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Michael Olesker (born 1945) was a longtime columnist for the Baltimore Sun newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland. He resigned on January 4, 2006, after allegations that his columns contained sentences or passages that he had plagiarized from articles by journalists at the Sun and at other newspapers. Many writers and journalists defended Mr. Olesker's practices as commonplace in daily newsrooms.

Olesker was known for his liberal viewpoints and, recently, for his sharp, criticism of the administration of Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), whose press office in November 2004 issued an executive order banning state executive branch employees from talking with Olesker.

Olesker began writing for the Sun in 1979. He was a commentator on WJZ-TV from 1983 through December 2002.

Olesker also wrote a novel titled Leap into Darkness, with Leo Bretholz.

As of January 1, 2007, Olesker is a columnist for the Baltimore Examiner.[1]

Olesker was born in 1945 and attended Baltimore City College, an elite public male-only high school which since its inception in the nineteenth century graduated many notable celebrities and politicians such as Gary Moore, Edward Everett Horton, the former Mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke (now dean of the Howard University Law School, and the former Baltimore mayor, governor and Maryland state comptroller, William Donald Shaeffer.

Olesker attended the University of Maryland where he was on the staff of the school newspaper, The Diamondback, serving as the sports page editor. He married after college and has two children from that union, now in their thirties. After divorcing his first wife, in 1993 he married Suzanne Gitomer, a psychotherapist who has one daughter, Sara, who graduated from the University of Delaware and now lives in New York City.

The Oleskers currently reside in northwestern Baltitmore City near the city boundary with Baltimore County.