Journalism book article

Cierra Anthony 313-358-7056 Cierra.Anthony@wayne.edu Journalism Book Feature Article October 27, 2015 Pulitzer prize winner Mary McGrory was named the queen of journalism in her biography written by author and executive producer of the American Progress John Norris. According to nytimes.com McGrory was an American print journalist and columnist, who specialized in American politics. She was famous for her column on the Watergate scandal, and the Army-McCarthy hearings. “Her style was pretty revolutionary for the time.... It was chatty and it was informal ... but informed by a real dedication to going out there and doing legwork and following campaigns and following politicians and going up on the hill every day and knocking on doors and buttonholing people for tough answers, wrote Norris. “McGrory was born in Roslindale neighborhood of Boston on August 22, 1918 two years before women were given the right to vote.” “ There were precious few women in the newspaper business and editors often demanded that they quit if they wed.” Newby Noyes the editor of The Washington Star asked McGrory if she was ever going to get married, and she said no, so once she told Noyes she was not married he said “ We want you to start at the Army-McCarthy hearings.” McGrory “covered the biggest story in town with a decidedly liberal bent,” say’s Norris “Her voice was fresh and impertinent in a newspaper as conservative as The Washington Star.” Boston Globe correspondent Jill Abramson say’s McGrory was an important path breaker for other female journalists.” “To be a women reporter in the man’s world of Washington in the 1940s and 1950s was to be patronized or excluded or both,” says McGrory. “She knew she would have to work harder and write better than the men to be a syndicated columnist. But she was also fairly comfortable with the hand she was dealt,” wrote Norris,“ She always used her sex to her advantage,” “She was often given nicer rooms than the men she was offered a ride in the candidate’s car rather on the bus,” say’s Norris “ She called that the enjoyable side of equality.” “1956 campaign marked the birth of Mary’s bearers the affectionate term given to the legion of male reporters she politely dragooned into carrying her typewriter and luggage, wrote Norris “She figured if she was going to get paid less and have to work harder, she would make the men on the campaign trail damned well carry her bags.” “Instead of seeing herself as an oppressed minority, Mary viewed herself as an elite,” says Norris. “The best part of being a newspaper woman is the newspaper men” say’s McGrory “non-competitively they are capable of chivalry.” Norris say’s “ not everyone agreed with Mary’s neo-Victorian style. Reporter Jack Germond says that he would never carry Mary’s bags.” “McGrory did not have any children and she was never married, wrote Norris but her true love was The Washington Star, where she worked from 1947 to 1981, and which becamer her substitute family and lover.” Norris wrote “McGrory died when she was 85 years old on April 20, 2004 at George Wasington University Hospital.