Lynn Povich
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Lynn Povich (born 1943) is an American journalist. She began her career as a secretary in the Paris Bureau of ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' magazine, rising to become a reporter and writer in New York in the late 1960's. In 1970, she was one of a group of women who sued the magazine for sex discrimination. Five years later, she was appointed the first woman Senior Editor in Newsweek's history. Povich is the daughter of journalist Shirley Povich and the sister of Maury Povich.


Personal life

Lynn Povich is the daughter of Ethyl and ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' sports journalist Shirley Povich. She is of
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
descent. She majored in modern European history at
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...
, and upon graduating in June 1965, left to work as a secretary in the Newsweek's Paris bureau. There she worked with
Elizabeth Peer Elizabeth Clow Peer Jansson (February 3, 1936 – May 26, 1984), often just Liz Peer, was a pioneering American journalist who worked for ''Newsweek'' from 1958 until her death in 1984. She began her career at ''Newsweek'' as a copy girl, at a ...
, ''Newsweeks'' first female foreign correspondent, who Povich would later consider " e of the great influences of my life." After a year and a half abroad, she returned to New York in November 1966 as a researcher for Newsweek and married Jeffery Young in June of next year. In March 1969, she became a junior writer.


Lawsuit

In 1970,
Eleanor Holmes Norton Eleanor Holmes Norton (born June 13, 1937) is an American lawyer and politician serving as a delegate to the United States House of Representatives, representing the District of Columbia since 1991. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Ea ...
represented sixty female employees of Newsweek (including Povich) who had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Newsweek had a policy of only allowing men to be reporters. The women won, and Newsweek agreed to allow women to be reporters. The day the claim was filed, Newsweek's cover article was "Women in Revolt", covering the feminist movement; the article was written by a woman who had been hired on a freelance basis since there were no female reporters at the magazine.


Publications

In 2005, for the 100th anniversary of the ''Washington Post''. she published a collection of Shirley Povich's sports journalism, ''All those mornings-- at the Post : the twentieth century in sports from famed Washington post writer Shirley Povich''. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 243 libraries. She also published in 2012 a book called '' The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace'' detailing the lawsuits. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 756 libraries. A series of interviews with her was published by the Washington Press Club Foundation in its oral history project, "Women in journalism".


Awards

* Foremother award from The National Center for Health Research, 2018 *'' The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace'' was named a top ten book on the Amelia Bloomer Book List in 2014


References


External links


LynnPovich.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Povich, Lynn American women journalists American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Jewish American writers Jewish American journalists Living people Vassar College alumni American women writers 1943 births 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women