ROWLAND EVANS Biography - People in the News and Media

 
 

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ROWLAND EVANS

Name: Rowland Evans                                                                     
Born: 28 April 1921                                                                     
Died: 23 March 2001                                                                     
                                                                                         
Rowland Evans, Jr. (April 28, 1921 - March 23, 2001) was an American journalist.         
He was known best for his decades-long syndicated column and television                 
partnership with Robert Novak, a partnership that endured, if only by way of a           
joint subscription newsletter, until Evans's death.                                     
                                                                                         
Born in Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania, Evans attended Yale University               
briefly, but left to join the United States Marines and saw action in the               
Solomon Islands during World War II. Medically discharged in 1944 after                 
contracting malaria, Evans began his journalism career with the Philadelphia             
Bulletin before he joining the New York Herald-Tribune and working his way up to         
becoming the paper's Congressional correspondent. He became a Washington                 
journalist in 1945.                                                                     
                                                                                         
It was in that role that he met his lifelong writing partner, Robert Novak, the         
Capitol Hill correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. They founded the "Evans-Novak   
Political Report" in 1967, four years after they had launched their nationally           
syndicated column. His work landed him on the master list of Nixon political             
opponents. "Inside Report" became noteworthy among syndicated political columns         
for being what the trade called "dope pieces" almost exclusively: inside                 
reporting more than polemics, even though the team's conservative inclination           
gradually became evident.                                                               
                                                                                         
By 1980, Evans & Novak were among the most widely syndicated columns in the             
United States as well as frequent guests on news-oriented radio and television           
talk programs. The team was among the first to join the fledgling CNN, with             
Evans & Novak becoming one of the cable network's best-watched discussion               
programs. In addition, Evans---on his own and with his writing partner---contributed     
essays to such magazines as Harper's, The Saturday Evening Post, The New                 
Republic, The Atlantic, and others, not to mention joining his partner as a             
Reader's Digest contributing editor.                                                     
                                                                                         
The team also co-wrote several books, including Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise         
of Power (1966); Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power (1971); and         
The Reagan Revolution (1981). They were featured prominently in The Boys on the         
Bus, Timothy Crouse's memorable best-seller about the workings of the Washington         
press corps during the 1972 presidential campaigns.                                     
                                                                                         
Evans retired from the Evans & Novak syndicated column in 1993, but he remained         
Novak's partner on television and in publishing a bi-weekly newsletter, The             
Evans & Novak Political Report. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2000 and died a         
month before his 80th birthday.