The Good Girls Revolt

by Lynn Povich

  That summer, Jeff and I went on vacation to Los Angeles to visit Mary Pleshette and Jack Willis, who had married and moved there. We decided to drive to the Grand Canyon and we were there when, on August 1, Oz announced that he would move up to become editor-in-chief and that Ed Kosner would be the next editor of Newsweek. When we got back to LA, Mary told me that Ed had phoned and to call him in New York. When I reached him, Ed told me his news. I was very happy for him and gave him my congratulations. Then he congratulated me. He told me that he had decided to promote me to senior editor and had already announced it effective September 1.

  I’m sure I thanked him but I remember only that I was dumbfounded. I hadn’t expected Oz to leave so soon, although it was clear that Ed was the next in line. Nor was I given any indication that I was even succeeding in my tryout. Although many of my ideas were picked up and my stories were getting through, I had no idea whether I was doing well. When I asked Ed years later, “Why me?” he said, “You had an editor’s mind. You could see structure and you didn’t have the kind of ego that had to be out there. The best editors were analytical and if our edited stories didn’t sing, it was because we were on deadline and fixing a structural problem. And, no disrespect, but you had an iron ass. You would sit in the chair and work until it was done—late nights, late hours, and all.”

  I was pleased with Ed’s confidence in me. He had been my mentor and was good to me, but it turned out that he wasn’t exactly an equal-opportunity employer. When I returned to New York, Ed proudly told me that he was raising my salary from $27,000 to $32,000. Then I found out that Charlie Michener, another writer who had been promoted to senior editor in the Arts sections, would be making $40,000 a year. I couldn’t believe it! Consciousness finally raised, I confronted Ed. He explained that my percentage raise was much higher than Charlie’s, which meant only that I was making much less to begin with. Since Ed had already announced my promotion, I had him cornered. I told him that I wouldn’t take the senior editor job unless I got the same amount as a man doing the same work. He reluctantly agreed and I felt great. When I called my parents to tell them the good news, my father was thrilled and cheered me on. My mother’s response was true to form. “Now you’ll never have children,” she said.

  Three weeks later, I encountered the editing nightmare I feared. On Monday, September 22, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis announced she was taking a job as a consulting editor at Viking Press. Newsweek decided to crash a six-column story describing “Jackie on Her Own,” to be reported and written by Liz Peer and edited by me. I was nervous about how Liz would respond to my editing her, but she was a pro. We discussed the story and she spent the week gathering information. On Friday evening, around six, I got the first half of her story. Unlike most of her pieces, this one just didn’t work, and I was dismayed that Liz hadn’t nailed it. I showed it to my top editor, Ed Klein, who agreed and told me the story had to be rewritten. Normally I would talk through the problems with the writer and let her fix it. But Liz was still writing the second half of the piece and I needed her to finish. So I shut my door and began to rewrite the copy. When Liz handed in the last part, she came into my office and I explained what I was doing and why. She took it well, but she was exhausted and said she didn’t want to work on it anymore. I stayed until 4 A.M., returned early Saturday morning to finish the story, and handed it in by noon. It sailed through. I was relieved that I had passed the test, but I will always appreciate Liz’s professional behavior. She never held it against me.

  Becoming the first female senior editor in Newsweek’s forty-two-year history was a personal as well as a professional victory for me. I had never thought of myself as ambitious. I had been lucky in that most opportunities had come to me—I didn’t have to ask for them. I pushed myself forward by looking around and saying, “Well, if that guy can do it, then I surely can.” Now I had to recognize that I did have drive (my preferred word to “ambition”) and some talent. I was anxious about succeeding in my new job, but for the first time I felt confident in my career, armed with the kind of outside affirmation that I—and many of the women I knew—needed. It was one thing for your parents or teachers to tell you how good you were; it was another for the world to chime in.

