David Nyhan (December 23, 1940 – January 23, 2005), born Charles David Nyhan Jr., was a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

, whose op-ed column ran in ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' newspaper for many years. He graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

where he played varsity football. His column was syndicated to more than 16 newspapers and magazines by

Creators Syndicate Creators Syndicate (also known as Creators) is an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers, websites, and other digital outlets. When founded in 1987, Creators Syndicate became one of the few suc ...

, and after working for ''The Boston Globe'' for 32 years, he retired in 2001. Boston-area professor and editor Bill Ketter remarked "For David Nyhan, giving voice to the voiceless was intuitive." He covered national politics and was a frequent source for commentary on presidential races and on the New Hampshire primary in particular. In his last column, he wrote: "The thing I'll miss most is the chance to shine a little flashlight on a dark corner, where a wrong was done to a powerless peon, where a scarred politician maybe deserved a better fate, where the process went awry, or the mob needed to be calmed down and herded in another direction." Nyhan died suddenly aged 64 on January 23, 2005, at his home in Brookline, suffering a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

after shoveling snow.

Legacy

The

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard Kennedy School research center that explores the intersection and impact of media, politics and public policy in theory and practice. Among other activities, the center or ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

established the David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism in his honor. The first recipient of the prize was David Willman in 2005.

David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism
, November 16, 2006. Retrieved February 1, 2007.

Notes

External links

* American male journalists American columnists 1940 births 2005 deaths The Boston Globe people 20th-century American journalists Harvard Crimson football players {{US-journalist-1940s-stub