Gloria Steinem is famous for her
engagements in the feminism and social justice movements. Although she was born
on March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, she did not stay in Ohio for the majority of
her childhood. She would move around from Michigan, California, and Florida
during different times of the year. Because of this frequent traveling, Steinem
didn’t regularly attend school until she was 11 years old. She studied
government at Smith College, which was an unusual choice of major for women at
the time.
After graduating college, Steinem
was a freelance writer for Esquire
and Huntington Hartford’s Show magazine.
In 1963, for Show, she wrote one of
her famous exposés. Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Bunny to write about
how waitresses in clubs such as Playboy were mistreated. Her experience as a
Bunny was later made into a movie in 1985, called A Bunny’s Tale. Another portion of her journalism career was spent founding
the New York magazine in 1968, where
she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles.
Steinem became more involved in
the feminist movement when she wrote a report on an abortion speak-out in the New York magazine. She considered this
particular assignment to be a turning point in her career.
She continued her feminist
movement participation in 1972, when she founded Ms. magazine, a feminist-themed magazine. This was the first
magazine to Ms. Magazine, the first magazine to offer a woman's
viewpoint on political, social, cultural, religious and other issues. Around
the same time, she also helped organize the National Women's Political Caucus,
the Women's Action Alliance and the Coalition of Labor Union Women. She
remained an editor of the magazine for 15 years, until it was sold to a
conglomerate in 1987. She became Ms. magazine's
consulting editor when it was revived in 1991, and she was inducted into the
National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. After Ms. magazine was sold, Steinem dedicated her time to writing and
lecturing.
Sources:
The Official Website
of Author and Activist.
N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.gloriasteinem.com/who-is-gloria/>.
Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalists: Getting the
Story. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.
Because I STILL can't post on the blog.
ReplyDeleteRupert Murdoch
Australian born and Great Britain raised, Rupert Murdoch was quick to build a vast media empire. Murdoch’s father was a major newspaper publisher in Australia, and when he passed, Rupert was more than thrilled to take over. While his father was a popular and well-liked man, Rupert was the opposite. He disliked school and had few friends. While described as “guarded, shy, and restless,” Murdoch’s newspapers were not the same at all.
Murdoch’s first papers included the Australian Adelaide News which he inherited from his father, and the first national paper in Australia, The Australian. He had flashy headlines and bizarre topics, all of which grabbed many people’s attention. The Australian, created in 1964, was created to end rivalries between Australia’s seven different states. It covered national issues and foreign affairs.
A hard hitting conservative, Murdoch bought News of The World, a London Sunday tabloid. He completely redesigned it into an endorsement for the Conservative Party, and did the same to other tabloids such as Times of London and Sunday Times.
Murdoch wanted to build his empire. He purchased his first U.S. papers in San Antonio, Texas and founded the supermarket tabloid called National Star. To make the American tabloids as racy and scandalous as his Australian and Britain ones, he hired all his journalists from both countries. He redirected many papers, taking away their liberal views and serious articles and replacing them with sensationalism and conservative news.
Unfortunately, Murdoch was disliked by most of the journalist population because of how he turned all his papers into outlets of his own views. They called him self-centered, “a pirate and a predator and referred to his papers as sleazy products that pandered to the worst public cravings.” Despite this, his supporting public said Murdoch was energizing his papers and that he also employed a lot of journalists.
After his reign in the newspaper industry, Murdoch became extremely interested in television and its potential in the media world. News Corporation purchased Fox network, challenging the big three networks in control before. Murdoch had to become an American citizen to properly own a U.S. television network, proving that he would do anything to keep his empire vast.
By the 1990s Murdoch’s News Corporation employed more than 30,000 people, publishing and broadcasting in places around the world.
-Sydney Morrison