Friday, October 2, 2009

Enjoying JAWS: Women & Journalism Symposium at Snowbird


I'm at 8,000 feet at Snowbird in Utah, attending the Journalism & Women Symposium

Up at 4, Pete taxied me to the airport at 5, and I was airborne by 6:30, doing homework at 35,000 feet.

This group is an impressive assemblage of long-serving strong women journalists. They are gathered to consider the future of the craft they devoted themselves to, and women's role in its future. Lots of young journalists got fellowships to come.

One of my favorite things today was listening to Becky Wade read Maya Angelou's appreciation for the Texas journalist Molly Ivins shortly after she died in 2007. Molly Ivins Shook the Walls with her Clarion Call appeared in the Washington Post on Feb. 2, 2007, just days after Ivins had passed. It's worth the click through to read. I can hear Angelou's strong voice as I read it.

Becky Wade, by the way, was one of the three women journalists who sued the New York Times in the 1970s over its treatment of women journalists. Pulitzer Prize winner Nan Robertson told the story in The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men and the New York Times.

It was a long day of travel, more as the conference unfolds.