Jack Germond: Reporter

Jack Germond, 85, a longtime reporter and columnist, was remembered as an old-school newspaperman.

He died Wednesday at his West Virginia home.

Germond, who wrote for The Baltimore Sun, the defunct Washington Star and other publications, was seen as a journalist who could successfully mix hard-nosed reporting on politics while maintaining friendly relationships with his journalistic targets.

"He could be very, very tough—not simply on the television screen, but in an interview," Jules Witcover, who wrote a column with Germond, said in an NPR obituary. "But he could then go out and have a drink or two—or more than a few—with the same politicians and walk away feeling good about himself and having them feel good about him. It was quite a talent."

Despite cultivating an image as ink-stained creature of the broadsheet, Germond also made a name for himself on television by appearing as the liberal counterpoint to panelists such as Robert Novak and John McLaughlin on The McLaughlin Group.

He was also featured prominently in Timothy Crouse's seminal non-fiction account of the reporters who covered the 1972 presidential election, The Boys on the Bus.

Germond had recently completed work on his first novel, A Small Story for Page Three, according to the Associated Press.