State in the 1970s allowed Carl to begin a groundbreaking research program called Project Censored in 1976. The project included a who's who of media experts including Bill Moyers, Mike Wallace, Jessica Mitford and Noam Chomsky.
Carl's legacy continues as Project Censored will be celebrating the 40th anniversary next year. It is the longest running media research project in the country.
Carl wrote the annual censored yearbooks through 1996, and a anniversary edition titled 20 Years of Censored News. He also wrote a biographical book about the muckraking journalists of the 20th century titled “Stories that Changed America.”
He was rewarded for his efforts with numerous awards including the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award, and the Freedom of Information Award from both the Los Angeles and the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.
Carl retired from SSU in 1997 because of health issues. He continued to participate in Project Censored and to write.
Along with his books on censorship he brought to publication a little-known manuscript from 1907 titled “Millennium, a Comedy of the Year 2000” by Upton Sinclair.
Throughout the rest of his life, his keen interest in media and journalism continued. He was an inspiration and a key figure behind the development and launch of the online-based news publication, Lake County News, operated by his son, John Jensen, and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Larson. He also sat on the publication's editorial board.
Carl's son, John, in 2014 won the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' James Madison Freedom of Information Award, an award his father had won more than 20 years earlier. They are the only father and son known to have won that particular honor.
Carl married his third wife, Sandra, in 1977. Over the years they shared their home with three Great Danes and four cats. They also shared an interest in photography. Carl enjoyed showing his photographs and won several awards for his art.
After a long and interesting life Carl passed away at his home in Cotati on April 23 due to complications from advanced Parkinson's and Lewy body disease.
Carl is survived by his wife of 38 years, Sandra; his children, Sherman (Mary), Lisa, Pia and John (Elizabeth); several grandchildren; and great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 25, at Cross and Crown Lutheran Church in Rohnert Park.
Memorial contributions may be made to Project Censored, P.O. Box 571, Cotati, CA 94931, or to the Sonoma Humane Society, http://sonomahumane.org/help/give/ .
