'First . . . Getting It Right'

 "In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right." – Ellen Goodman

Born in Massachusetts on this date in 1941,  Goodmsn is a journalist, speaker and commentator whose reporting and commentary always "got it right."   

Planning to be a historian, she earned a degree in that field but quickly gravitated to writing after taking a “temporary” job as a researcher at Newsweek magazine. At the Boston Globe she first tried out her award-winning social commentary column and became a keen observer of the human condition.   

A longtime member of the Washington Post Writers Group (until her retirement in 2010), her ground-breaking writings tackled the most important social issues of the day.

 

 

Author of 8 books and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, she also earned the American Society of News Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award, the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award, and the National Women’s Political Caucus President's Award.  

And in 2008, she was honored with the Ernie Pyle Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.   “I think that having a job in journalism," she sxid, ". . .  is still a fantastic way to be – to make a living observing your society and having a chance to use your voice.”

 

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