Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor for The Washington Post, died on Saturday, the Post’s parent company, Washington Post Company, announced. He was 66.
Hiatt died at his home, said Jennie Bender, the publicist for the Post. No cause of death was given. Hiatt had suffered a stroke in 2009.
Hiatt, who worked for the Post for 30 years, “authored one of the most admired opinion columns of our era, challenging the status quo with a steely certainty that was unprecedented among American newspaper editors,” Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said in a memo to employees.
“He was unmatched in his ability to entertain, inform and provoke,” Baron said. “He was also a writer of brilliant prose, and his razor-sharp wit was sharper than the finest razor blade.”
Hiatt was the Post’s editorial page editor since 2000. He was editor-in-chief of the Post’s Op-Ed page from 1999 to 2005, helping the paper achieve “an unprecedented level of engagement with the public” on many issues, Baron said.
Hiatt was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1996 for his cover piece on Christian evangelicals’ transformation from a largely legal-minded movement into a political force. He was also part of the first Trump administration transition team, as one of two deputy national security advisers.
Before joining the Post, Hiatt had been a writer at the Atlantic magazine, then published three books.