Miriam Ottenberg (October 7, 1914 in Washington, D.C. – November 10, 1982) was the first woman

news reporter A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

for ''

The Washington Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the ''Washington'' ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday ...

'' who won a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

in 1960, for a series of articles exposing the practices of unscrupulous used car dealers in

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Background

Her father was Louis Ottenberg (1886–1960), a lawyer for 45 years in the

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, at whose suggestion the

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created the

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Runnymede Runnymede is a water-meadow alongside the River Thames in the English county of Surrey, bordering Berkshire and just over west of central London. It is notable for its association with the sealing of Magna Carta, and as a consequence is, with ...

, England. Her mother was Nettie (Podell) Ottenberg, one of the first training social workers in the United States who won the first federal funding for day care."Ottenberg, Nettie Podell (1887–1982)." '' Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages'', edited by Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, vol. 2, Yorkin Publications, 2007, pp. 1456-1457. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2588818247/GVRL?u=wikipedia&sid=GVRL&xid=7411f384. Accessed 10 May 2021.

Career

Ottenberg's follow-up stories led to

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of remedial law.Elizabeth A. Brennan, Elizabeth C. Clarage, eds., ''Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners'' (

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, 1999), {{ISBN, 978-1573561112, p. 356
Excerpts available
at

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. With several honors and awards given during her career, Ottenberg also was one of the first

reporters A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, adverti ...

to reveal that the ''

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'' was an organized crime network. She once summed up her feelings about her role as a journalist: "A reporter should expose the bad and campaign for the good. That's the way I was brought up."{{cite news , last=Carper , first=Elsie , date=November 10, 1982 , newspaper=

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

, title=Reporter Miriam Ottenberg Of The Washington Star Dies , url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1982/11/10/reporter-miriam-ottenberg-of-the-washington-star-dies/55ff6cb8-0f2f-4711-b309-011815ea381c/ , access-date=April 28, 2020

Awards and recognition

* Co-winner of the Washington Newspaper Guild competition for public service articles in 1953 * Honorable mention awards in the same category in 1954 and 1958, and in 1959 * Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for best investigation report: "Buyer Beware" * Bill Pryor Award of the Washington Newspaper Guild for her series on used car fraud, "Buyer Beware" * First place in the local news category for her stories on an abortion ring and on murders of women * In May 1958, capital police, jurists, and local and federal government officials held a party to pay tribute to Ottenberg's efforts against crime * She was given awards for distinction by the National Council of Jewish Women in 1963 and by the American Association of University Women in 1975 * In 1979 she won the Hope Chest Award from the National Capital Chapter of the National MS Society

Works

Ottenberg published the following books: * ''The Warren Commission Report: The Assassination of President Kennedy'' Miriam Ottenberg * ''The Pursuit of Hope'' Ottenberg, Miriam {{ISBN, 9780892560691 * ''The Federal Prosecutors'' (Prentice-Hall), a book about the FBI (1962)

References

{{reflist {{PulitzerPrize Investigative Reporting {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Ottenberg, Miriam American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent 20th-century American women journalists Jewish American journalists Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners 1914 births 1982 deaths 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American Jews {{US-journalist-1910s-stub