"They said 'Sorry boys, we're going public,'" Boyd recalls. "It was a frustrating thing for us."

But Boyd's touch of compassion-to the surprise of many in the Washington establishment-did not go unnoticed by the Pulitzer committee. The committee bestowed one of its coveted prizes on Boyd and in doing so, tipped its hat to him for his judicious restraint, a trait that Broder concedes is "not usually acknowledged in journalism."

Boyd, who once chronicled the ins and outs of cattle smuggling and shrimp boats for a small paper deep in Louisiana's Cajun country, rose quickly in Washington to become bureau chief.

During his 20 years at the helm of the Knight Ridder bureau, Boyd presided over an expansion in which the D.C. team grew from a staff of seven to more than 50.

"He was the antithesis of the sort of ego-driven Washington bureau chief who stepped all over his reporters," says James McCartney, a 25-year Knight Ridder veteran columnist and reporter who worked under Boyd. "He was the best editor I ever had."

According to McCartney, Boyd's linguistic gift as a political storyteller was closely connected to his "low key" nature.

"The hallmark of Bob Boyd's writing," McCartney says, "is that he can explain in simple and understandable language very un-understandable things."

Boyd's understated style-McCartney remembers one day walking into his own office to find the bureau chief vacuuming it-never compromised the tenacity of his reporting, according to his colleagues and competitors. Washington Post reporter David Broder says his colleague brings tremendous energy to his work.

"He's exactly the same age he was when he graduated," Broder says. "He has as much or more enthusiasm for reporting than anyone I've ever met."

Broder adds that he believes Boyd is one of the most honest and fair reporters in Washington.

"He's totally independent," Broder says. "I have no idea what his politics may be, and I've known him for 30 years."

But in the past six years, politics have played a much smaller role in Boyd's reporting.

"The campaigns got to be less fun because the press corps got so swollen, you lost close contact with the candidate and his senior people," Boyd says.

When he began covering presidential campaigns, Boyd says he routinely got to talk with candidates and their senior supporters around the bars of New Hampshire.

"You'd get on the airplane with Goldwater, and maybe there'd be 20 reporters," Boyd says. "He'd come back and there was a chance to talk to you informally. There was a sense of closeness that's kind of lost now in this monster corps."