Seventeen Female Reporters Who've Redefined a Formerly Male-Dominated Field
by Rosie Spinks Sasha Jones
This June marked Helen Thomas's retirement from journalism after 67 years. Although she resigned amid controversy, the achievements of her long-lasting career as a presidential correspondent remain largely untarnished. To commemorate Thomas and other trailblazers, we present this list of some of the most responsibly tenacious women in today’s media.
For women today, the media world is far different than it was in the 1940s, yet it's far from ideal. Google “top female reporters,” and among the first links you’ll find the “Top 5 Hottest Female Sideline Reporters,” or, worse, “The Top 10 Female Reporters Being Harassed on Live TV.” Considering the abundance of qualified women (our list is hardly comprehensive), this is a sorry status quo. While the women on our list may be attractive, their intellectual capacity, journalistic training, and impressive resumes are what land them on the GOOD list.
1. Lara Logan
Years in the Business: 20
Hometown: Durban, South Africa
Current position: Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, CBS News; correspondent, 60 Minutes
Past experience: Embedded correspondent for war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East
After years of serious reporting as an embedded journalist from war zones and imperiled locations around the world, Logan's attractive looks and personal life no longer cause people to doubt her credibility. However, this South African woman is no stranger to career controversy. In 2007, a report she filed depicting street fighting in Haifa, Iraq, was deemed too graphic for air by CBS. Logan fought back by sending out a personal appeal to family and friends asking them to disseminate the footage to as many people as possible, insisting the story was too important not be told. More recently, her critique of Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings’s profile of former General McChrystal put her at odds with some of the media at large.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
2. Christiane Amanpour
Years in the Business: 25
Hometown: Tehran, Iran
Current position: Anchor, This Week, CBS
Past experience: Chief International Correspondent, CNN; Anchor, Amanpour, CNN; Correspondent, 60 Minutes
From her first major assignment as CNN foreign correspondent during the Persian Gulf War in 1990, Amanpour has reported from war zones and hot spots virtually all over the world including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, and Palestine. Despite her commitment to covering wars, famines, violent outbreaks, and civil unrest, Amanpour's objectivity has come into question more than once. During her coverage of the siege of Sarajevo in the mid 1990s, critics accused her of favoring Bosnian Muslims. Amanpour took the criticism in stride, responding to her detractors with level-headed commentary on the nature of objectivity.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user World Economic Forum
3. Name: Rachel Maddow
Years in the business: 8
Hometown: Castro Valley, California
Current position: Host, The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC
Past experience: Host, The Rachel Maddow Show, Air America Radio; Panelist, Race for the White House, MSNBC; Contributor and sub-host, Countdown with Keith Olbermann
In addition to filling the void of female anchors on MSNBC, Maddow is also the first prime time news anchor that is openly gay, making her quick rise in success and credibility all the more impressive. Maddow's coverage of the historic 2008 election garnered praise for her knowledge of policy and willingness to ask tough questions. Most recently, Maddow's embedded coverage of the war in Afghanistan and on-air interview with Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke has shown that her journalistic prowess extends beyond the studio lights. One pundit put it best when summing up Rachel’s journalistic style: "She penetrates, without puncturing."
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
4. Katie Couric
Years in the business: 27
Hometown: Arlington, Virginia
Current position: Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News
Past experience: Contributor, 60 Minutes; Contributing anchor, Dateline NBC; National political correspondent, Today Show
Throughout her career, Couric has interviewed presidents, first ladies, senators, prime ministers, and celebrities. In 2006, she became the first female anchor of a nightly news broadcast, filling the CBS slot that once belonged to the legendary Walter Cronkite. During the 2008 election, Couric conducted a series of interviews with Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Without losing her own credibility as a reporter, Couric managed to garner what McCain's senior campaign strategist and adviser later called the "most consequential interview from a negative perspective that a candidate for national office has gone through."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Image Editor
5. Diane Sawyer
Years in the business: 35
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Current position: Anchor, World News with Diane Sawyer
Past experience: Correspondent, 60 Minutes; Co-anchor, 20/20, ABC; Anchor, Good Morning America, ABC
In her work as a correspondent, Sawyer has reported from all over the world and interviewed a slew of political figures like Saddam Hussein, Robert McNamara, and Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. In the 1980s, she became the first female anchor on 60 Minutes, and in 2006, the first American journalist to report from North Korea. After a long stint on Good Morning America, Sawyer succeeded Charlie Gibson on ABC World News. Her switch shifted the American media landscape, with two of the three major evening news broadcasts now being anchored by women.
