Douglas Clifton

Douglas Clifton
Editor, The Plain Dealer
E&P Editor of the Year, 2003

Doug Clifton has been editor of The Plain Dealer since June 1, 1999. He began his newspaper career in 1970 at The Miami Herald's Action Line. Over the next 17 years he held a variety of reporting and editing assignments at The Herald, including city editor and deputy managing editor. He subsequently served as news editor of Knight Ridder's Washington bureau and as managing editor of The Charlotte Observer, another Knight Ridder newspaper.

Mr. Clifton returned to The Miami Herald in 1991 as executive editor. Under his leadership, The Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes, one for meritorious public service in 1992 for coverage of Hurricane Andrew, a second for commentary and a third for investigative reporting. During that time The Herald also was a Pulitzer finalist in feature writing, commentary, investigative reporting and twice in photography.

Clifton, originally from Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Dowling College in Long Island, with a political science degree and served three years in the U.S. Army, including a year as an artillery officer in Vietnam in the late 1960s. He and his wife, Peg Clifton, have two adult children and two grandchildren. They live in Bratenahl.