Tom Diemer teaches in the Washington program of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He covered Rhodes for more than a decade as a reporter for The Associated Press and as the Columbus bureau chief for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Diemer is the author of Fighting the Unbeatable Foe: Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, the Washington Years (The Kent State University Press, 2009).

Lee Leonard reported at the Ohio Statehouse for UPI and the Columbus Dispatch for 36 years until his retirement in 2005. Leonard contributed the chapter on James A. Rhodes's second eight years as governor for Ohio Politics (The Kent State University Press, 1994). He also compiled A Columnist's View of Capitol Square.

The late Richard G. Zimmerman is the author of the Michael V. DeSalle biography Call Me Mike (The Kent State University Press, 2003) and Plain Dealing (The Kent State University Press, 2006). Zimmerman, who died in 2008 while working on this book, reported in Columbus for Horvitz Newspapers and the Plain Dealer.