NO. 2 Mis(s)representation: Women in Print Media

In the middle of the night, a husband sneaks downstairs while his wife is sleeping. The husband then pulls out a 28-gauge shotgun from where they keep it stored..

Shortly thereafter, the women wakes up only to find her husband in the bathroom of their farmhouse in Marshall, Va. 

Her husband had committed suicide. 

(Source)

A month after her husband died, she assumed the presidency of The Post Co. This woman was Katherine Graham, the wife of Philip Graham, who was well-known and respected President and Chief Executive Officer of The Washington Post. 

She was the first women to become a CEO of The Washington Post, and further, the first woman to become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

During the era of which Mrs. Graham was named CEO, women did not have many roles in society other than being housewives. Before Philip Graham died, Mrs. Graham even classified herself as a housewife. “He was so glamorous that I was perfectly happy just to clean up after him. I did all the scut work: paid the bills, ran the house, drove the children. I was always the butt of family jokes. You know, good old Mom, plodding along. And I accepted it. That's the way I viewed myself," she confirmed. 

Further, when given the responsibility as the principal owner of the Washington Post Company, the public did not think she was qualified to hold such a powerful position. In that era, there were even very few woman journalists in general, which is why Mrs. Graham’s father offered his son-in-law the role of publisher of the Washington Post when he retired in 1946. Her father, Eugene Meyer, did not think she was suitable as a woman. “It never crossed my mind that he might have viewed me as someone to take on an important job at the paper," Katharine Graham would later say.

At the time there was no appreciation for women intellectuals or women business leaders. Women were primarily viewed as child bearers, and weren’t viewed as valuable assets in the business world.  In the 1950s, when Philip Graham was the CEO, women had no choices, and would would be subject to harsh criticism for making choices. Essentially, womenwere supposed to just wait around for “Prince Charming” to provide them with a fulfilling life and financial security. 

Nevertheless, Mrs. Graham proved the public wrong. According to New York Women in Communications, “Over time, though, her confidence grew, as did both her business savvy and her sense of journalistic purpose. She guided the Post through several watershed events in U.S. journalism — the Pentagon Papers case, which helped cement the strength of the First Amendment, and most famously, through Watergate.”

As a result, Mrs. Graham not only made journalism less of a "Boys’ Club," but she made the workforce, as a whole, less male-dominated, as well. Katharine Graham also spear-headed efforts and provided inspiration to make the journalism field more diverse by hiring black reporters as a part of the Washington Post staff.

Katherine Graham did not only leave a legacy for women and blacks to follow; she left a legacy for the American country and society by making the Washington Post an institution recognized for the highest journalistic ethics and standards. As stated in The Seattle Times article “Katharine Graham’s legacy of courage:” 

Katherine Graham took an undistinguished newspaper and made it great. She took a small newspaper company and made it a media empire. And most of all, in an age of endless media homogenization and consolidation, she kept it independent

In summation, today’s Washington Post readers can thank Katharine Graham for making the newspaper one of the most widely read and well-respected news publications in the nation.






Order Katherine Graham's autobiography here: http://www.amazon.com/Personal-History-Katharine-Graham/dp/0375701044