Robert David Sanders Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for The Wall Street Journal. He teamed up with Rowland Evans in 1963 to start Inside Report, which became the longest running syndicated political column in U.S. history and ran in hundreds of papers. They also started the Evans-Novak Political Report, a notable biweekly newsletter, in 1967.

Crossfire was an American nightly current events debate television program that aired on CNN from June 25, 1982, to June 3, 2005, and again from September 9, 2013, to August 6, 2014. The format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.