Rochelle Riley
Rochelle Riley is a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, where she has been a leading voice for children, better schools, literacy, honest, competent government and civil behavior since 2001. Riley also makes frequent television and radio appearances, including on National Public Radio and WDIV-TV 4’s “Flashpoint.”
Riley has won several state and national honors, including the 2013 National Headliner Award, one of the most prestigious in the country, for local column writing. Her columns on the text message scandal that led to the imprisonment of Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit’s former mayor, were part of the Free Press’ 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage for local news. She is the winner of the 2017 Eugene C. Pulliam Editorial Fellowship from the Society of Professional Journalists and author of “The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery.”
Riley is the 2017 winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Ida B. Wells Award, an annual honor given to an individual who has made outstanding efforts to make newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.