Russell W. Freeburg was awarded the bronze star in for advancing alone under enemy fire during his service in World War II as a staff sergeant. He then began his journalism career in 1948 at the City News Bureau of Chicago as a reporter. He then joined the Chicago Tribune in 1950 and stayed there the next seven years, covering a variety of topics.

In 1958 he moved to Washington D.C. to cover the economics beat, the Justice Department, and the White House and presidential political campaigns. He was named the executive director of the Tribune‘s Washington bureau in 1966 and two years later, named the bureau chief. Lastly with the Tribune, Freeburg served as the paper’s managing editor for a year before resigning and returning to Washington.

He has also been a Meet the Press panelist, and was the White House coordinator to President Gerald Ford’s Citizens’ Action Committee to Fight Inflation. Freeburg co-authored Oil & War with Robert Goralski of NBC News, which was published in 1987 and authored There Ought to Be a Place, published in 2001.