At the time of his death,[1] he was the San Paolo Professor Emeritus of International Journalism at Columbia University, where he also served as administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes from 1993 to 2002.

He grew up in Queens and The Bronx and graduated from Evander Childs High School in the latter borough in 1939.

[2] After this stint with the army, he joined the International News Service in Manila, and was assigned to China to cover the civil war in that region.

[4] His partnership with Rosenthal was credited with many innovations at the newspaper, including the introduction of feature sections and magazine supplements, facilitating unprecedented commercial success.

In this position, his mandate was to focus on improving the journalistic quality of the then 32 regional associate newspapers owned by the Times Company.

[2] In 1993, he left The New York Times to join the Pulitzer Prize Board as its secretary and administrator.

[11][12] New York Times journalist Robert D. McFadden stated that Topping was "one of the most accomplished foreign correspondents of his generation and a newsroom leader under the renowned executive editor A. M.