A Pulitzer Prize winning editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal was found dead in his apartment on Thursday night, the newspaper says.
Joseph Rago, 34, was discovered by authorities at around 7:40 p.m. in his home in Manhattan after he failed to show up for work earlier in the day, according to police.
He had no obvious signs of trauma and was pronounced dead at the scene, cops said.
His cause of death was still being determined by the medical examiner on Friday as cops continued to investigate.
Editor Paul Gigot, who runs the Journal’s editorial page, had alerted the paper’s security staff of Rago’s missed day — and they then called the police, the outlet reports.
“It is with a heavy heart that we confirm the death of Joseph Rago, a splendid journalist and beloved friend,” Gigot said in a statement. “Joe and his family are in our thoughts and prayers, and we will be celebrating his work in Saturday’s paper.”
Rago, who won the Pulitzer in 2011, was best known for his work on health care — penning “well-crafted, against-the-grain editorials challenging the health care reform advocated by President Obama,” according to the Journal.
Over the years, he garnered a reputation for being well-sourced and extremely well-liked among his peers as he worked to get every side to a story.
“He was the kind of person you liked to have a beer with — I know that’s a cliché, but it’s actually true,” Gigot said, adding that through his editorials, Rago had an “enormous impact on events in Washington.”
After graduating from Dartmouth College, the young man arrived at the Journal in 2005 as a summer intern before eventually landing a permanent position.
“I immediately hired him,” Gigot said. “He was just too good not to hire.”
Rago eventually rose through the ranks — going from assitant editor of the op-ed page to editorial writer to editorial board member.
“Joe was an intellectual fighter but there was also just a wonderful sweetness about him,” explained Peter Robinson, former speechwriter to President Reagan and one of the writer’s longtime friends.
Rago was also known to present many facts in his pieces, so that readers could understand where he was coming from.
“That’s very rare,” Robinson said. “Joe was never just mouthing off. He was doing the hard work of real journalism.”