Pulitzer-winning Washington Post editor Dan Eggen found dead at 60 after being laid-off earlier this year
Veteran Washington Post editor Dan Eggen — a key architect of the paper’s political coverage who was laid off in a brutal round of cuts earlier this year — was found dead at his home in the nation’s capital on Tuesday.He was 60.No foul play or violence were suspected in the death, local authorities told Eggen’s family, according to WaPo.
The cause of death was pending an autopsy as of Wednesday morning.Eggen spent nearly three decades at the paper, helping steer its reporting on the White House, Congress and presidential campaigns.He was on a team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for investigating the plotters behind 9/11, going on to work on projects that won the most prestigious award in journalism in 2016, for reporting on Russian election interference, and in 2022, for exploring the previous year’s attack on the US Capitol.A fixture of the newsroom’s most sensitive coverage, Eggen was “a sharp editor with a keen story sense,” the Post’s executive editor Matt Murray told staff.“Dan was involved in hiring, editing and mentoring dozens of politics writers across the years,” he wrote, adding that Eggen’s “news muscle and instincts were integral to our coverage.”At the time of his death, Eggen was set to start a new job at NOTUS, a recently launched, DC-based outlet that’s been scooping up laid-off WaPo staffers.
“We hired Dan to join us at NOTUS after some of the best reporters in DC told us he was the best editor they’d ever had,” the site’s editor in chief Tim Grieve wrote on X.“We were excited to have him here, and I think he was equally excited to be coming here.
Deepest condolences to everyone who loved him.”Josh Dawsey, a Wall Street Journal reporter who previously covered the White House for the Washington Post, recalled Eggen’s relentless work ethic.The late journalist “worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day” and was “incredibly dedicated, a wonderful line editor” who pushed reporters to improve, Daws...