Meg Greenfield

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Mary Ellen Greenfield , better known as Meg Greenfield (born December 27, 1930 in Seattle , † May 13, 1999 in Washington, DC ), was an American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner .

Life

Family and education

Greenfield was born in Seattle, the second child of Lorraine Nathan and Lewis James Greenfield. She has an older brother named James. Her mother comes from a respected Jewish family in Chicago , her father was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Lewis Greenfield was an antique dealer and auctioneer in the Seattle area and appeared on weekly radio shows. When Meg was twelve years old, her mother died.

Greenfield attended public schools before moving to the Helen Bush Parkside School for girls. After graduating from school in 1948, she began studying English literature at Smith College , graduating summa cum laude in 1952 . She then went to the University of Cambridge in England for a year on a Fulbright scholarship . There she wanted to study with the literary scholar FR Leavis , who only allowed male students. She turned her research interests to other areas and studied the writings of William Blake during her time at Cambridge .

Professional career

After her research stay in Cambridge, Greenfield lived briefly in Rome before returning to the United States. She considered an academic career, but chose journalism. She first worked in the research department of The Reporter , a small but influential magazine in New York. Greenfield first attracted attention with a critical article about Richard Nixon , which she published during the 1960 presidential election in the United States . The following year she moved to The Reporter's Washington office. There she wrote u. a. about politics, civil rights and nuclear armament. In 1965 she was promoted to editor-in-chief.

After The Reporter was hired in 1968, she worked at Harper's Bazaar for a few months . She began her career with the Washington Post later that year . A short time later she was appointed deputy editor-in-chief. She was the first woman whose name appeared on the Washington Post editorial page. From 1974 Greenfield also wrote columns for Newsweek . During this time she wrote on subjects such as the Watergate Affair , the Vietnam War , nuclear weapons , civil rights, and the military. For her contributions to the Washington Post and Newsweek , she was awarded the 1978 Pulitzer Prize in the Editorial Category .

In 1979 she was promoted to editor-in-chief of the Washington Post. In recognition of her contributions to journalism, she received honorary doctorates from Smith College, Georgetown University , Wesleyan University , Williams College at Princeton University . In 1996, Greenfield was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Women's Media Foundation .

Death and Posthumous Publication

At the age of 68, Greenfield died of cancer in her Washington, DC home. Her last article in the Washington Post appeared just under two months before her death.

Her book Washington , which she had been writing secretly since the early 1990s, was published in 2001. The preface was written by Katharine Graham , former Washington Post publisher. In the book, Greenfield illuminates life and especially the political goings-on in the American capital. She uses American high school as a metaphor for Washington’s politicians, lobbyists and journalists, their pursuit of prestige and the hierarchical structures and interdependencies between them. A reviewer for the Baltimore Sun described the book as the best practical guide for those interested in politics.

motion pictures

In the 2017 film The Publisher , Greenfield is portrayed by Carrie Coon .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Susan Ware u. a .: Notable American women: a biographical dictionary completing the twentieth century . Belknap Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2004, ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6 , p. 258 ff.
  2. ^ Meg Greenfield Biography . University of Washington , Department of Classics, accessed April 21, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Felicity Barringer: Meg Greenfield, Who Shaped Washington Post's Editorial Page, Dies at 68 . In: The New York Times , May 14, 1999.
  4. ↑ Edd Applegate (Ed.): Advocacy Journalists: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers and Editors . Scarecrow Press, Lanham (Md.) 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-6928-8 , p. 82.
  5. ↑ Margaret McAleer, Heather F. Ball, et al. a .: Meg Greenfield Papers . Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, DC 2010.
  6. ↑ Meg Greenfield | 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award . IWMF, accessed April 21, 2015.
  7. ^ A b c Michael Pakenham: Meg Greenfield's retrospect: A very human "Washington" . In: The Baltimore Sun , April 29, 2001.
  8. ^ A b From Meg Greenfield, The Last Word On Washington . In: Newsweek , May 7, 2001.
  9. ^ Doris Graber: Washington by Meg Greenfield . In: Political Science Quarterly . 117, No. 3, autumn 2002, p. 507 f., Doi : 10.2307 / 798277 .
  10. ↑ Michael concluded in an interview with Margaret Warner: Meg Greenfield's Washington . On: PBS , April 25, 2001.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Greenfield, Meg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Greenfield, Mary Ellen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Seattle
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 1999
Place of death Washington, DC