Robert D. Novak

Robert D. Novak was born Feb. 26, 1931, in Joliet, Ill. His first newspaper jobs were as a reporter for the Joliet Herald-News and the Champaign-Urbana Courier while attending the University of Illinois (1948-1952). Mr. Novak has a B.A. degree from Illinois and, in 1997, received the university's distinguished alumnus award. Mr. Novak has also received honorary doctorates from Kenyon College and the University of Illinois.

Following service in the United States Army as a lieutenant during the Korean War (1952-1954), Mr. Novak joined the staff of the Associated Press in Omaha, Neb. Later, he was transferred to Lincoln, Neb., and from there to Indianapolis, Ind., covering politics and the state legislature in both places. In 1957, the AP transferred him to Washington, D.C., where he began covering Congress. Mr. Novak joined the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal in 1958 as its Senate correspondent and political reporter, becoming chief congressional correspondent for the Journal in 1961.

On May 15, 1963, Mr. Novak teamed up with the late Rowland Evans Jr., then congressional correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, to write Inside Report, a political column published four times a week. Since 1966, the Chicago Sun-Times has been the home newspaper to the column. One of the longest-running syndicated columns in the nation, Inside Report has always been based on hard reporting. For over a quarter of a century, both columnists not only crisis-crossed the nation regularly covering politics, but also traveled abroad to report wars, revolutions and international conferences around the globe.

Mr. Novak has covered great events and interviewed world leaders in every part of the world. His 1978 trip to China included an exclusive interview with Deng Tsiao-Peng, which opened the way for normalization of U.S.-China relations. On May 15, 1993, Mr. Evans retired from the column. Mr. Novak continues to write the column three times a week. The column is carried by over 150 newspapers through Creators Syndicate.

Mr. Novak produces a twice-monthly newsletter, the Evans-Novak Political Report. Mr. Novak has written for most of the nation's periodicals and is currently a contributing editor for Reader's Digest.

Mr. Novak's first book was Agony of the GOP: 1964. In collaboration with Rowland Evans, he has written Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power and The Reagan Revolution. In November 1999, Mr. Novak's most recent book, Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000, was published. Presently he is writing his memoirs, which are due to be published in late 2006.

For 25 years Mr. Novak was a commentator for the Cable News Network (CNN). Currently, he is a commentator for FOX News and appears occasionally on NBC's Meet the Press.

Mr. Novak was a Radford Visiting Professor of Journalism at Baylor University in 1987. He is the 2001 winner of the National Press Club's "Fourth Estate" award for lifetime achievement in journalism.