6. Barbara Walters
Years in the business: 50
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Current position: Co-Anchor, ABC Evening News; Correspondent, ABC World News
Past experience: Anchor, Today Show, Host, 20/20, Creator/Host, The View
When it comes to women in journalism and media, no one has seen the landscape change more than Barbara Walters. When she first entered the business, Walters had to struggle through the difficult relationship with ABC Evening News co-anchor Harry Reasoner and other male co-hosts who were eager to assert their on-air authority. These days, Walters is best known for her extensive interviewing repertoire. While she has been criticized for “soft” questions and pandering to celebrities, her specials are consistently top-rated and few journalists can claim to have interviewed such a diverse group.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
7. Leslie Stahl
Years in the business: 38
Hometown: Lynn, Massachusetts
Current position: Correspondent, 60 Minutes
Past experience: White House Correspondent, CBS News; Moderator, Face of the Nation
In spite of the institutional sexism she encountered in her early days as a correspondent for CBS, Stahl managed to thrive covering major national news events from Watergate to the Reagan assassination attempt to the first Gulf War. As a 60 Minutes correspondent, Stahl has conducted exclusive interviews with top U.S. and world officials. Her career is marked by coverage of issues that are both timely and otherwise untouched by the media: She landed an exclusive interview with former White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke in 2004, and won an Emmy for "Punishing Saddam," a piece on the suffering of Iraqi citizens caused by U.N. sanctions in the mid-1990s.
Photo of Stahl with Raymond Odierno via Wikimedia Commons
8. Arianna Huffington
Years in the business: 30
Hometown: Athens, Greece
Current position: Co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post
Past experience: Writer, National Review; Co-host, Any Questions?; Panelist, Left, Right & Center; Co-host, 7 Days in America
In 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, now the 15th most popular news site in the United States. The Post has come to represent an independent, liberal voice that covers news related to politics, business, entertainment, and the environment. As a female media powerhouse, Huffington has worked to reinvent the way our society perceives success: "The most important thing I will say…is it is not enough for women to break the glass ceiling. We need to get to a different place. We need to do success differently. The goal is not to be CEOs and presidents, but to do it with more balance, with more wisdom, and less stress and ulcers in our 50s."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user cliff1066
9. Andi Zeisler
Years in the business: 15
Hometown: New York City
Current position: Co-founder and Editorial/Creative Director, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
Past experience: Guest Writer, Ms., Mother Jones, Bust, The Utne Reader, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Women’s Review of Books, SF Weekly, and the East Bay Express
Zeisler's work focuses on feminism, gender issues, and their place in today’s media. She founded Bitch, a nonprofit magazine based out of Portland, Oregon, to offer an alternative, "third-wave feminist" perspective on political, social, and cultural trends. The magazine's name is Zeisler's homage to the cultural mindset that "deems powerful women to be scary, angry, and, of course, unfeminine … and sees uncompromising speech by women as an anathema to a tidy, well-run world." Zeisler and her colleagues at Bitch seek to journalistically re-appropriate the word as a tool of empowerment for women.
