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Roll Call

US newspaper reporting on Capitol Hill and wider D.C. area

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ7360873
Source-derived summary

Roll Call is a newspaper and website based in Washington, D.C. When the United States Congress is in session, it reports news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of congressional elections across the country.

Roll Call is the flagship publication of CQ Roll Call, which also operates: CQ (formerly Congressional Quarterly), publisher of a subscriber-based service for daily and weekly news about Congress and politics, as well as a weekly magazine. Roll Call's regular columnists are Walter Shapiro, Mary C. Curtis, Patricia Murphy, and Stuart Rothenberg.

History

Roll Call was founded in 1955 by Sid Yudain, a press secretary to Congressman Al Morano (R-Conn.). The inaugural issue of the newspaper was published on June 16, 1955, with an initial printing of 10,000 copies. Richard Nixon, then Vice President of the United States, wrote a letter to Yudain congratulating him on the new venture. Nixon's letter ran on the front page of the inaugural issue.

In 1986, Yudain sold Roll Call to Arthur Levitt, who was serving as the chairman of the American Stock Exchange at the time of the sale. Yudain continued to work as a columnist at Roll Call after the sale.

The Economist Group acquired Roll Call in 1993.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Roll Call” as uS newspaper reporting on Capitol Hill and wider D.C. area. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Roll, Call and newspaper.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1986, 1993—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-06-16. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Roll, Call and newspaper providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Roll Call”, the useful work is to connect “uS newspaper reporting on Capitol Hill and wider D.C. area” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7360873. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1986 and 1993.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Roll Call”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Roll Call primary sources, Roll Call archive and Roll research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Roll Call” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.