Jo Mannies, honored for 32-year career at the P-D, will continue to blog right here
My colleague and friend Jo Mannies, Missouri’s best political reporter, has decided to retire from fulltime work at the newspaper.
But — thank God! — she’s not leaving the Post-Dispatch or Political Fix, the state’s leading political blog, which she founded.
Jo will continue to call Political Fix her online home, and she’ll continue to write her signature weekly column for the newspaper each Thursday. Because she will no longer be a full-time P-D employee, Jo expects to write on a range of topics in other places, too. She might even author a book or two. And you will continue to see her on television and hear her on the radio - in fact, she’ll be on Mark Reardon’s radio talk show over on KMOX today around 3 p.m.
Jo began her Post-Dispatch career in 1976. You can see her in the newsroom that year here:
Jo Mannies and her colleagues in the Post newsroom in 1976
In her time here she was, briefly, the area’s second-ever female sports reporter, and she served in the Washington D.C. bureau. She’s covered politics fulltime from St. Louis since 1990. She has interviewed, among many others, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain. And she has personified the very best values in journalism - truth, fairness, diligence and grace. As she said at a gathering in the newsroom yesterday to honor her, “It’s all about the First Amendment.”
Post-Dispatch political editor Christopher Ave, left, and reporter Jake Wagman, right, congratulate Jo Mannies on Tuesday
In an era of “info-tainment” and media uncertainty, I suggest we take a moment to honor someone who has always pursued the truth, who always sought to explore and explain the political process. It’s been great working with you, Jo - and here’s to many more years of it.
Political editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 
I’m glad Jo will remain active on this blog. I’ll miss her other more extensive reporting. As many have already noted, she’s a class act.