  Professionally, my elevation broke the editorial barrier. Now women had a voice in the meetings, a representative in management, and an advocate for them and for their story ideas. There was still resistance. I was told that Bob Christopher, the executive editor, said that my becoming a senior editor was the worst mistake management ever made. But it didn’t matter. This time, something truly had changed. We Newsweek women, who had never wavered in demanding our rights, had finally prevailed in our five-year fight for equality. I was amazed that as one of the women who had been a leader in the lawsuit, I was rewarded with being named the magazine’s first female senior editor. That wasn’t true for most women on the front lines in the media lawsuits. But the barricades were falling, and women were rushing in.

  CHAPTER 11

  Passing the Torch

  BETWEEN 1975 AND 1985, women pushed their way into every position on the magazine except top management. Liz Peer, who was promoted to Paris bureau chief at the end of 1975, was sent to cover the war in Somalia in 1977 as Newsweek’s first female war correspondent. Elaine Sciolino, hired as a researcher in the international edition in 1970, flew to Iran in February 1979, on the same plane as the Ayatollah Khomeini, where she covered the Iranian Revolution and then the hostage crisis. (She later became Paris bureau chief for the New York Times.) In December 1976, Eleanor Clift from the Atlanta bureau rode into Washington with Jimmy Carter as Newsweek’s White House correspondent, the first female news-magazine reporter to cover the president in the West Wing (not the first lady in the East Wing).

  Phyllis Malamud was promoted to Boston bureau chief in 1977 and Mimi McLoughlin became one of the magazine’s star writers and editors. In the early 1980s, Mimi became the first female to edit the Business section and then National Affairs, the most important section on the magazine. Mimi had that natural newsmagazine talent: as a writer, she could synthesize pages of files on nuclear power and polish off a complicated and comprehensive cover story the next day; as an editor she had a nose for news and a keen ear for the language. She was also popular with her troops—tough when she needed to be but never leaving bruises—and we loved that she could drink any of the boys (including the “big boys”) under the table.

  During the years of our lawsuits, Newsweek’s coverage of women was beginning to change, although an August 1971 cover story on Gloria Steinem (“The New Woman”), reported by three women and written by Dick Boeth, “a writing minority of one,” still carried the sexist subline, “A Liberated Woman Despite Beauty, Chic and Success.” A content analysis of the magazine between 1969 and 1975 by a student at the University of Missouri showed that the number of lines devoted to women or women’s issues nearly doubled in those six years, the greatest increases coming in the Sports and Business sections. Most sexist adjectives had been deleted, and when bylines were added in 1975, women writers and reporters were highly visible, especially in the Religion, Medicine, and Justice sections.

  With more women reporting, writing, and editing, there were more diverse story ideas, more quotes from female experts, and fewer cheesecake photos in “Newsmakers.” As fatigue from Vietnam and Watergate took hold, the news focus began to shift inward and the back-of-the-book areas became more important. As we had predicted, women brought new ideas to the magazine. In my first few years as senior editor, I was averaging almost a cover a month in my five sections (News Media, Television, Life/Style, Religion, and Ideas), including “Who’s Raising the Kids?” “Living with Dying,” “How Men Are Changing,” and “Saving the Family,” the first newsmagazine special report on such family issues as stepfamilies, family therapy, and how the family is portrayed on TV.

  Unfortunately, my family wasn’t saved. In November 1976, after nearly nine years of marriage, Jeff and I separate
d. The confidence I had gained on the job allowed me finally to deal with the problems in my marriage. We had tried everything, including couples counseling, but nothing seemed to work. One day, when I was telling my therapist that Jeff wasn’t giving me what I needed emotionally, my doctor simply asked, “Is he unwilling or unable?” That’s when I realized I had to leave. I felt very sad but also relieved. I think Jeff knew it was over, too, and he moved back to California soon afterward.

  I became consumed with work and as luck would have it, that paid off professionally and personally. Not only did I flourish as an editor, but I also found the right man. Steve Shepard was hired at Newsweek as a senior editor in the Business section in May 1976. Steve had been a top writer at BusinessWeek and was on leave at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism to direct the Walter Bagehot Fellowship, a mid-career business journalism program he had created with his friend Soma Golden from the New York Times. When he came to Newsweek in 1976, Steve was married, as was I, and we became friends, collaborating on several Newsweek covers and feature stories. Steve couldn’t help but notice the close camaraderie on the magazine. “Gosh, there’s so much sex at Newsweek,” he said to me shortly after he arrived. Assuming this was standard practice at most weeklies, I asked whether this wasn’t true at Business Week. “Not like this,” he replied.