Photo (cc) by Picasa user sree: Zeisler (left) with Elizabeth Stark
10. Maureen Dowd
Years in the business: 36
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Current position: Washington Bureau Correspondent and Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times
Past experience: Writer, Time, Washington Star
Dowd takes on top political officials in a caustic, irreverent manner. She has written many a column about Clinton, Bush, and Obama in which she combines political, sociological, and personality-related commentary. She also explores topics related to popular culture, which she incorporates into her political analyses. Despite receiving a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Dowd was accused by critics of writing petty, overly cynical columns that capitalized on the sensationalism of pop culture. Many of these same critics, however, simultaneously praised her writing style and ruthless tenacity as a journalist.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
11. Sarah Vowell
Years in the business: 14
Hometown: Muskogee, Oklahoma
Current position: Contributor, Salon
Past experience: Contributor, This American Life; Contributor/Guest Writer, The Village Voice, Esquire, GQ, Spin, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, SF Weekly
Vowell's audio essays for This American Life feature her wry sense of humor as applied to American history and politics, along with a smattering of pop culture. She has confronted historical issues from the Gettysburg Address to Rosa Park's bus sit to the Salem witch trials, as well as more contemporary issues like inaugurations and State of the Union addresses. Underlying many of her pieces are discussions of patriotism, citizenship, and what it means to be an American in this day and age.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Susie Martinez
12. Michele Norris and 13. Melissa Block
Years in the business: 25 each
Hometowns: Minneapolis, Minnesota; Old Chatham, New York
Current positions: Co-hosts, All Things Considered, NPR
As NPR’s first African American female host, Norris has covered momentous historical landmarks—the 2008 presidential campaign, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11—in painstaking depth and detail. In 2009, the National Association of Black Journalists named her "Journalist of the Year." She's also won an Emmy and a Peabody for her 9/11 coverage for ABC.
A 24-year veteran of NPR, Block has covered breaking news stories about Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the Kosovo conflict. She garnered exceptional praise for her on-site coverage of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and its aftermath, as well as for her New York coverage of police brutality and terrorism trials.
Photos by Steve Barrett and Stephen Voss via NPR
14. Terry Gross
Years in the business: 37
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Current position: Host, Fresh Air, NPR
Past experience: Host and producer,
Fresh Air, WHYY-FM; Guest host, All Things Considered
Gross’s list of interviewees on Fresh Air would be prized by any talk-show host. She is known for the extensive research she does to prepare for her interviews; her questions are sometimes tough but always informed. According to Salon, Gross has interviewed more than 10,000 musicians, actors, writers, comedians, painters, politicians, scientists, tycoons, and generals. When Gross interviewed Bill O’Reilly in 2003, he protested that her questioning was biased and hostile and ended the interview by walking out of the studio. Many listeners called the interview overly pointed and aggressive; Danny Miller, the executive producer of Fresh Air, defended the interview as "tough … not unfair."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Finsthwait
15. Tina Brown
Years in the business: 30
Hometown: Maidenhead, United Kingdom
Current position: Founder and editor in chief, The Daily Beast
Past experience: editor in chief, Tatler; editor in chief, Vanity Fair; editor in chief, The New Yorker; founder, Talk magazine
Brown rose to prominence with editorships at Tatler (she was just 25 at the time), Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Throughout her career, she managed to increase the circulation and popularity of all three publications. In her time at The New Yorker, Brown largely restructured the publication, hired many new writers including Malcom Gladwell, and introduced Richard Avedon as the first staff photographer. With The Daily Beast, Brown has managed to seamlessly and successfully enter the realm of new media by targeting a “curious, upscale and global audience who love politics, news and the media world."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user cliff1066
16. Amy Goodman
Years in the business: 35
Hometown: Bay Shore, New York
Current position: Creator and host, Democracy Now!
Past experience: Broadcast journalist and news director, Pacifica Radio, WBAI
There are few journalists as well known for their relentless yet unbiased reporting as Goodman. In 1996, Goodman launched Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!, which in its time on the air has become one of the most important and respected progressive news sources. In 2008, Goodman and several of the show's producers were arrested at the Republican National Convention while reporting on anti-war protesters in the streets. Goodman has also authored several books and is the only journalist have received the Right Livelihood Award, an honor commonly compared to the Nobel Peace Prize, for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism.”
Photo (cc) by Flickr user ChrisEaves.com
17. Gloria Steinem
Years in the business: 50
Hometown: Toledo, Ohio
Current position: Co-founder, member of advisory board, and former editor, Ms. Magazine
Past experience: Co-founder, columnist New York Magazine
Gloria started out her career as a freelance writer, grabbing attention with a 1963 piece describing the treatment of women employed at New York’s Playboy bunny clubs, which was later turned into a film. The assignment, for which Steinem worked at one of the famous clubs, temporarily tarnished her credibility. However, in 1968, she began writing for New York Magazine and four years later created Ms. Magazine, which was originally intended only as a special edition of New York, but quickly rose in popularity and circulation after the first issue. She has contributed to numerous publications and magazines throughout her long career of political activism, and still remains a seminal voice for women today.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Ping News
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| Seventeen Female Reporters Who've Redefined a Formerly Male-Dominated Field by Rosie Spinks, Sasha Jones |
This June marked Helen Thomas's retirement from journalism after 67 years. Although she resigned amid controversy, the achievements of her long-lasting career as a presidential correspondent remain largely untarnished. To commemorate Thomas and other trailblazers, we present this list of some of the most responsibly tenacious women in today’s media.
