Russell W. Freeburg (born March 4, 1923) is an American journalist who was a former managing editor and Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune.
He served as a staff sergeant with the 8th armored division in World War II in the Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe campaigns.
Freeburg began his journalism career in 1948 at the City News Bureau of Chicago as a police and criminal courts reporter.
After covering Chicago’s western suburbs for two years, he was assigned to the financial news section in 1952 and transferred to the city room in 1957.
A year later, he was moved to Washington, where through the next decade he covered the economics beat, the Justice Department, the White House and presidential political campaigns.