  From the beginning, everyone respected Steve and he was regarded as a “comer” at the magazine. In story meetings, he was smart, sensitive, and supportive of his writers and reporters. I admired how he was able to cut through all the posturing and get to the essence of the idea. But I also thought Steve was cute. A great dresser, with a tall, slim body to show off his English double-breasted suits, Steve sported aviator glasses and longish hair that curled around his neck. Although he had grown up in the Bronx, he was nothing like those “pushy Jewish guys” from New York my Jewish mother had warned me about. He was soft-spoken and had an impish sense of humor. We got along well. He gave me wise advice about my writers and stories, and when he had his doubts, I supported his move to edit the National Affairs section in early 1977.

  And that’s where things stood when Steve’s marriage ended in June 1977. I had been single for almost a year, going out with various guys but not really involved with anyone. (I did have a few dates with Warren Beatty, which set the office chattering for months.) In September, Steve asked me out. Although I was very tempted, I thought that dating a colleague, even one on an equal level, wasn’t wise. We were in the same meetings every week and if things didn’t work out, it would be awkward. So I refused several times. Finally he stopped asking. Annoyed, he told me that if I ever wanted to go out with him, I would have to do the asking.

  The following month, in October 1977, Steve had proposed a cover story on “Is America Turning Right?,” a prescient topic three years before Ronald Reagan was elected president. For the cover, he borrowed one of my writers, David Gelman, who could be eloquent on conceptual topics. The Friday night before the cover closed, I went down to the eleventh floor to see how David was doing. Unfortunately, the story wasn’t in great shape, but Steve assured me that they would fix it and it would be fine.

  At home on Saturday, I felt bad for Steve and David. But sitting alone in my bachelorette sublet on East Sixty-Ninth Street, I realized that what I really felt was stupid. Here was this great guy at Newsweek whom I really liked, and I was crazy not to go out with him. On the pretense of finding out how the story came out, I called Steve at the office on Saturday around 5 P.M. He assured me that David had turned the cover around and it was about to go to the printers. “Well, to thank you for all your hard work, I’d like to take you out to dinner,” I said. There was a silence at the other end. Clearly he had other plans. Finally he said, “Okay, I can change some things and meet you for dinner.”

  We met at La Goulue, a little French bistro on East Seventieth Street, right around the corner from my apartment. Steve had the usual Saturday night dinner that editors often ordered to celebrate the magazine’s closing: a martini, a big fat steak, french fries, and a glass of red wine. We chatted about the cover story and Reagan and all the Newsweek gossip. At dessert, I asked if he would like to share some profiteroles. Steve confessed that he had never had profiteroles, so we ordered some. I dug my spoon into the creamy pastry puff dripping with chocolate and offered him the first taste. Our eyes met and, as we say in Yiddish, it was bashert—destiny. We went back to my apartment after dinner, where I realized that not only did I like this man, I was falling in love with him. From then on we were a couple and to this day, we celebrate our first-date anniversary on the last Saturday night in October.

  In the beginning, we kept our relationship secret. It helped that we worked on separate floors and reported to different Wallendas. Although as single senior editors there was no ethical issue, reporters are professional gossipmongers and we didn’t want to deal with the rumors. In February, we decided to go on vacation to Virgin Gorda and the only people we told were our two bosses. At dinner the first Friday night at Little Dix Bay, we toasted each other, thrilled that we were looking at the moonlit Caribbean rather than working at Newsweek until two in the morning. Just then, a waiter brought over a bottle of wine. We looked around the restaurant and didn’t recognize anyone. Bewildered, we finally saw the card. It read, “Enjoy! From all your friends at Newsweek.” The surprise had been staged by my Sports pal Pete Bonventre, whose brother worked at Little Dix. Those Newsweek reporters were good! Steve and I married in September 1979, and when I left on maternity leave in November 1980, I was given a big send-off at Top of the Week. It was another breakthrough—Newsweek’s first pregnant senior editor.

