Frank Conniff (journalist)

Frank Conniff (April 24, 1914 – May 25, 1971) was an American journalist and editor who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1956.[1]

Conniff was born in Danbury, Connecticut. His first newspaper job was as a copyboy with the Danbury News-Times. He went to college at the University of Virginia, and after covering sports for one year in Danbury, joined Hearst Newspapers in New York. He was also a combat reporter during World War II in Africa and Europe, and covered the Korean War in 1950–51.[2] In 1958 he became general director of the Hearst Headline Service, which provided news features, and contributed a Washington column. In New York he later wrote the "Coniff's Corner" column.[2] While Hearst would introduce Conniff as their "house Democrat," Conniff also reportedly supported Joseph McCarthy, as Hearst Newspapers were a McCarthy supporter. He unsuccessfully challenged Republican Congressman Ogden Reid of New York's 26th congressional district in the 1964 election.[2][3][4]

Conniff interviewed Nikita S. Khrushchev, premier of the Soviet Union, in Moscow in 1955 for Hearst's International News Service, earning him a 1956 Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with William Randolph Hearst, Jr. and J. Kingsbury Smith for a series of exclusive interviews with leaders of the Soviet Union.[1]

Conniff was editor of Hearst Newspapers's World Journal Tribune of New York from 1966 to 1967, when the newspaper ceased publication. He was also national editor of Hearst Newspapers.[5] He had a stroke shortly after the close of the World Journal Tribune which he partly recovered from.[1]

He was a regular panelist on the NBC game show, Who Said That?, along with H. V. Kaltenborn, Peggy Ann Garner, Deems Taylor, and Boris Karloff.

Conniff died of a heart attack at age 57 in New York on May 25, 1971.[2]

His son Frank Conniff Jr. is a comedic actor and writer.