Deborah Howell, a pioneering journalist who helped lead both major Twin Cities newspapers in the 1970s and '80s and later served as ombudsman for the Washington Post, died Friday after being hit by a car in New Zealand, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said.
Coleman, who is Howell's stepson, said the family received word that Howell, who was fulfilling a lifelong dream to visit New Zealand, was struck as she crossed a street near Blenheim, New Zealand. She was traveling with her husband, C. Peter Magrath, former president of the University of Minnesota.
Howell, 68, was city editor and later an assistant managing editor of the Minneapolis Star in the 1970s, and managing editor and executive editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the 1980s. Under her leadership, the Pioneer Press won two Pulitzer Prizes.
In 1990, she became the Washington bureau chief of the Newhouse newspaper chain. From 2005 to 2008, she was the Washington Post's ombudsman.
"She played a very important role in my life after my dad died, right up to editing my speeches," Chris Coleman said. "And she was a powerful force for good journalism."
Coleman said he had spent the day preparing for his Monday inauguration when he got the news about Howell's death. "The last thing I had yet to do was to send her my remarks for her edits," he said.
Among those she inspired to enter journalism was his daughter, he said, who will soon study it at the University of Missouri.
Journalism in the blood