Reporter and biographer Lou Cannon passed away in Santa Barbara on Friday at 92, leaving behind a long legacy in journalism, including decades of reporting on Ronald Reagan.
Cannon was well known for his in-depth coverage of Reagan, chronicling his journey from California governor all the way to the White House, and published four books about the 40th president.
Cannon was born in New York on June 3, 1933, to Jack and Irene Cannon. He grew up in Reno, Nevada before attending the University of Nevada, Reno, from 1950 to 1951 before going on to San Francisco State College in 1951-52, according to the New York Times.
He joined the Army in 1953, serving through 1954 before starting his career in journalism in 1957.
He worked at several small California newspapers, working as the managing editor for the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek in the early 1960s before going on to the San Jose Mercury News as a copy editor and then becoming a reporter.
He became the state bureau chief in 1965-69 in Sacramento, where he began reporting on Reagan during his first term as governor of California, the Times reported.
Cannon’s first book, “Ronnie and Jesse: A Political Odyssey,” published in 1969, was a biography on Reagan and Jesse Unruh, the Democratic speaker of the California Assembly who lost to Reagan in the gubernatorial election.
Cannon joined the Washington Post in 1972 as a political reporter, and spent the next 26 years as the White House correspondent, reporting on the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Reagan.
In 1991, he published “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime” that analyzed the president’s political career.
After leaving the Post in 1999, he wrote “Ronald Reagan: The Presidential Portfolio” (2001), “Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power” (2003), and “Reagan’s Disciple: George W. Bush’s Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy” (2008) with his son, Carl Cannon.
He also wrote “Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the L.A.P.D.” published in 1998, covering the beating of King by LAPD officers and the riots and criminal trials that followed.
He would trade the bustling political city for the sunny skies and ocean views of Summerland, teaching at UC Santa Barbara and writing about state legislation and politics as a columnist for State Net Capitol Journal, which were republished on Noozhawk until he retired at the end of 2021.
Cannon had four children, Carl, David, Judith, and Jackson, with Virginia Oprian, whom he married in 1953 and divorced in 1983 before marrying Mary Shinkwin in 1985.
His son, Carl Cannon, is a Washington reporter and executive editor of the political news website RealClearPolitics.
Carl Cannon confirmed that his father died in a hospice facility in Santa Barbara due to complications from a stroke, according to the Times.
Services were pending.