Legendary journalist Ralph Z. Hallow was remembered Sunday for his “ferocious” appetite for scoops and giving attention to the conservative movement long ignored by the dominant liberal media.
“He was ferocious in the newsroom. He was ferocious about what he described to be the priesthood of being a journalist in America,” said his step-son Ian Walters, the spokesman for the American Conservative Union and CPAC, during a ceremony at the Washington Times where Hallow worked for 38 years.
Christopher Dolan, the Washington Times president and executive editor, added, “His unmatched coverage of Republican inner workings has been followed by reporters and will be emulated for generations to come. Ralph Hallow was relentless. And he will be missed.”
The appreciation of Hallow, 82, by the Washington Times was evident in having his open-casket wake in the newspaper’s Arbor Ballroom, a first.
Former Times Chairman Douglas D.M. Joo, noting the extraordinary setting, said, “This is actually the first time our building could have been used for our colleague to stay here at least in one night. Is the first time, he’s the first one, and only one, I’d say, no more.”
Joo added, “We owe him very much, and I hope there should be more Ralphs.”
The flag that draped Hallow’s coffin given by Vice President Mike Pence.
Hallow died on Oct. 17 of complications from surgery in Lewes, Delaware.
He joined the Washington Times in its inaugural year, 1982, and quickly rose to become chief political correspondent. He was recalled as a feisty reporter who I sat near during my 10 years at the newspaper.
He at times angered his sources and editors and was often the first to report stories about key GOP moves.
Hallow was especially proud of being called a “horrible fellow” by former President George H.W. Bush.
His former editor Francis Coombs, in a eulogy read by Dolan, said, “I couldn’t begin to count the calls from powerful politico’s demanding that Ralph be fired for airing the most secret of their secrets on the front page of The Washington Times. But that just wasn’t in the cards.”
Coombs also recalled that the late Washington Times editor Wesley Pruden praised Hallow as “a real newspaperman,” and he added, “That’s the way I’ll always remember him.”
Several of those who spoke Sunday also offered support to his wife, Millie. The two were a conservative power couple decades, she the former vice chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation and managing director of executive operations at the National Rifle Association.
Today, there was a funeral for Hallow at Washington’s St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. His friend, source, and minister David Lane said in his prepared remarks, “As the thirty-year chief political writer for The Washington Times, Ralph had developed a jaundiced eye from the con’s and rip-off artists that pass through this town every political cycle or two.”
Walters recalled Hallow’s devotion to journalism and old school shoe-leather reporting. And, he added, Hallow never got the itch to leave the Washington Times.
“What he lived for was the esteem of his colleagues. That was his raison d’etre. And so I want to thank the Washington Times family for giving him the opportunity to spend one last night here in the newsroom,” he concluded.
