Margaret Sullivan

Media Columnist, The Washington Post

Margaret Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post, writing on journalism ethics, free speech, and the intersection of politics and the news media. Before joining The Post in 2016, she was The New York Times public editor, and previously, the chief editor of The Buffalo News, her hometown paper where she started as a summer intern. She was the first woman to serve as managing editor and editor in chief of The News, as well as the first female public editor of the New York Times. A graduate of Georgetown University and Northwestern University’s Medill School, she is a former member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and was twice elected as a director of the American Society of News Editors, where she led the First Amendment committee. Sullivan taught in the graduate schools of journalism at Columbia University and City University of New York. In 2017, she won the Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award from the New England First Amendment Coalition, recognizing her columns at The Times and The Post that championed free speech and press right