David Carr remembers former Pioneer Press Editor Deborah Howell

Deborah Howell
Deborah Howell, former editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Photo courtesy of the University of Texas

There's a funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington DC today for former Pioneer Press executive editor Deborah Howell. She was killed in a traffic accident in New Zealand earlier this month.

She led the paper to two Pulitzer Prizes in the 1980s. She later went to Washington to work for Newhouse Newspapers and she was most recently Ombudsman for the Washington Post until 2008. Howell has been remembered by colleagues -- and competitors -- as a tough and creative journalist who demanded excellence from her reporters.

Cathy Wurzer talked to New York Times media columnist David Carr about Howell's impact on him and other Twin Cities journalists in the 1980s. At that time, Howell was a writer and then editor of the Twin Cities Reader.

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