For women today, the media world is far different than it was in the 1940s, yet it's far from ideal. Google “top female reporters,” and among the first links you’ll find the “Top 5 Hottest Female Sideline Reporters,” or, worse, “The Top 10 Female Reporters Being Harassed on Live TV.” Considering the abundance of qualified women (our list is hardly comprehensive), this is a sorry status quo. While the women on our list may be attractive, their intellectual capacity, journalistic training, and impressive resumes are what land them on the GOOD list.
1. Lara Logan
Years in the Business: 20
Hometown: Durban, South Africa
Current position: Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, CBS News; correspondent, 60 Minutes
Past experience: Embedded correspondent for war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East
After years of serious reporting as an embedded journalist from war zones and imperiled locations around the world, Logan's attractive looks and personal life no longer cause people to doubt her credibility. However, this South African woman is no stranger to career controversy. In 2007, a report she filed depicting street fighting in Haifa, Iraq, was deemed too graphic for air by CBS. Logan fought back by sending out a personal appeal to family and friends asking them to disseminate the footage to as many people as possible, insisting the story was too important not be told. More recently, her critique of Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings’s profile of former General McChrystal put her at odds with some of the media at large.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
2. Christiane Amanpour
Years in the Business: 25
Hometown: Tehran, Iran
Current position: Anchor, This Week, CBS
Past experience: Chief International Correspondent, CNN; Anchor, Amanpour, CNN; Correspondent, 60 Minutes
From her first major assignment as CNN foreign correspondent during the Persian Gulf War in 1990, Amanpour has reported from war zones and hot spots virtually all over the world including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, and Palestine. Despite her commitment to covering wars, famines, violent outbreaks, and civil unrest, Amanpour's objectivity has come into question more than once. During her coverage of the siege of Sarajevo in the mid 1990s, critics accused her of favoring Bosnian Muslims. Amanpour took the criticism in stride, responding to her detractors with level-headed commentary on the nature of objectivity.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user World Economic Forum
3. Name: Rachel Maddow
Years in the business: 8
Hometown: Castro Valley, California
Current position: Host, The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC
Past experience: Host, The Rachel Maddow Show, Air America Radio; Panelist, Race for the White House, MSNBC; Contributor and sub-host, Countdown with Keith Olbermann
In addition to filling the void of female anchors on MSNBC, Maddow is also the first prime time news anchor that is openly gay, making her quick rise in success and credibility all the more impressive. Maddow's coverage of the historic 2008 election garnered praise for her knowledge of policy and willingness to ask tough questions. Most recently, Maddow's embedded coverage of the war in Afghanistan and on-air interview with Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke has shown that her journalistic prowess extends beyond the studio lights. One pundit put it best when summing up Rachel’s journalistic style: "She penetrates, without puncturing."
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
4. Katie Couric
Years in the business: 27
Hometown: Arlington, Virginia
Current position: Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News
Past experience: Contributor, 60 Minutes; Contributing anchor, Dateline NBC; National political correspondent, Today Show
Throughout her career, Couric has interviewed presidents, first ladies, senators, prime ministers, and celebrities. In 2006, she became the first female anchor of a nightly news broadcast, filling the CBS slot that once belonged to the legendary Walter Cronkite. During the 2008 election, Couric conducted a series of interviews with Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Without losing her own credibility as a reporter, Couric managed to garner what McCain's senior campaign strategist and adviser later called the "most consequential interview from a negative perspective that a candidate for national office has gone through."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Image Editor
5. Diane Sawyer
Years in the business: 35
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Current position: Anchor, World News with Diane Sawyer
Past experience: Correspondent, 60 Minutes; Co-anchor, 20/20, ABC; Anchor, Good Morning America, ABC
In her work as a correspondent, Sawyer has reported from all over the world and interviewed a slew of political figures like Saddam Hussein, Robert McNamara, and Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. In the 1980s, she became the first female anchor on 60 Minutes, and in 2006, the first American journalist to report from North Korea. After a long stint on Good Morning America, Sawyer succeeded Charlie Gibson on ABC World News. Her switch shifted the American media landscape, with two of the three major evening news broadcasts now being anchored by women.
