Chronicle bureau chief loomed large in D.C.
more than three decades, Cragg Hines filled the pages of the Houston Chronicle with the latest national political news from Washington, D.C., and beyond.
The former Washington bureau chief had an extensive knowledge of the political world, colleagues said. But his expertise extended beyond the halls of Capitol Hill.
He always had the best recommendations about where to eat when traveling on the road for an assignment.
“You would cover the events of the day and then Cragg would know exactly the best restaurant in town to go out to,” said Bennett Roth, a former journalist at the Chronicle’s Washington Bureau.
Hines covered seven presidents during his 35 years at the newspaper. He was first a correspondent before taking over as Washington bureau chief and then as Washington columnist.
His writing style, described by colleagues as witty and sophisticated, matched well with his sense of humor and charismatic personality.
Hines died Saturday. He was 78.
“He was the closest thing, I think, the Chronicle has ever had to a national political correspondent who was known as an inFor stitution to the literati, to the other Washington journalists and then back in Houston,” said former Houston Chronicle reporter Alan Bernstein.
Hines was born in 1945. A native Texan, he graduated from Highland Park High School and then the University of North Texas in 1967. He worked for United Press International in Little Rock, Dallas and Austin while also spending one year as a Congressional Fellow.
He joined the Houston Chronicle at its Washington bureau in 1972. His first week coincided with the Watergate break-in.
The Chronicle promoted Hines to Bureau Chief in 1983, a role he held for 17 years. He became the paper’s Washington columnist in 2000 before retiring from the paper in 2007.
“His keen political instincts … enabled him to write really masterful columns, in my view, and news stories,” former Chronicle reporter Nene Foxhall said.
His reign as bureau chief came during an era when bureau chiefs could direct and shape coverage much more than today, Roth said, describing them sincerely as “Grand Poobahs.” He put Hines in that group of notable bureau chiefs of the era.
The Chronicle editors trusted Hines and his judgment, allowing him and other Washington reporters to pursue the stories they felt were most interesting and timely.
His assignments took him all across the country and the world. He watched Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall in 1987 tell Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down; he traveled to the Middle East for the first Gulf War.
Among the presidents he covered were two Texans: George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Roth remembers George H. W. Bush sending Hines notes commenting on coverage in the Chronicle. Another time, Roth recalls George W. Bush coming to an event and sitting on Hines’ lap.
Roth said Hines gave the Chronicle “a real presence” in the nation’s capital. Hines was named one of D.C’s top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian in 2001.
“The Dallas-born columnist for the Houston Chronicle sports a raccoon coat on cold days — he passed on wading into the protest crowd on Inauguration Day for the fur’s sake,” the write-up read. “Hines had great access during the first Bush administration and bids to do the same in the second. Among the closest readers of his items is First Mum Barbara Bush, who has stopped Hines on the street to let him know what she thinks of the Chronicle.”
Hines was a member of the Gridiron Club, a journalism organization in Washington, D.C., performing at its annual dinner.
After he retired from the Chronicle, Hines wrote freelance stories for the Washingtonian and became a Democratic activist.
“Other papers had Washington bureau correspondents before,” Bernstein said. “But Cragg lived larger than any of them.”