John C. Henry

John C. Henry has been a Reporters Committee Steering Committee member since 1985.

Henry currently is a freelance writer and editor after retiring from The Associated Press, where he worked as news editor in the wire service’s Washington Bureau. He previously worked for the Houston Chronicle as Washington Bureau chief, political editor and night city editor. He worked as a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman in Texas and for the legendary Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Mississippi.

During his career in Texas, he was a member of the board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and a co-founder of Texas Media, a now defunct group organized to lobby the state legislature for more public and press access to government meetings and records. He is a longtime member of the Society of Professional Journalists, the United States Golf Association and Trout Unlimited.

He is an US Air Force veteran and a graduate of public schools in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. Henry is a graduate of Mississippi State University and spent a year at Stanford University as a John S. Knight journalism fellow.

He is married to journalist-musician Patricia Henry. They live in Washington, D.C.