The Breakfast of Editing Champions was established by Deborah Gump in 2002, while she was the Knight Professor of Editing at Ohio University. The Breakfast was initially funded by a Knight grant, and it was intended to connect professional editors and academics who teach editing.
Past topics have covered trends in journalism education, ensuring verification of information and detecting and eliminating plagiarism and fabrication, and changes in professional editing processes.
Deborah Gump, former director of the journalism program at the University of Delaware, started the Breakfast in 2002 while she was the Knight Professor of Editing at Ohio University.
Andy Bechtel, associate professor at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, took over as coordinator in 2011.
Kirstie Hettinga, associate professor at California Lutheran University, became coordinator in 2016.