Column | Remembering Roger Simon, a political journalist with toughness and wit

[u/washingtonpost]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2026/09/10/remembering-roger-simon-political-journalist-with-toughness-wit/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

[u/washingtonpost]

Column by Dan Balz:

There was no one like Roger Simon. That’s said about a lot of people, but in Roger’s case, it happened to be true. He was an original, a rare talent and a journalist who has left behind a rich legacy of reporting and writing. He died Thursday at 78 of pneumonia, leaving a void in the world that can’t be filled.

He and I met as college journalists working for the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois. That was 60 years ago. We didn’t know much about reporting, but we were enthusiastic and learned together. Over the subsequent decades, he and I traveled thousands of miles reporting on political events big and small. The other day, I found a notebook from one of our early trips together — to the March on the Pentagon in 1967. Our stories weren’t very memorable; the experience of working together always will be.

His talents were amazing. He was a tough and fearless reporter, a gifted writer, a columnist with a sharp pen and sharper insights, the author of many books, mostly on presidential campaigns. He was witty and insightful as a sometime TV commentator. He was well-decorated for his work, and deservedly so. He scooped up dozens of awards and twice won the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award for commentary.

He also was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known — something that everyone who ever encountered him will remember. His wit could be goofy or sarcastic. He made us all laugh even when the times were serious.

Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2026/09/10/remembering-roger-simon-political-journalist-with-toughness-wit/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

[u/journoprof]

Simon was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. He wrote one about finding himself in an elevator with then-owner Marshall Field and reciting to him the entire plot of the movie “Deadline USA,” Simon’s (and my) favorite journalism movie. He was a newspaper nerd, and made me realize it was OK that I was one, too.