COLLEGE PARK — The University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism has selected its 2026 Hall of Fame class, featuring five outstanding alums and faculty honoree George Solomon.
The new class of alums includes Tim Brant (B.S. ’73), Monica Norton (B.S. ’87), Joe Palazzolo (M.J. ’06), Joanna (Falcone) Sullivan (B.S. ’87) and the late Lee Walczak (B.S. ’68). The 2026 Hall of Fame class will be inducted March 31 at Knight Hall. Registration for the event is open at go.umd.edu/MerrillHall26.
“These remarkable journalists showcase the best of what Merrill College has to offer and we’re proud to have them joining our Hall of Fame,” Merrill College Dean Rafael Lorente said. “This year, we honor one of the nation and region’s most renowned sports broadcasters, an award-winning Washington Post deputy managing editor, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a longtime leading editor with American City Business Journals and Baltimore Business Journal, and an accomplished BusinessWeek reporter and editor.
“I am especially excited to recognize the wonderful George Solomon, the former Post sports editor who fundamentally changed us for the better by supercharging sports journalism at Merrill College as founding director of our Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism.”
The class was recommended by a Hall of Fame committee that consists of members of the college’s Board of Visitors and Journalism Alumni Network, as well as students, staff and faculty.
Induction into the Hall of Fame recognizes an alum honoree’s lifetime professional achievement in their chosen field and a faculty honoree’s tremendous contributions to Merrill College, both reflecting a sustained record of excellence, leadership and impact. This will be the fifth class inducted into the Merrill College Hall of Fame.
2026 Hall of Famers
Tim Brant
Tim Brant, a 1973 University of Maryland journalism graduate, spent five decades shaping American sports broadcasting.
A standout linebacker with the Terps, Brant’s journalism career began at WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., after a brief stint as a player with the Washington football team. By 1976, Brant became the “Voice of the Maryland Terrapins,” calling football and basketball on WMAL. He later became sports director at WJLA (ABC7).
In 1982, ABC Sports hired him as one of the first national sideline reporters in television history. Brant shined on ABC’s “College Football Game of the Week” and “Wide World of Sports.” He also covered major events, such as the 1983 World Series and 1984 Olympics.
Brant joined CBS Sports in 1986, where he teamed with Jim Nantz on the college football national game of the week and contributed to CBS’ college basketball coverage alongside Billy Packer and Bill Raftery.
In 1991, Brant returned to ABC and partnered with Hall of Famer Keith Jackson on college football broadcasts.
In 2002, he returned to WJLA as vice president of sports. With the ACC Network, he served as lead voice through 2015.
Brant’s work has earned Emmy Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award, Sportscaster of the Year honors and numerous distinctions from the Touchdown Club of Washington, including its 2025 Career Achievement Award. He also was named the M Club’s Distinguished Citizen of the Year. He served as Merrill College’s commencement speaker in 2002 and was previously a member of the college’s board of visitors.
Monica Norton
Monica Norton is a former deputy managing editor of The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2005 as an assistant Maryland editor overseeing education, moved to the financial staff as technology editor, and returned to the metro desk as day editor and later deputy local editor.
In 2021, she was named a deputy managing editor, leading news coverage and shaping high-level enterprise. She led coverage of a project on the 1968 riots, which received the National Press Foundation's Innovative Storytelling Award, and on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans who were captured and brought as slaves to what would become America. She helped run coverage of some of the most tumultuous events of recent years, including the racial justice protests after the killing of George Floyd and the Jan. 6 insurrection. The latter was part of a body of work which received the Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Before joining The Post, Norton worked at Newsday on Long Island and in the Washington bureau, where she helped oversee the coverage of the 2004 Democratic and Republican conventions. She also worked as an editor at Gannett Suburban Newspapers in Westchester County, New York.
Norton began her journalism career in her hometown of Baltimore at The Evening Sun. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland in 1987.
Joe Palazzolo
Joe Palazzolo is a New York-based reporter on the investigations team at The Wall Street Journal. His work has uncovered abuses of power in companies, boardrooms and public agencies, conflicts of interest in the federal government and bribes by companies seeking business overseas.
