Journalist and former congressional candidate Ray Hartmann died Thursday in a car crash. He was 73.
Attorney Andy Leonard, a representative for Hartmann’s family, says Hartmann was killed when a wheel came off of a semi and struck his car on I-64 just west of 270. The truck driver is reportedly cooperating with the investigation.
Hartmann was known as a staunch liberal on Donnybrook, the Nine PBS show he helped to co-found in 1987, but he started his career in public life by writing speeches for U.S. Senator Kit Bond, a Republican. He started the Riverfront Times not long after, at age 24. Originally a community newspaper for people who worked downtown, the RFT found a new voice after Hartmann connected with people who’d started alt-weeklies in other cities as anti-establishment alternatives to mainstream media. As a columnist, Hartmann was unrelenting in his criticism of regional boosters who wanted to spend tax money on projects he considered dubious.
After Hartmann sold the publication to Phoenix-based New Times in 1998 for a reported $15 million, he resurrected St. Louis Magazine, where he served as publisher (and columnist) before selling it in 2019.
Ray Hartmann, a longtime Donnybrook panelist, 2024 MO-02 Democratic candidate, and founder of Riverfront Times (RFT) and St. Louis Magazine, dies at the age of 73 in a car crash on I-64 just west of I-270 in Missouri.
