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Wells Fargo Program on Ethics - 1/31/2006

Thomas M. DeFrank
One of Washington’s most respected President-watchers, Tom DeFrank is a veteran political journalist and author. As Washington bureau chief for The New York Daily News, he directs coverage of the nation’s Capital for the country’s second-largest metropolitan daily newspaper.

The 2000 Presidential campaign was the ninth he has covered in 34 years as a Washington reporter. He has reported on the resignation of one President, the impeachment of a second, and was an eyewitness to two assassination attempts against a third.

Mr. DeFrank was Newsweek’s senior White House correspondent for a quarter century and also served as deputy chief of Newsweek’s Washington bureau for twelve years. Assigned to the White House since 1970, DeFrank has reported on the activities of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.

Mr. DeFrank has appeared on several public affairs television programs, including Washington Week in Review, Larry King Live, The Beltway Boys, The Charlie Rose Show, The Phil Donahue Show, CNN Inside Politics and C-SPAN.

A native of Texas, Mr. DeFrank is a graduate of Texas A&M University, where he edited the campus newspaper.

Gene Gibbons
Gene Gibbons, executive editor of the online news publication Stateline.org, covered six presidents and nearly three decades of political developments during a 29-year career as a wire service journalist. Mr. Gibbons was Reuters' chief White House correspondent from 1985 to 1997 and before joining Reuters, spent 16 years with United Press International covering Congress, politics and the White House.

He served on the board of the White House Correspondents Association and is a past president of the Radio-Television Correspondents Association. In 1992, he was a panelist in the third Clinton-Bush-Perot presidential campaign debate. The debate was seen on television by 97 million Americans - the largest audience ever for a political broadcast. He has also appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN's Inside Politics, C-SPAN's Journalists' Roundtable and numerous other broadcasts.

Before entering journalism, Mr. Gibbons was a U.S. Army officer and later served as a press aide to Vice President Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential campaign.

Gibbons and his wife Lynn have four grown children. His pastimes include reading, hiking and sailing. A veteran of numerous long distance ocean races, he is a volunteer coach for the U.S. Naval Academy varsity offshore sailing team and has written for SAIL, Sailing World, and other sailing-related publications.