  In the 1980s, Newsweek did better in hiring and promoting women than most media organizations, but progress was slow and painful. There were backtracks and broken promises, injustices and discrimination—and still no women were at the top. When I went on maternity leave, I told the editors to fill my senior editor slot, because I wanted to work part-time when I returned. But there were other candidates who could have risen up the masthead. Mimi McLoughlin, who had the talent and experience to become the first female assistant managing editor, left the magazine in 1986 when she and her husband, Mike Ruby, another Newsweek editor, departed for US News & World Report. In 1989, they became coeditors of US News, making Mimi the first woman to edit a national newsmagazine. Annalyn Swann, a music critic at Time, was hired at Newsweek as a writer in the Arts sections and took over as senior editor in 1983. At one point Kay Graham, a friend of Annalyn’s family, had encouraged her to think about becoming a Wallenda. But, Annalyn later recalled, in talking to Rick Smith, then the editor of Newsweek, “He told me that any Wallenda should be seasoned by front-of-the-book experience as well as back-of-the-book.”

  But Rick changed his mind. In 1986, he hired Dominique Browning from Texas Monthly as the senior editor for my old sections. Two years later—and eighteen years after our first lawsuit—Rick promoted Dominique to assistant managing editor (AME), the magazine’s first female Wallenda.

  After Dominique left in 1992, several women became AMEs, but none of them made it to the very top. Alexis Gelber, a former National Affairs editor and AME, was a strong contender, but she was married to Mark Whitaker, who became the editor of Newsweek in 1998, the first African American to lead a national news magazine. That put Alexis out of the running. Ann McDaniel, who ran Newsweek’s award-winning Monica Lewinsky coverage as Washington bureau chief—and held the title of managing editor—was a favored candidate, but she didn’t want to leave D.C. In 2001, Don Graham hired her as vice president of the Washington Post Company. Dorothy Kalins was hired in 2001 as Newsweek’s executive editor, the number-three position, but as an accomplished lifestyle editor and founder of Metropolitan Home, Saveur, and Garden Design magazines, she clearly would never become the top editor of a newsmagazine.

  Every masthead is a snapshot of a moment in time: women do better at some times than at others. That’s natural, as long as pr
ogress flows as well as ebbs—and that usually depends on the person at the top. Some editors, such as Rick Smith and Maynard Parker, worked well with women and hired or promoted many of them. Others seemed to feel more comfortable with a circle of men. In 2008, Don Graham appointed Ann McDaniel to the newly created position of managing director of Newsweek Inc., overseeing both the business and editorial sides of the magazine. It was the second time, since Kay Graham, that Newsweek’s editor reported to a woman.

  AND THAT’S WHERE things stood in October 2009, when Jessica Bennett, Jesse Ellison, and Sarah Ball persuaded their editor to let them write a story about young women in the workplace today. Since the piece was bound to be controversial, the editor, Marc Peyser, kept it under wraps until it was ready. “The three of us had so much fun working on the story,” said Jesse. “We felt like there were echoes of what you all had done forty years earlier—the secrecy of it and the sisterhoodness of it!” They decided not to put their names on an early version that went to the top editors. Instead, they bylined the story “the Dollies,” the patronizing name given the Nation researchers of old. “Marc was worried about repercussions and he thought it would be safer if we didn’t sign it, just for the first draft,” explained Jessica. “He thought it would make the editors think more about who—and how many people—were saying this. But his biggest concern was that they could hold it against us and if it never ran, it would hurt us.”

  The women submitted the story to the editors right after Thanksgiving. Then they heard nothing. In January 2010, various editors responded with particular points and fixes they wanted made. The story went from 2,500 words to 6,000 words, then to 3,000 words and finally back to 2,000 words. When Peyser felt it was ready, he resubmitted it. That’s when Newsweek’s editor, Jon Meacham, decided to recuse himself from overseeing the story. “That was a perfect, silent way of killing it,” explained Jessica, “because nobody would make any decisions without Meacham’s approval.”