There's No Crying in Newsrooms
Subtitle
What Women Have Learned about What It Takes to Lead
Foreword by Campbell Brown
"There’s No Crying in Newsrooms" tells the stories of remarkable women who broke through barrier after barrier at media organizations around the country over the past four decades. They started out as editorial assistants, fact checkers and news secretaries and ended up running multimillion-dollar news operations that determine a large part of what Americans read, view and think about the world. These women, who were calling in news stories while in labor and parking babies under their desks, never imagined that 40 years later young women entering the news business would face many of the same battles they did — only with far less willingness to put up and shut up.
The female pioneers in “There’s No Crying in Newsrooms” have many lessons to teach about what it takes to succeed in media or any other male-dominated organization, and their message is more important now than ever before.
Bios
Kristin Grady Gilger is senior associate dean at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She also serves as director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and the National Center on Disability and Journalism, both housed at Cronkite. Before joining ASU in 2002, she spent 20 years reporting and editing at newspapers across the country.
Julia Wallace was a top media executive and high-ranking editor at four major newspapers. She spent more than 20 years as a top editor and was the first female editor-in-chief of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 2017, she joined the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication as the Frank Russell Chair.
Praise for this book
(This) is an important, readable and timely book about women newsroom leaders at a turning point in American journalism. It vividly describes, from probing interviews, the struggles and triumphs of dozens of leading women journalists. Each chapter ends with engaging, sage advice from the authors, drawing on their own long careers as successful news leaders. A rich portfolio of photos of many of the women helps readers get to know them even better. The book should be essential reading for journalists and for everyone else interested in the journey of American women today.
Leonard Downie Jr. Former executive editor and vice president of The Washington Post)
I’m truly thankful to Kristin and Julia for writing this book. It’s part history, part practical advice, and fueled by the stories women journalists tell when we’re together. It’s important that the discussion about facing obstacles and opportunities for women in journalism be shared more widely. I came away inspired by and grateful to the trailblazing women journalists who have led the way.
Nicole Carroll Editor-in-chief of USA Today
