I just heard the news that Katherine Graham, one-time publisher of the Washtington Post, died from injuries suffered in a fall in Boise, ID. I’ve admired her ever since I read her memoirs, and I even wrote to tell her so. She was gracious enough to send a handwritten reply back thanking me for the compliments. I recommend it for any fans of autobiographies.
One has to wonder if President Nixon would have served out is term in office it hadn’t been for the Post’s dogged tenaciousness with the Watergate story (even after John Mitchell, Attorney General of the United States, told the reporters that if she wasn’t careful, “Katie Graham’s going to get her tit caught in the wringer.”)
I read and enjoyed her memoirs and recommend them as well. She was definately a woman just right for the times. Her efforts to understand and cope with her husband illness, her business and managerial sense, and tenacity in such a male dominated field are certainly worth admiring.
I had the privilege to hear Katherine Graham speak not long after Watergate. Truly an impressive human being. It’s all the more sad that she died after a fall instead of at home, peacefully.
I’m a publishing guy. I’m based in Washington DC. I have been a fulfillment weenie, a circulation manager and right now I’m marketing director for a medium-sized trade publishing house. I’m making a name for myself. Someday I’ll be a publisher, it’s in the cards for me.
And every day of that I’ll ask myself if I can possibly live up to the example of Katherine Graham (or ‘Katy’ as some folks called her…but never to her face!)(Not that I know of, anyway.)
Katherine Graham set an incredibly high mark for an entire industry. During her tenure as publisher of the Washington Post group she managed to A)raise the post from effectively a no-account local paper to a world class champion and B)change the way an entire industry viewed itself.
I met her once, several years ago at a charity banquet. I got to tell her that I hoped to become head of a publishing house myself someday (I think I was about 27 or 28). Thank God she didn’t laugh. She just smiled and told me that there’s always opportunity for someone with my talent (she didn’t know me from Adam, by the way) and that if I applied myself, she was sure I’d make it. That was it.
I’ve never read her memoirs. In the industry, at least locally, she’s simply the proverbial 800 pound gorilla. No matter who you were or what you were doing, you knew she’d already outdone you. That’s how influential she was in the DC publishing scene.
The second day of the DMAW (Direct Marketers Assn of Washington) convention is tomorrow and I’ll be attending. About 1/3-1/2 the attendees are in the publishing game. I’ll bet we’re kind of somber tomorrow.
Here’s a link to the Washington Post story on her.
I wrote an article about Katharine Graham last year and interviewed her by phone for it. I was VERY nervous and it didn’t go real well, as I was having trouble getting answers of more than one sentence from her, but I was honored to speak to her at all. Her book was fascinating and very inspiring to any woman in journalism. What an amazing life.
As a journalist and former newspaper reporter (I even worked for the post briefly when I first moved to D.C. proof reading ads), Katharine Graham will definitely be remembered as a leader in the field. The first woman publisher (at least of a major newspaper), she molded it into the respected newspaper it is today and also molded current journalism, having the courage to stand up to the government and president to let the people know what was going on. The news of her death not only made the front page of the Washington Post but also the New York Times, and I’m sure, several other major newspapers around the world. She definitely represented what newspapers are supposed to be about. She will be missed.
Mr. Rilch has been talking for weeks about going to the ComicCon with me and Friend. Friend and I have suspected for weeks that it wouldn’t happen, due to financial and professional conflicts. Sunday night, we discussed it, and I put my foot down, saying, “Financially, if we go, I will end up like John Mitchell (who?) said Katherine Graham (who??) would end up if the Watergate story couldn’t be verified. (Huh?)” I explained it to them, and they conceded.
