Russell Carollo

Russell John Carollo (March 16, 1955 – December 19, 2018) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.

Reared in Lacombe in St. Tammany Parish in suburban, New Orleans, Louisiana, Carollo obtained degrees in journalism from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and in history from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. He began his career at The Daily Times in Slidell, also in St. Tammany Parish and worked as a reporter for The Texarkana Gazette, owned by the Hussman family of Camden, Arkansas. He then was employed at The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi and The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. He then settled into a long-term assignment with the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. He was nominated as a Pulitzer finalist four times. While in Dayton, he also won the Goldsmith Award from Harvard University, two White House Correspondents' Association and six awards for reporting and editing. His investigations included the illegal recruitment of foreign athletes to American schools and the dangers that Peace Corps volunteers face in their work. He filed a large number of Freedom of Information requests and often spotted details in the records which other reporters had missed. Near the end of his career, he was on the staffs of The Sacramento Bee in Sacramento, California, and the Los Angeles Times in Los Angeles, California. His work overall was considered painstakingly accurate.

He traveled to some twenty countries and died in Switzerland at the age of sixty-three. He was one of four children of Victor and Norma Carollo. His survivors included his son, Brett, and a daughter, Tonya, and four grandchildren, and three siblings, Vickie, Laura, and Frankie.