Barry Sussman

Barry Sussman (July 10, 1934 to June 1, 2022) was an American editor, author and public opinion analyst who dealt primarily with public policy issues. He was city news editor at The Washington Post at the time of the June 1972 Watergate break-in and supervised much of the newspaper's reporting on the unfolding Watergate scandal, working closely with reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as their stories moved from a routine burglary item toward a story that would end a presidency. That coverage earned the Post a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973. Sussman later wrote The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate, which The New York Times named one of the best books of 1974, drawing on his direct editorial role in shaping the paper's Watergate reporting to give an inside account of how the story was pursued and verified inside the newsroom. He held a degree in English and history from Brooklyn College.