Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. She was the first 20th century female publisher of a major American newspaper and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press.

Overview

Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. She was the first 20th century female publisher of a major American newspaper and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press. Graham's memoir, Personal History, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Early life Katharine Meyer was born in 1917 into a wealthy family in New York City, to Agnes Elizabeth (née Ernst) and Eugene Meyer. Her father was a financier and, later, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Her grandfather was Marc Eugene Meyer, and her great-grandfather was rabbi Joseph Newmark. Her father bought The Washington Post in 1933 at a bankruptcy auction. Her mother was a bohemian intellectual, art lover, and political activist in the Republican Party, who shared friendships with people as diverse as Auguste Rodin, Marie Curie, Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Dewey and Saul Alinsky.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Bromidic though it may sound, some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.”
— Quoted by Jane Howard in The Power That Didn't Corrupt, Ms. magazine (October 1974)
“We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.”
— Speech given in 1988 at CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia. Cited in Encyclopedia of American Journalism, Stephen L. Vaughn, New York: Routledge, 2008, p. 201.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Katharine Graham across IJR

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