Roger Simon

Roger Simon is a writer, author, editor and columnist, the former chief political columnist of Politico and a New York Times best-selling author. He has won more than three dozen first-place awards for journalism, and is the only person to win twice the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award for commentary. His book on the 1996 presidential race, Show Time, became a New York Times best-seller. Simon was born in Chicago, and received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Prior to joining Politico, Simon was a reporter or columnist for several newspapers, including the Waukegan, Illinois, News-Sun, the Baltimore Sun, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Simon has been a Poynter Media Fellow at Yale University, a Hoover Media Fellow at Stanford University, and a Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics Fellow at Harvard University. Simon also was a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. In 2015 Simon won the Dateline Award of the Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C. Professional Chapter for Best Column. He was cited for his "thought-provoking writing, storytelling, and interviewing skills" for six columns that included an "extremely prescient analysis of the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri." Books written by Simon include: Simon Says: The Best of Roger Simon (1986) Road Show: In America, Anyone Can Become President, It's One of the Risks We Take (1990; covers the 1988 presidential campaign) Show Time: The American Political Circus and the Race for the White House (1998; covers the 1996 presidential campaign) Divided We Stand: How Al Gore Beat George Bush and Lost the Presidency (2002; covers the 2000 presidential campaign) Reckoning: Campaign 2012 and the Battle for the Soul of America (2013; covers the 2012 presidential election)