I didn’t know anyone else who did this job at any newspaper the way I do. Expose wrongdoing in government or business. Tell it in one single story with a beginning, middle and end. Heroes and villains. Real people who come to the newspaper for help against the big bad wolves trying to run over them.

I had come to his Washington D.C. hospice to present to him the 2006 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

“I guarantee you that in every newsroom in America, there’s some plagiarism.” The speaker was Jerry Ceppos, former vice president of news at Knight Ridder, the company I work for, in an interview I read on a Web site, Grade the News.

Diane Ketcham Lifetime Director of Fun (non-voting)       Diane Ketcham is a national award-winning former columnist for The New York Times. As the Long Island columnist she covered every facet of Island life including the Hamptons and the celebrities who live there. Prior to her work with The Times, she was a press secretary [...]

Sheila Moss Self-Syndicated, Nashville, TN HumorColumnist.com   Sheila is from Nashville, Tennessee, where big hair is obligatory. She snuck into journalism through the back door .  They really should have been watching closer.  Her day job is in social services and her college major was sociology and psychology, which gave her an understanding of people [...]

Robert Haught Self-Syndicated, Madison, VA    Robert L. (Bob) Haught is a former UPI correspondent who took a detour into government and politics until he could afford to return to journalism. Haught served as a top aide to two governors and two U.S. senators. He drew on that experience for a column, Potomac Junction, while [...]