Winifred Sweet Black Bonfils (October 14, 1863, Chilton, Wisconsin – May 25, 1936, San Francisco, California) was an American reporter and columnist,[1] under the pen name Annie Laurie, a reference to her mother's favorite lullaby.

[3] Bonfils, as Winifred Black and as Annie Laurie, wrote celebrity and sensational articles, the kind sought after by William Randolph Hearst's news syndicate , and for the San Francisco Examiner.

She covered the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and had a front row seat at the murder trial of Harry Thaw in 1907.

Her coverage of the trial and descriptions of Thaw's wife Evelyn Nesbit earned her the label of "sob sister".

Winifred grew up on a farm in Lombard, Illinois, attending a number of private schools in the Chicago area.

After attempting a career as an actress, became a journalist, writing for a short time in Chicago before landing a job at the San Francisco Examiner in 1890.

[5] She was married in June 1891 to Orlow Black, a fellow worker on a morning San Francisco newspaper.

The announcement in The San Bernardino Daily Sun reported: To the moment of her death she insisted she was neither a "sob sister nor a special writer".