Jerry Zremski

A professional journalist since 1982, Jerry Zremski joined The Buffalo News in 1984 as a business reporter and moved to its Washington bureau in 1989. He focused his coverage on federal issues that are important to readers in Buffalo, as well as the Western New York House delegation and New York’s two senators.

Zremski served as Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo News between January 2007 and July 2022, and then served as a part-time enterprise reporter for the News in Washington through October 2025.

Awards and honors Zremski received for his reporting include:

• The National Press Club’s Washington Regional Reporting Award in 2018 for his coverage of the insider trading scandal involving Rep. Chris Collins. Zremski’s reporting on Collins’ stock investments was cited in the federal criminal indictment against Collins, which prompted his guilty plea and subsequent imprisonment.
• The Washington Press Club Foundation’s David Lynch Memorial Award for Excellence in Congressional Reporting in 2017 for Zremski’s coverage of Collins.
• The Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for non-deadline reporting in 2017 for “From Burma to Buffalo,” a series that traced the journey of refugees from Myanmar who moved to the United States.
• Several awards in connection with his reporting on the 2009 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407.
• A Nieman fellowship at Harvard University in the 1999–2000 school year.

In July 2022, Zremski became a lecturer and director of the new Local News Network at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. The Local News Network’s mission is to enlist student journalists in improving local news reporting. LNN’s student journalists produce in-depth projects that no local news organization could produce on its own, such as a statewide school board election voter guide and a county-by-county analysis of the childcare shortage in the state. Previously an adjunct instructor at the university, Zremski has received three Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Program Faculty Mentor Awards as well as the 2024 Provost’s Do Good Innovator Award.

The Andrew and Julie Klingenstein Family Fund, which donated the funds to establish and support LNN, created the Klingenstein Family Endowed Chair in Journalism with a $3 million gift in early 2025. Zremski now serves as the inaugural Klingenstein Family Endowed Chair in Journalism at Merrill College.

Zremski is a member of the Gridiron Club, one of Washington’s oldest journalism organizations, and he writes many of the satirical songs performed at the Club’s dinners. Zremski served as president of the National Press Club in 2007, where he interviewed speakers ranging from First Lady Laura Bush to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Zremski also served as president of the Regional Reporters Association in 1997.

A native of Elkland, Pennsylvania, and current resident of Washington, D.C., Zremski earned a bachelor’s degree in newspaper journalism from Syracuse University in 1982. He also holds a master’s degree in political science from American University.

Complete Bio - Merrill College of Journalism