14 Facts About Richard Oppel

Richard Oppel was interim editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly, an Austin-based publication with a statewide readership of 2.4 million.

Richard Oppel graduated from Northeast High School in St Petersburg, Florida, in 1960 and joined the US Marine Corps Reserve, serving six months on active duty.

In 1963, Richard Oppel began his news career as a reporter covering police and rural news at The Tampa Tribune.

Richard Oppel joined The Associated Press in 1965 in the state capital bureau in Tallahassee.

Richard Oppel became state news editor in Miami in 1972, and in 1973 was promoted to Michigan chief of bureau in Detroit.

In 1978, Richard Oppel was named editor and vice president of The Charlotte Observer, the largest newspaper in the Carolinas.

Richard Oppel served in that position until 1993, when he took over the Knight-Ridder Washington bureau as chief of bureau.

Richard Oppel left Knight-Ridder to become editor and vice president of the Austin American-Statesman in 1995, retiring from that position in 2008.

On Feb 1,2018, Richard Oppel was hired by owner Paul Hobby to serve as ombudsman of Texas Monthly after Tim Taliaferro, then the editor-in-chief, drew media criticism for allegedly entering into an arrangement with the dating app Bumble.

In March 2020, Richard Oppel was named editorial advisor of a digital news start-up, Austonia.

Richard Oppel has served as vice president of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, president of the North Carolina Press Association, and chair of the North Carolina First Amendment Association.

Richard Oppel served as a member and then chair of the Journalism Advisory Committee of the Knight Foundation, a $2 billion foundation that distributed grants to journalism organizations and supported the transformation of the industry toward digital news with high standards.

Richard Oppel was given the Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of South Florida in 1979, and received the 1987 Ben Bradlee Editor of the Year Award from the National Press Association.

Richard Oppel is married to Carol Van Aken Richard Oppel, a licensed lay preacher in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.