The son of a Letcher County coal miner, since 2019 Michael Collins has been White House correspondent for the nation's largest-circulation newspaper, USA Today. Following graduation from Western Kentucky University, he joined The Kentucky Post as a reporter, then became night city editor (a job that included writing editorials) and Frankfort Bureau reporter. He moved to Scripps Howard News Service in Washington in 2001 as correspondent for the Post and The Cincinnati Post, then for the Ventura County Star, the Knoxville News Sentinel and The Commercial Appeal. He remained with the Tennessee papers through two sales and joined the Gannett Co. national staff in 2016. He is known as fair, intelligent, knowledgeable and tenacious. In 2019 he won the College Heights Herald Award for outstanding contributions to journalism from the WKU newspaper, where he was editor.