About IWMF: Board of Directors

Deborah Howell joined The Washington Post in October 2005 as ombudsman. She writes a weekly column for the newspaper. Prior to joining the Post she was chief of the Washington Bureau for the Newhouse Newspaper Group and editor of the Newhouse News Service since 1990.


Howell was a reporter and editor for her high school newspaper and also at the University of Texas. She began her journalism career in 1962 as a reporter for KZTV and KSIX radio in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 1963, she moved to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times as a copy editor and reporter. In 1965, she became a reporter at the Minneapolis Star, then city editor at the same newspaper in 1975.


Howell became assistant managing editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1979, and then rose through the ranks as managing editor (1982-1984), executive editor (1984-1987) and senior vice president and editor (1987-1990).

Howell has served as a judge for the Neiman Fellowships at Harvard University and has four times served as a Pulitzer Prize juror.

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