6. Barbara Walters
Years in the business: 50
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Current position: Co-Anchor, ABC Evening News; Correspondent, ABC World News
Past experience: Anchor, Today Show, Host, 20/20, Creator/Host, The View
When it comes to women in journalism and media, no one has seen the landscape change more than Barbara Walters. When she first entered the business, Walters had to struggle through the difficult relationship with ABC Evening News co-anchor Harry Reasoner and other male co-hosts who were eager to assert their on-air authority. These days, Walters is best known for her extensive interviewing repertoire. While she has been criticized for “soft” questions and pandering to celebrities, her specials are consistently top-rated and few journalists can claim to have interviewed such a diverse group.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
7. Leslie Stahl
Years in the business: 38
Hometown: Lynn, Massachusetts
Current position: Correspondent, 60 Minutes
Past experience: White House Correspondent, CBS News; Moderator, Face of the Nation
In spite of the institutional sexism she encountered in her early days as a correspondent for CBS, Stahl managed to thrive covering major national news events from Watergate to the Reagan assassination attempt to the first Gulf War. As a 60 Minutes correspondent, Stahl has conducted exclusive interviews with top U.S. and world officials. Her career is marked by coverage of issues that are both timely and otherwise untouched by the media: She landed an exclusive interview with former White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke in 2004, and won an Emmy for "Punishing Saddam," a piece on the suffering of Iraqi citizens caused by U.N. sanctions in the mid-1990s.
Photo of Stahl with Raymond Odierno via Wikimedia Commons
8. Arianna Huffington
Years in the business: 30
Hometown: Athens, Greece
Current position: Co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post
Past experience: Writer, National Review; Co-host, Any Questions?; Panelist, Left, Right & Center; Co-host, 7 Days in America
In 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, now the 15th most popular news site in the United States. The Post has come to represent an independent, liberal voice that covers news related to politics, business, entertainment, and the environment. As a female media powerhouse, Huffington has worked to reinvent the way our society perceives success: "The most important thing I will say…is it is not enough for women to break the glass ceiling. We need to get to a different place. We need to do success differently. The goal is not to be CEOs and presidents, but to do it with more balance, with more wisdom, and less stress and ulcers in our 50s."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user cliff1066
9. Andi Zeisler
Years in the business: 15
Hometown: New York City
Current position: Co-founder and Editorial/Creative Director, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
Past experience: Guest Writer, Ms., Mother Jones, Bust, The Utne Reader, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Women’s Review of Books, SF Weekly, and the East Bay Express
Zeisler's work focuses on feminism, gender issues, and their place in today’s media. She founded Bitch, a nonprofit magazine based out of Portland, Oregon, to offer an alternative, "third-wave feminist" perspective on political, social, and cultural trends. The magazine's name is Zeisler's homage to the cultural mindset that "deems powerful women to be scary, angry, and, of course, unfeminine … and sees uncompromising speech by women as an anathema to a tidy, well-run world." Zeisler and her colleagues at Bitch seek to journalistically re-appropriate the word as a tool of empowerment for women.
Photo (cc) by Picasa user sree: Zeisler (left) with Elizabeth Stark
10. Maureen Dowd
Years in the business: 36
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Current position: Washington Bureau Correspondent and Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times
Past experience: Writer, Time, Washington Star
Dowd takes on top political officials in a caustic, irreverent manner. She has written many a column about Clinton, Bush, and Obama in which she combines political, sociological, and personality-related commentary. She also explores topics related to popular culture, which she incorporates into her political analyses. Despite receiving a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Dowd was accused by critics of writing petty, overly cynical columns that capitalized on the sensationalism of pop culture. Many of these same critics, however, simultaneously praised her writing style and ruthless tenacity as a journalist.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
11. Sarah Vowell
Years in the business: 14
Hometown: Muskogee, Oklahoma
Current position: Contributor, Salon
Past experience: Contributor, This American Life; Contributor/Guest Writer, The Village Voice, Esquire, GQ, Spin, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, SF Weekly
Vowell's audio essays for This American Life feature her wry sense of humor as applied to American history and politics, along with a smattering of pop culture. She has confronted historical issues from the Gettysburg Address to Rosa Park's bus sit to the Salem witch trials, as well as more contemporary issues like inaugurations and State of the Union addresses. Underlying many of her pieces are discussions of patriotism, citizenship, and what it means to be an American in this day and age.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Susie Martinez
12. Michele Norris and 13. Melissa Block
Years in the business: 25 each
Hometowns: Minneapolis, Minnesota; Old Chatham, New York
Current positions: Co-hosts, All Things Considered, NPR
As NPR’s first African American female host, Norris has covered momentous historical landmarks—the 2008 presidential campaign, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11—in painstaking depth and detail. In 2009, the National Association of Black Journalists named her "Journalist of the Year." She's also won an Emmy and a Peabody for her 9/11 coverage for ABC.
