Kovach covered the civil rights movement, politics and Appalachian poverty for the Nashville Tennessean from 1960 to 1967.
In 1965, he was involved in a fight for public access to the legislature, when he refused to leave a committee hearing following a call for executive session.
After a tempestuous two-year tenure as editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, when his staff won two Pulitzer Prizes and were finalists for several others, Kovach moved on to Harvard University in 1989 as a fellow, then curator, of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
Kovach is the North American representative and chair of the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) Advisory Committee.
In 2000, Kovach received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College.