Linda Lockhart

Linda Lockhart, 72, longtime St. Louis journalist, died May 4, 2025, from complications from cancer.

A St. Louis native, she attended the Missouri School of Journalism on a full ride scholarship the Post-Dispatch offered at the time to outstanding Black students. After earning her degree, she joined the Post-Dispatch in 1974, reporting on police and education.

In the 1980s, she began a 17-year tour of upper Midwest newspapers, working stints at the Milwaukee Journal, St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, and the Wisconsin State Journal and the Capital Times in Madison, Wisc.

In 1998, she returned to the Post-Dispatch as a Metro section editor, editorial writer and an editor on the national and international news desk. She retired from the newspaper in 2007 but after former Post-Dispatch staffers started the St. Louis Beacon, Lockhart was asked to join them, which she did through her second retirement in 2019. She did spend three months during the pandemic editing the St. Louis American before she retired for a final time.

Lockhart helped found the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists, which advocates for Black reporters and editors and helped to train new ones. She was recognized as a “Living Legend” by the St. Louis Black journalists chapter in 2014 and was inducted into the St. Louis Media History Foundation Hall of Fame in the print category in 2024.

In addition to her husband, Steve Korris, she is survived by two children, Rachel and Paul; two grandchildren; and many more family, friends and colleagues throughout the journalism profession.