A 24-year veteran of NPR, Block has covered breaking news stories about Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the Kosovo conflict. She garnered exceptional praise for her on-site coverage of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and its aftermath, as well as for her New York coverage of police brutality and terrorism trials.
Photos by Steve Barrett and Stephen Voss via NPR
14. Terry Gross
Years in the business: 37
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Current position: Host, Fresh Air, NPR
Past experience: Host and producer,
Fresh Air, WHYY-FM; Guest host, All Things Considered
Gross’s list of interviewees on Fresh Air would be prized by any talk-show host. She is known for the extensive research she does to prepare for her interviews; her questions are sometimes tough but always informed. According to Salon, Gross has interviewed more than 10,000 musicians, actors, writers, comedians, painters, politicians, scientists, tycoons, and generals. When Gross interviewed Bill O’Reilly in 2003, he protested that her questioning was biased and hostile and ended the interview by walking out of the studio. Many listeners called the interview overly pointed and aggressive; Danny Miller, the executive producer of Fresh Air, defended the interview as "tough … not unfair."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Finsthwait
15. Tina Brown
Years in the business: 30
Hometown: Maidenhead, United Kingdom
Current position: Founder and editor in chief, The Daily Beast
Past experience: editor in chief, Tatler; editor in chief, Vanity Fair; editor in chief, The New Yorker; founder, Talk magazine
Brown rose to prominence with editorships at Tatler (she was just 25 at the time), Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Throughout her career, she managed to increase the circulation and popularity of all three publications. In her time at The New Yorker, Brown largely restructured the publication, hired many new writers including Malcom Gladwell, and introduced Richard Avedon as the first staff photographer. With The Daily Beast, Brown has managed to seamlessly and successfully enter the realm of new media by targeting a “curious, upscale and global audience who love politics, news and the media world."
Photo (cc) by Flickr user cliff1066
16. Amy Goodman
Years in the business: 35
Hometown: Bay Shore, New York
Current position: Creator and host, Democracy Now!
Past experience: Broadcast journalist and news director, Pacifica Radio, WBAI
There are few journalists as well known for their relentless yet unbiased reporting as Goodman. In 1996, Goodman launched Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!, which in its time on the air has become one of the most important and respected progressive news sources. In 2008, Goodman and several of the show's producers were arrested at the Republican National Convention while reporting on anti-war protesters in the streets. Goodman has also authored several books and is the only journalist have received the Right Livelihood Award, an honor commonly compared to the Nobel Peace Prize, for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism.”
Photo (cc) by Flickr user ChrisEaves.com
17. Gloria Steinem
Years in the business: 50
Hometown: Toledo, Ohio
Current position: Co-founder, member of advisory board, and former editor, Ms. Magazine
Past experience: Co-founder, columnist New York Magazine
Gloria started out her career as a freelance writer, grabbing attention with a 1963 piece describing the treatment of women employed at New York’s Playboy bunny clubs, which was later turned into a film. The assignment, for which Steinem worked at one of the famous clubs, temporarily tarnished her credibility. However, in 1968, she began writing for New York Magazine and four years later created Ms. Magazine, which was originally intended only as a special edition of New York, but quickly rose in popularity and circulation after the first issue. She has contributed to numerous publications and magazines throughout her long career of political activism, and still remains a seminal voice for women today.
Photo (cc) by Flickr user Ping News
