Tales of the Fight for Equal Rights for Women Journalists

In the late 1960s, women journalists finally were beginning to be hired as hard news reporters. But their treatment in salary and responsibility would probably shock today’s reporters. Ground had to be broken.

Two of those groundbreakers – Eleanor Clift and Ann Crittenden – will join us at 1 p.m. on June 5 to talk about their legal actions in 1970 against Time, Inc. and Newsweek that allowed women to become writers at those magazines.

In 1970, Clift was in the Atlanta bureau of Newsweek Magazine, working as a “Girl Friday” assistant.  She said the “women in New York argued on my behalf that I was doing reporting and not getting paid for it.  They helped embolden me to ask for one of the internships made possible for women working at the magazine then.”

Crittenden was a Fortune researcher who repeatedly saw her interviews with major news figures published under a man’s byline, was paid far less and had no hope of advancement. She was part of a group of her female colleagues secretly gathering signatures to file a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

The program is sponsored by the Club’s History and Heritage team and cosponsored by American Heritage Magazine, edited by team member Edwin Grosvenor.

Admission is free for members and $5 for nonmembers.