Michael Hedges, a Washington correspondent for the Houston Chronicle with wide experience here and abroad, is joining The Washington Examiner as managing editor.
“Michael is a hard-driving journalist who will bring energy, versatility and great news instincts to our paper,” said Stephen G. Smith, the Examiner’s executive editor. “He’ll make The Examiner an even more formidable presence in the Washington market.”
Hedges began his newspaper career with the Examiner’s predecessor, the Journal papers, where he reported on murder trials, local government and police in Prince George’s County.
He moved on to The Washington Times, where he was a mainstay of the newspaper’s investigative team. The City Paper noted that “while the Washington Post slept, the Times stole a beat on Metro coverage…(a) Hedges byline was the guarantee of high-test investigative reporting on District government.”
Hedges also became The Washington Times’ trouble shooter on major national stories, covering everything from the Iran-Contra scandal to the riots in Miami and Los Angeles to the drug wars in South and Central America.
In 1990-1991 he spent more than five months in the Middle East anchoring the Times’ coverage of Operation Desert Storm. Over the next few years, Hedges covered wars and other consequential stories in Somalia, Bosnia, the West Bank, Rwanda, Haiti and other countries.
In 1995 Hedges moved to the Scripps Howard national news bureau, where he covered the FBI, the Supreme Court and national security issues. His stories on the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals appeared on front pages around the country.
Among the stories he covered during his seven years at the Houston Chronicle were the 2004 presidential campaign, the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina, and the investigation of Tom DeLay. He was one of the first journalists to arrive in Afghanistan, and was embedded with U.S. forces invading Iraq in 2003. He has returned to the region several times to document the ongoing conflicts.
“We’re very pleased to welcome Michael – he’s a journalist of courage, conviction and deep experience”, said Vivienne Sosnowski, editorial director of the three Examiner papers in Washington, Baltimore and San Francisco.
