Acclaimed veteran journalist and Arlington Democratic activist Charles Cragg Hines, 78, died last week after a lengthy illness.

Born in Dallas, Texas, on June 19, 1945, he graduated from North Texas State University with a bachelor of science degree in journalism in 1967 and commenced a 35 year career at the Houston Chronicle in 1972, retiring in 2007 after serving as Washington D.C. bureau chief and White House correspondent until 2000 and columnist until 2007. In 2001 Washingtonian magazine named him one of the Top 50 Journalists in Washington, and AdWeek magazine named him “One of the great Washington monuments in the journalism community.”

Following his retirement, he became an avid Democratic Party activist in Arlington, honored with the Outstanding Democrat Award from that county’s Democratic committee in 2019.

In the last year, Hinies became a regular contributor to the informal weekly news sharing lunches hosted by the Falls Church News-Press, having known the News-Press’ Nicholas Benton since the 1980s.

He was a particularly strong advocate for the election of current Arlington-Falls Church Commonwealth Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, who first won in a hotly contested primary race in 2019. About Hines, Dehghani-Tafti wrote on her Facebook page last week, “He was a great man. Standing by his hospital bed last week, I wondered what those of us in public life will now do without him. I wish for one more call to ask him to help me find the right words to say how much he was loved.”

Virginia State Sen. Adam Ebbin remarked online, “Remembering Cragg Hines tonight… Raconteur, advisor, foodie, wordsmith and most importantly a great friend.”
“Cragg was a Democrat’s Democrat,” wrote Jimmy Lewis, vice chair for Communications of the LGBT+ Democrats of Virginia. “He spent his life adding seats to the table by reaching back and empowering young and diverse leaders. He will be greatly missed, but his legacy of a more inclusive party will never be forgotten.”

In August 2022 Hines wrote a sharp piece on a local pro-Democratic website an essay on “The Racist History of Single Family Zoning” that contributed to the heated and still ongoing debate in Arlington on “missing middle” housing.

In his last days, the word was conveyed that as he entered hospice care, “Cragg and his husband of 43 years Bruce ask for peace.”