University of Kentucky UKnowledge Women's Studies Gender and Sexuality Studies 4-7-1993 She Said What? Interviews with Women Newspaper Columnists Maria Braden University of Kentucky Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Braden, Maria, "She Said What? Interviews with Women Newspaper Columnists" (1993). Women's Studies. 2. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_womens_studies/2 SHE SAID WHAT? This page intentionally left blank SHE SAID WHAT? Interviews with Women Newspaper Columnists MARIA BRADEN THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1993 by Maria Braden Published by The University Press of Kentucky Paperback edition 2009 The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-8131-9332-8 (pbk: acid-free paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses CONTENTS Preface vii Introduction 1 Interviews and Columns Mary McGrory 25 Erma Bombeck 37 Jane Bryant Quinn 49 Georgie Anne Geyer 61 Ellen Goodman 77 Jane Brody 91 Dorothy Gilliam 111 Judith Martin (Miss Manners) 125 Mona Charen 137 Joyce Maynard 149 Merlene Davis 163 Anna Quindlen 175 Molly Ivins 189 Selected Bibliography 205 To MIA and JOE PREFACE When I told Anna Quindlen I was writing a book about women syndicated columnists, she laughed. "All three of us?" she asked. "That's going to be a pretty short book." There's truth in Quindlen's facetious response. Historically, newspapers have tended to represent male points of view. Even today, when more women are writing columns than ever before, Quindlen is the only regular woman colum­ nist on the op-ed page of the New York Times, one of the nation's most influential newspapers. Women columnists traditionally wrote about home and family concerns, and their writing was relegated to the women's pages. About 20 years ago, as the women's movement took hold, women's sections were transformed, and traditional limitations on women's writing began to dissolve. Women now write about politics, govern­ ment, finance, health and/or international affairs in addition to family matters and personal concerns. Some women columnists have stretched the boundaries of the form by creating columns that com­ bine personal and political issues. The women represented in these pages are vastly different in background, voice, style, and subject matter. Because I teach journalism at a large state university, I regularly encounter students who tell me they'd like to be columnists. They're not interested in spending time learning how to report and write news; they want to be free to express their opinions in their writing. I respond that reporting and newswriting skills underpin column writ­ ing, but they figure I'm paid to tell them that. So I asked successful women columnists to tell their own stories. I talked to them about how they got their first shot at writing a column, where they get the nerve to tell the world what they think, how they generate ideas, and what it's VI11 Preface like to write a column over and over again on deadline. In order to focus the book, I decided to limit it to a cross-section of nationally syndicated or nationally distributed columnists, which necessitated leaving out some wonderful local and regional columnists. I did profile two local columnists so that the work of African-American women would be represented. I want to thank the women included in this collection for sand­ wiching interviews into their busy schedules. I am grateful for their time, their energy, and their candid answers to my questions. Some invited me into their homes, while others met me in their offices or at private clubs or restaurants. Erma Bombeck deserves special thanks for entrusting me with her life and holding the tape recorder when time constraints required us to do part of the interview in a moving car. I also want to thank the columnists' assistants who helped arrange meetings and secure copies of the columns reprinted in this book: Norma Born, Bombeck's assistant; Celia Lees-Lowe for Ellen Good­ man; Liz Faulk for Molly Ivins; Tina Toll for Mary McGrory; Eliz­ abeth Cohen for Anna Quindlen; and Lynn Kane for Jane Bryant Quinn. Thanks also to Vince Davis, director of the University of Kentucky Patterson School of Diplomacy; Carl West, editor of the Frankfort (Kentucky) State Journal; and Cindy Williams of United Media for their help in arranging interviews. Editors at newspapers around the country offered suggestions on whom to include and gave me a sense of what these women's voices mean to the national dialogue. I am grateful to them and regret that I could not include all the columnists whose work they praised. Some were regional or local favorites and were not included because they were not nationally distributed. In some cases, a better known colum­ nist writing on the same general topic was chosen. My thanks to David Hendin at Pharos Books, who read part of this manuscript in its early stages; to my parents, Lachy and Bill Braden, for their support and encouragement; to Scoobie Ryan and Lynne Anderson and the other friends who said the right things at the right times; and to Pat Matthews, whose humor and common sense got me back on track so many times. Thanks also to my friends and teachers, James Baker Hall and Medford Moreland, who nourished my spirit throughout this endeavor and freed me to write. And thanks to my family for their patience and understanding. INTRODUCTION Dorothy Thompson strode into Madison Square Garden on the evening of February 20, 1939, where thousands of people had gathered to oppose American military involvement in European prob­ lems. She took a seat in the press section at the front of the hall and listened as a speaker accused the Jews of trying to drag America into the war. Then Thompson, a passionate opponent of fascism, did something that stopped the show: She laughed, a loud whoop of derisive laughter. It caused an uproar. Amid angry cries of "Throw her out," Thompson left under police escort-but not before she had made her point. The woman who called herself a "warrior of the spirit" had a singular weapon with which to attack Hitler's regime­ her syndicated newspaper column. As the Madison Square Garden story illustrates so well, Thompson's column empowered her to chal­ lenge Nazi supporters on their own turf. Writing a column has long been one of the most coveted assign­ ments in print journalism. Columnists enjoy fame, independence, and a special relationship with readers. Frequently they are given the kinds of perks enjoyed by management, such as a private office and a secretary. In a field where objectivity is akin to the Holy Grail, news­ paper columnists are free to express opinion. Unfettered by the need to be objective or fair, columnists can be scathing in their criticism, unabashed in their praise, funny or poignant, arrogant or intensely personal. In fact, columnists earn their followings by the very boldness of their remarks, by carving out a niche for their opinions. Reporters must suffer the tyranny ofeditors, but columnists have a free hand. Reporters know their copy inevitably will be trimmed to fit a changing news hole, but columnists write to a predetermined length. Reporters must fight to preserve the integrity of their writing, but 2 She Said What? columnists are spared heavy editing because their styles are considered unIque. A newspaper column is like an essay-free to explore any topic. But some essayists speak of columns with disdain; Wilfred Sheed, for one, has called columns "the fast food of literature." They do, how­ ever, tend to attract large and devoted followings. Columnists are the celebrities of the newspaper world. Because columns are featured in the same place in a newspaper, usually with a drawing or picture ofthe author alongside the name, columnists have a visibility unknown to other print journalists. Syndicated columnists enjoy even wider recognition. Their words are distributed nationally and reach hundreds of thousands, some­ times millions, of readers. In addition to commanding a regular forum in newspapers, syndicated columnists travel and lecture extensively. Many are panelists on current affairs talk shows; some are regulars on prime-time network news programs. Collections of their columns and other works, including fiction, generally sell well. Many regularly hit the best-seller lists. "In one small way, the lowly columnist is like an artist," political columnist George Will has written. "What distinguishes a good artist is a way of seeing. What made Van Gogh a genius was his distinctive way of seeing sunflowers. What distinguishes a valuable columnist is a distinctive way of seeing the social landscape.