Joseph M. Ungaro (November 4, 1930 – November 12, 2006) was a journalist most famous for his question to President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

which elicited the reply " I am not a crook."

Early career

Ungaro graduated from Providence College and the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...

. In 1950 he began working for ''The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin'' first as a copy boy, and then as a reporter, managing editor, and publisher.

The Question

On November 17, 1973, at the annual

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

Managing Editors convention in Orlando, Florida, Ungaro asked Nixon about his reported underpayment of

income taxes An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Ta ...

in 1970 and 1971. Nixon's famous declaration came after he answered a subsequent question about the

Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's contin ...

, posed by then president of the association Dick Smyser of Oak Ridge, Tennessee's ''The Oak Ridger''. At the end of that reply, Nixon doubled back to Ungaro's question, saying: "I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook." Nixon later agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.

Later career

Ungaro left the ''Evening Bulletin'' later that year and began working at Gannett Company's Westchester Rockland Newspapers in 1974 as managing editor. He later became vice president and executive editor, vice president and general manager, and then president and publisher. He was given the additional responsibilities as vice president of the Metro Newspaper Division. He later became president and chief executive of the Detroit Newspaper Agency, the company that managed a joint operating agreement between

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...

and

Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primari ...

. Ungaro's final position was at Stars and Stripes, where he put together a consolidation plan for the newspaper and then became its ombudsman.

Sources

Joseph Ungaro, former Journal News publisher, dies at 76
''The Journal News'' 14 November 2006.

''New York Times'' 14 November 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ungaro, Joseph American male journalists 20th-century American journalists Providence College alumni Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni 1930 births 2006 deaths The Providence Journal people