A staff writer with The Post since 1995, she covered the Maryland suburbs, higher education and later the West Coast as an L.A.-based reporter before serving eight years as the "Reliable Source" co-columnist.

Argetsinger was named an Echols Scholar, an honors program for incoming students at the University of Virginia.

Argetsinger started her journalism career in 1991 in the Illinois/Iowa Quad Cities, at the Rock Island Argus and Moline Daily Dispatch.

She joined The Washington Post in December 1995 as a Metro staff writer in the paper's Annapolis bureau, and later covered higher education.

Just prior to her "Reliable Source" appointment in 2005, she covered the West Coast for the Post's National staff as Los Angeles bureau chief.