OpEdNews Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser passed away on July 30, 2024 in Skokie, Illinois, after a long illness. She started writing for OpEdNews in 2005, submitting over a thousand articles and nearly 5,000 article links, which have had over three million views.
OpEdNews Editor-in-Chief, Rob Kall, said, "Joan was an essential part of the evolution and growth of OpEdNews who also became a good friend...I miss her."
In 2013, when Joan's readership hit one million page views in 2013, OpEdNews Managing Editor Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her in Million Milestone for OEN's Joan B.
Joan was a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which "since 2005 existed for the purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform." Joan had been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews beginning in December 2005.
OpEdNews earned the 2013 Pillar Award for Community Activism and Journalism at the National Whistleblowers Conference in great part due to Joan's 27 articles and interviews in her whistleblower series which included: Edward Snowden, the Don Siegelman case and the related Gary White case of political assassinations, air safety, prisons, the pharmaceutical industry, and more.
After working together by phone on our articles over the years, Joan and I finally met in person when we attended the 2017 Images and Voices of Hope (IVOH) Media Summit and Retreat together at Peace Village in New York.

OEN Managing Ed Meryl Ann Butler and OEN Senior Ed Joan Brunwasser at IVOH, 2017
(Image by Meryl Ann Butler) Details DMCA
We had a great time at the conference, and afterwards we took a side trip for lunch to the iconic Woodstock, NY, and then paid a fun visit to the largest kaleidoscope in the world at the Emerson Resort & Spa in Mount Temper, NY, on the way to dropping Joan off at the Albany airport.
The kaleidoscope is housed in an old silo which is 60 feet tall and 37.5 feet in diameter-- you can stand or lie on the floor to experience the stunning "Kaleidoshow" of magical moving colors, we loved it! And they had an open-ended kaleidoscope for photo ops!
Joan's articles on OpEdNews garnered high praise and great respect.
Medical whistleblower Dr. Jim Murtagh writes: "We owe a staggering debt to the new generation of whistleblowers- I call them gen-X- Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jesselyn Radack, and to OpEdNews, to Rob Kall and Joan Brunwasser."
Roger Shuler, an embattled journalistic colleague in Alabama, wrote: "For my money, Joan Brunwasser of OpEdNews is one of the most astute interviewers in the world of progressive online news" Anyone who cares about justice--from any point on the political spectrum--would be wise to check out Joan's work."
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