The writer Michael Sean Comerford joined the Daily Herald in 1996 after covering the fall of the communist bloc for newspapers in Moscow and Budapest. A 20-year veteran journalist, Comerford is a Knight Center Fellow. A five-time Peter Lisagor Award finalist, he won the award in 1989 for feature writing and was part of team that won a 1990 AP award for education reporting. After a year at the National University of Ireland-Cork, he received a bachelor's degree from Marquette University and a master's from Northwestern University's Medill School.

The photographer Mark R. Welsh joined the Daily Herald in 1987 after working at several other papers. His photos have appeared nationally in Life and Time magazines, Upper Deck, and on the Associated Press wires. He won a first-place award in the National Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year contest for sports action and first-place for a Pro Football Hall of Fame contest. That image hangs in the Football Hall of Fame museum in Canton, Ohio. Welsh also has won a Lisagor for a photo story and several state awards. He has a bachelor's degree from Illinois State University.