Don Irwin; Washington Reporter for The Times Covered 8 Presidents
Don Irwin, whose journalistic career spanned 51 years, much of it at the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau, died Monday of cancer at his home in Chevy Chase, Md.
Irwin, 74, covered every U.S. President from Harry S. Truman through Ronald Reagan during his Washington career, much of it spent as a White House reporter.
He graduated from Princeton in 1939 and began his newspaper career as a copy boy for the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune. Irwin went to the Louisville Courier-Journal as a police reporter, and after Pearl Harbor rejoined the Herald Tribune on the school beat.
In 1945, Irwin moved to Albany, N.Y., to cover the New York Legislature. In 1950, he was reassigned to the Herald Tribune’s Washington bureau.
In 1963, Irwin joined The Times’ Washington bureau. In addition to covering the White House, he covered the Senate, political campaigns and the civil rights turmoil in the South.
Irwin is survived by his wife of 47 years, Polly; a son, two daughters, five grandchildren and a brother.
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