Palazzolo, a St. Louis native, is a 2006 master's graduate of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. He joined The Journal in 2010 from trade publication Main Justice, where he covered the U.S. Department of Justice. Before moving to the investigations team in 2019, he reported on national legal affairs for The Journal for seven years, focusing on the nation's prisons, courts, gun laws and law enforcement.
Palazzolo led a group of Journal reporters who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for uncovering payments made on behalf of Donald Trump to silence women in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
He shared a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series of articles revealing federal officials in Democratic and Republican administrations were heavily invested in companies they regulated, and Palazzolo was a member of a team that won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of Elon Musk.
He is a two-time winner of Barlett & Steele awards for investigative business journalism. The most recent was for a 2021 series that showed more than a hundred federal judges broke the law by overseeing cases involving companies in which they held a financial interest.
He is the co-author of “The Fixers: The Bottom-feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President.”
George Solomon
George Solomon was assistant managing editor for sports at The Washington Post from 1975 to 2003. He continued as a Sunday columnist until 2009. At The Post, Solomon was previously assistant sports editor, a columnist and a reporter covering the Washington football team, the NFL and college sports.
He came to the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in 2003 and was named professor of the practice in 2008. He started The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism in 2011 and became its founding director. He retired in 2020.
After his retirement as Post sports editor, he was named ombudsman for ESPN in 2005, becoming the first person to serve in that newly created position for the network. He also co-edited “All Those Mornings … At the Post” — a 2005 anthology of the work of late Post columnist Shirley Povich.
Earlier in his career, Solomon worked for the NCAA’s publications department, the New York Post (news aide), Fort Lauderdale News (reporter) and the Sun Sentinel (sports editor). He joined the Washington Daily News in 1970 as a sports reporter and columnist. When the paper closed in 1972, he joined The Post.
Solomon was awarded the Eugene Meyer Award for distinguished service to The Post in 1999 and won the Associated Press Sports Editors Red Smith Award in 2003 for his contributions to the field of sports journalism. He was also honored that year by the National Association of Black Journalists and the Association of Women in Sports Media. He was inducted into the Greater Washington Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Washington Sports Hall of Fame in 2014. He was named to the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications’ Ring of Honor in 2024.
Joanna (Falcone) Sullivan
Joanna (Falcone) Sullivan, a 1987 graduate of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, is a senior editor on American City Business Journals’ news and content team. In this national role, she helps guide editorial strategy and supports 13 business journals across the country.
Before joining the corporate team, Sullivan served more than 25 years as editor-in-chief of Baltimore Business Journal, one of ACBJ’s flagship publications. Earlier in her career, she worked as a reporter and editor at American Banker in Washington, D.C.; The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland — where she worked for Philip Merrill; and The Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland.
Sullivan recently gained attention as the co-author of the true crime book, “Marple's Gretchen Harrington Tragedy: Kidnapping, Murder and Innocence Lost in Suburban Philadelphia.” The revised edition of the book chronicles the arrest and trial of Rev. David Zandstra, the pastor of the Bible church attended by Gretchen Harrington before her 1975 murder. His arrest came shortly after the release of the first edition.
A Philadelphia native, Sullivan has made Baltimore her home for the past 30 years. She lives in the city with her husband, Michael, and their son, Max.
Lee Walczak
Leon “Lee” Walczak was Washington bureau chief at BusinessWeek and political news editor at Bloomberg News before his untimely passing from pancreatic cancer in 2008 at 61.
Born in Moscow to Polish parents, Walczak emigrated to Washington in the late 1940s when his father was assigned to the Polish Embassy in the United States. He began his career in 1969 as an editorial trainee in the Washington bureau of McGraw-Hill World News, which included BusinessWeek. He worked in the New York bureau in 1970-71, before returning to Washington. He became White House correspondent in 1974, bureau chief in 1986 and senior editor in 1989.
Walczak covered seven presidents, won a first-place Clarion Award in 2002 for BusinessWeek's breaking news coverage of Sept. 11, 2001, and was a finalist for a George Polk Award for his BusinessWeek story on the 1994 Republican takeover of the House and Senate and its implications for President Bill Clinton.
He earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland in 1968 and a master's degree in magazine journalism from the University of Missouri in 1970. Walczak is survived by his wife Maria Recio Walczak and two daughters.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land, Communications Manager
joshland@umd.edu