Former editor of The Washington Post and American Society of Newspaper Editors president (1959-60), Russell Wiggins was an early advocate of FOIA, and along with editor James S. Pope, one of the principal movers and shakers pushing for its adoption.
He testified extensively before the committee chaired by Rep. John Moss as it developed the Freedom of Information Act. Wiggins drew up the ASNE Declaration of Principles in 1957 to lay down the gauntlet.
“ASNE,” he wrote, “must stand guard for the right to know, fighting measures that restrict it at home or abroad, particularly withholding of information at local, state or federal levels.”
Russ Wiggins died in 2000 in Maine.
(Updated April 2025)
Class of 2006
- Andrew Alexander
- Gary Bass
- Thomas S. Blanton
- Danielle Brian
- David Burnham
- Hodding Carter III
- Tom Curley
- Tom Devine
- Kevin Goldberg
- Morton H. Halperin
- Charles W. Hinkle
- Kathleen A. Kirby
- Susan B. Long
- Robert D. Lystad
- John E. Pike
- Ronald L. Plesser
- Russ Roberts
- A. Bryan Siebert
- David Sobel
- Thomas M. Susman
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Class of 1996
- Samuel J. Archibald
- Scott Armstrong
- U.S. Sen. Hank Brown
- Harold L. Cross
- Lucy A. Dalglish
- Earl English
- U.S. Rep. Dante Fascell
- Paul Fisher
- William H. Hornby
- Jane E. Kirtley
- Jack C. Landau
- U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy
- U.S. Sen. Edward Long
- Paul K. McMasters
- U.S. Rep. John E. Moss
- J. Edward Murray
- Virgil M. Newton Jr.
- Jean H. Otto
- James S. Pope
- Harold C. Relyea
- Richard M. Schmidt Jr.
- Sheryl L. Walter
- Bruce W. Sanford
- J. Russell Wiggins
