''Women's eNews'' is a nonprofit online news service based in New York City. It was founded by the late Rita Jensen. Lori Sokol, PhD, now leads the organization, assuming the title of Executive Director since July, 2016. Women's eNews publishes international news articles specializing in coverage of women's lives.

History

In 1996, the

Barbara Lee Family Foundation Barbara Fish Lee (born July 3, 1945) is an American philanthropist. She founded and leads the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and the Barbara Lee Political Office, both located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Major targets of Lee's donations include ...

funded a discussion about women's media, hosted by a spinoff of

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

: NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. In 1999, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund underwrote ''Women's eNews'', created to be an online news service for all women, and to act as a news wire for commercial media. The NOW Legal Defense fund put journalist Rita Henley Jensen in the position of editor in chief. NOW Legal Defense Fund's president of the time, Kathryn Rodgers said of the launch: Two years later on January 1, 2002, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund released ''Women's eNews'' to become an independent organization. ''Women's eNews'' joined the Fund for the City for New York's Incubator/Partner Project Program in 2002. ''Women's eNews'' launched its Arabic language site, ''Arabic Women's eNews'', on April 28, 2003, in response to the theme of

women's empowerment Women's empowerment (or female empowerment) may be defined in several ways, including accepting women's viewpoints, making an effort to seek them and raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training.Kabeer, Naila ...

in the

United Nations Development Program The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

's first Arab Human Development Report. ''Arabic Women's eNews'' translates English-language content into Arabic and also creates new content in Arabic. In 2008, ''Women's eNews'' left the Incubator/Partner Project Program and became an independent organization. Rita Henley Jensen remained editor-in-chief of ''Women's eNews''.

Founder

Rita Henley Jensen (1947-2017) was the founder of Women's eNews. She left an abusive marriage and attended Ohio State University, graduating in 1976, and Columbia University, graduating in 1977 with a master's degree in journalism. In 1981, Jensen's then-roommate

Kathy Boudin Kathy Boudin (May 19, 1943 – May 1, 2022) was an American radical leftist who served 23 years in prison for felony murder based on her role in the 1981 Brink's robbery. The robbery resulted in the killing of two Nyack, New York, police offic ...

was part of the Brink's robbery. After this Jensen was fired by a newspaper she had been employed by; the paper claimed that she had let lies about what she knew of Boudin's identity be published in it, while Jensen claimed she had actually been fired for not writing a first-person story about being Boudin's roommate, and that accounts in the news had misconstrued her claims about her knowledge of Boudin's identity. Jensen's daughter later stated that she (Jensen) had been blacklisted. However, she was later able to return to work as a journalist. In 2000, she founded Women's Enews and became its editor-in-chief. In 2016 she became its Editor-In-Chief Emerita. Jensen was also on the honorary advisory board for the

Women's Media Center Women's Media Center (WMC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit women's organization in the United States founded in 2005 by writers and activists Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem.

. She received the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni award, the Hunter College Presidential Grant for Innovative Uses of Technology in Teaching, the Lloyd P. Burns Public Service prize, the PASS Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and the Rosa Cisneros Award from the

International Planned Parenthood Federation The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is a global non-governmental organisation with the broad aims of promoting sexual and reproductive health, and advocating the right of individuals to make their own choices in family ...

, Western Hemisphere Region. The Women Economic Forum named her the 2016 Iconic Thought Leader for the Decade in Media, and she had also been named one of the 100 most influential women in New York by the ''New York Daily News''. She died of breast cancer in Manhattan, New York, on October 18, 2017, at the age of 70. She was survived by two daughters, two granddaughters and two grandsons.

Funding

''Women's eNews'' receives funding from individual donors on their website, and from humanitarian foundations. Notable grants include one of $100,000 received in 2010 from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

earmarked for the production of a 12-part series on women's poverty in America: "Scenes from the Women's Economy". Beginning in July 2009, a 20-month grant totaling $400,000 came from the

W. K. Kellogg Foundation The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was founded in June 1930 as the W. K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer Will Keith Kellogg. In 1934, Kellogg donated more than $66 million in Kellogg Company stock and other investments to ...

for the study of high mortality rates related to childbirth in African-American communities.

Awards

''Women's eNews'' and its writers have received over 35 awards since the organization's launch in 2000, including "Best Internet Site" in 2005 from the

National Federation of Press Women The National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) is a United States-based organization of professional women and men pursuing careers in the field of communications, including electronic, broadcast and print journalism, public relations, marketing, adv ...

, and the "Exceptional Merit in Media Award" in 2010 from the

National Women's Political Caucus The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), or the Caucus, describes itself as a multi-partisan grassroots organization in the United States dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who seek elected and appointed offices at all ...

. Jensen won many awards for her work at the helm of the news service including the National Association for Female Executives' Woman of Excellence award in 2010. She was also a past honoree as one of the most

Exceptional Women in Publishing Exceptional Women in Publishing (EWIP) is a non-profit organization formerly known as Women in Periodical Publishing (WIPP). EWIP's goal is to help women in publishing support each other, develop leadership skills, and balance professional and pe ...

, an annual award first given to

Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steinem was a c ...

References

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External links

''Women's eNews''

''Arabic Women's eNews''
Feminist mass media American political websites Non-profit organizations based in New York City American women's websites American journalism organizations