Richard Cohen’s columns have appeared on the op-ed page of the Washington Post since 1984. He joined the newspaper in 1968, after attending the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and after working at Fort Dix, NJ, and Fort Leonard Wood, MO. At the Post he covered all sorts of stories: night police, city hall, education, state government, and national politics. As the paper’s chief Maryland correspondent, he was one of two reporters who broke the story of the investigation of former Vice President Agnew. In 1976, he began writing a column that ran on the front of the Metro section. Its popularity led to national syndication by the Washington Post Writers Group in 1981.

Cohen was born in New York City, and earned his undergraduate degree from New York University. Before coming to Washington, he worked as a copy aide at the New York Herald Tribune and as a reporter for United Press International in New York.

Cohen has received the Sigma Delta Chi and Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Awards for his investigative reporting. In 1974, he and Jules Witcover wrote A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Spiro T. Agnew (Viking).