Gail Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an Op-Ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times’s editorial page. At the beginning of 2007, she stepped down and began a leave in order to finish her latest book, When Everything Changed. She returned to the Times as a columnist in July 2007. Before joining the New York Times, Collins was a columnist at Newsday and the New York Daily News, and a reporter for United Press International.

Nicholas Goldberg is editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial pages. In the past, he has served as deputy editor of the editorial pages, edited the paper's Sunday Opinion section, and served as Op-Ed page editor. He is a former Middle East bureau chief for Newsday. In that position, he covered many major stories including the peace process in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza; presidential elections inIran; arms monitoring in Iraq; famine in Sudan; and civil war in Algeria. From 1992 to 1995, he was the paper's statehouse bureau chief, covering the administrations of Governors Mario Cuomo and George Pataki. He also covered Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.