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With his retirement, Novak ends the longest-running currently active syndicated political opinion column in the country. Novak had taken over the title earlier this year with the death of William F. Buckley. With 46 years
of continuous production, Novak's column ranks behind only those of Buckley and David Lawrence, the U.S. News & World Report founder who wrote for 57 years, as the longest-running political column in American history.

"Robert D. Novak is a legend in the world of political journalism, and his insights and analyses are going to be dearly missed," said Creators Syndicate President Richard S. Newcombe. "For nearly 20 years, Creators Syndicate has had the honor of working with Mr. Novak, and we have benefited greatly from the association."

Novak and Rowland Evans started writing Inside Report for the New York Herald-Tribune on May 15, 1963, and the column was distributed nationally by Publishers Newspaper Syndicate. When the Herald-Tribune folded in 1966, Evans and Novak moved over to the Chicago Sun-Times. Creators Syndicate took over distribution of the column in 1989.

Evans and Novak collaborated on Inside Report for 30 years, until Evans' retirement in 1993. For the last 15 years, Novak wrote the three-times-a-week column on his own. And until his final column, Novak continued his trademark combination of political analysis and shoe-leather reporting, often outpacing journalists half his age.

Los Angeles-based Creators Syndicate, founded in 1987, is one of the largest newspaper syndicates in the world, distributing more than 100 newspaper features to over 2,400 newspapers and Internet sites around the globe, including editorial cartoons by Mike Luckovich, Steve Benson, Gary Varvel and Chip Bok, columns by Bill O’Reilly, Susan Estrich, Roland Martin, Pat Buchanan, Thomas Sowell and Mark Shields, the comic strips B.C., The Wizard of Id and One Big Happy, and the comic panels Speed Bump, Rubes and Ballard Street. This summer, Creators Service purchased Copley News Service, renaming it Creators News Service. Over the years, Creators Syndicate has been the editorial home for Ann Landers, Hillary Clinton when she was first lady, Molly Ivins, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the legendary cartoonist Herblock. To find out more, visit www.creators.com.