Shelby Coffey III (Inducted 1997)

Coffey was Editor and Executive Vice-President of the Los Angeles Times. He ran the Style section of the ran the Style section of the Washington Post for six years, when he was Deputy Managing Editor/Features at that paper.

Coffey is responsible for starting to give Style a structure and a sense of direction, as well as hiring great talent, including Sally Quinn and Tom Shales.

Says Mary Hadar, Assistant Managing Editor/Features at the Post, "Shelby started the new journalism, in the sense that he wrote about the private lives of public people. He determined Style's turf and protected it from the news side. He said we can write about Henry Kissinger and people like him - the don't only belong to the national staff. Writers loved Shelby and Style really took off under him."

Coffey worked at the Post from 1968 to 1985, also serving as Assistant Managing Editor/National News. He then served as Editor of U. S. News and World Report for a year before becoming Editor/Senior Vice President of the Dallas Morning News in 1986. He moved to the Los Angeles Times in 1987.

The Times has won numerous awards under Coffey's leadership, but Ben Bradlee, Vice-President and former Executive Editor of the Post, says, "His work on the Style section was Shelby's proudest accomplishment."