Barry Sussman is editor of the Nieman Foundation’s Watchdog Project and the Web site www.niemanwatchdog.org. Mainly the project encourages more informed reporting by putting reporters and editors in contact with experts on important public policy issues. Online since 2004, the site has as contributors a long list of journalists, academics and citizen advocates. It has dealt frequently with Iraq, Iran, election security, energy, missile defense, health care, the telecom industry, the economy, politics, the news media, and numerous other issues.

The site also includes occasional blogs by about a dozen veteran journalists and a section that calls attention to good watchdog stories.

Sussman was a Washington Post editor for 22 years, holding the positions of city editor, special Watergate editor, special projects editor/national, pollster and public opinion analyst and columnist for the Post’s National Weekly Edition. He was in charge of the Post/ABC News poll for the Post during its first six years, designing and analyzing surveys and writing most of the resulting news stories.

He is the author of three books. The first, “The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate,” was named one of the best books of the year in 1974 by the New York Times; years after its publication John Dean called it “the best book on Watergate.” His other books are “What Americans Really Think,” published in 1987 and dealing in the main with public opinion and politics; and “Maverick, A Life in Politics,” written with Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., and published in 1995.

Sussman also has been a consultant to newspapers in Europe and Latin America. He and his wife, the former Peggy Earhart, live in Potomac, Md. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.