David Nyhan

Who was David Nyhan?

David Nyhan, born Charles David Nyhan, Jr., was a journalist and biographer whose op-ed column ran in The Boston Globe newspaper for many years.

After working for The Boston Globe for 32 years, he retired in 2001.

A tall man at 6'4", Nyhan's writing was often characterized as bringing a "voice to the voiceless." He covered national politics and was a frequent source for commentary on presidential races and on the New Hampshire primary in particular.

In his last column, he wrote: "The thing I'll miss most is the chance to shine a little flashlight on a dark corner, where a wrong was done to a powerless peon, where a scarred politician maybe deserved a better fate, where the process went awry, or the mob needed to be calmed down and herded in another direction."

He died suddenly on January 23, 2005, suffering a heart attack after shoveling snow.

The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University established the David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism in his honor. The first recipient of the prize was David Willman in 2005.