Flora Lewis
Flora Lewis | |
---|---|
Flora Lewis ca. 1941 | |
Born | July 25, 1922 Los Angeles, California, US |
Died | May 26, 2002(2002-05-26) (aged 79) Paris, France |
Alma mater | Columbia University(M.A.) UCLA(B.A.) |
Occupation | journalist |
Years active | 1942–2002 |
Employer | The New York Times |
Known for | reportage |
Spouse | Sydney Gruson |
Children | 3 |
Awards | Overseas Press Club awards, Edward Weintal Award, Cross of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, NYWC's Matrix Award for Newspapers, NYU's Elmer Holmes Bobst Award in Arts and Letters |
Flora Lewis (25 July 1922 – May 26, 2002) was an American journalist.[1]
Background
Lewis was born into a Jewish family in Los Angeles. Her father Benjamin Lewis was a lawyer and mother Pauline Kallin a pianist. She graduated high school at the age of 15 and earned a BA from the University of California at Los Angeles graduating summa cum laude three years later. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received her master's degree from Columbia University's School of Journalism in 1942 just before turning 20.[1]
Career
In 1942, Lewis joined The Associated Press (AP) in New York and Washington. In 1945, the AP sent her to London, where she married Sydney Gruson, a New York Times correspondent. For the next 20 years, she was based in London, Jerusalem, Prague, Warsaw, Geneva, Bonn, Paris and Mexico City. European publishers included The Observer, The Economist, the International Herald Tribune in Paris,[2] The Financial Times in London and France-Soir in Paris.[1]
From 1956 to 1966, Lewis was a reporter for The Washington Post, where her work landed her on the master list of Nixon political opponents.
In 1966, Newsday published and syndicated her first column.[1]
In 1972, The New York Times appointed her foreign and diplomatic correspondent. The Times then had a rule against hiring wives of its correspondents, Lewis, however, contributed frequently to The New York Times Magazine and wrote for other publications.[3] She has the distinction of being the first woman to be given her own column on the New York Times op-ed page.[1]
Personal and death
From 1945 to 1972, Lewis was married to New York Times correspondent, editor, and publishing executive Sydney Gruson. She and Gruson had three children: Kerry (born in Ireland), Sheila (born in Israel), and Lindsey (born in Mexico).[3]
Writing for the Jewish Women's Archive, Ari Goldman described her thus:
It was a kosher home where Jewish holidays were observed, one family member recalled, but Lewis retained little attachment to traditional Jewish life in her adulthood. In her dispatches she often showed sympathy for Israel, but also felt free to criticize the Jewish state when she thought its policies were wrongheaded. She titled a 1990 column on Israel "Lament for Jerusalem." It expressed a sense of disappointment but also of love, especially for the city’s longtime mayor, Teddy Kollek (b. 1911). She wrote: "If there’s a living soul who embodies the city of Jerusalem, it’s Teddy Kollek. This is a lament for the city, and for him, because he has made his life's work trying to revive it, beautify it and bring it harmony."[4]
She died of cancer in Paris in 2002.[1]
Recognition and awards
Lewis received many awards for her journalism including for distinguished diplomatic reporting from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. She received honorary doctorates from the University of California at Los Angeles, Columbia, Princeton, Mount Holyoke, Bucknell, Muhlenberg College, and Manhattan Marymount. She received four awards from the Overseas Press Club: for foreign-affairs reporting (1957), daily newspaper or wire interpretation of foreign affairs (1963, 1977), and analysis of foreign affairs in Western Europe (1979). She also received the Edward Weintal Award (1978); the Cross of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France's highest peacetime award (1981); the Matrix Award for Newspapers from New York Women in Communication (1985), and the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award in Arts and Letters from New York University (1987).[1]
Impact
For her obituary, the New York Times wrote:
Heads of government and ordinary readers in the United States and Europe, where she lived for much of her career, looked to Flora Lewis's columns not only for her access to people in high places, but also for the dogged reporting and the sophisticated analysis that resulted.[1]
Seymour Brody likens Lewis's life to "that of a juggler in trying to balance her role as a journalist, wife, and mother," concluding that her achievements in the male-dominated profession "opened the way for other women to enter and to succeed in the newspaper industry." Rupert Cornwell stated that "Lewis had formidable assets, starting with an access to those in power that often made her colleagues green with envy. More important, she possessed a mind that could cut to the essential of an issue with astonishing speed. To her writing she brought a clarity and analytical power that enabled her to explain complicated issues without ignoring all-important nuances."[5]
By contrast, columnist Eric Alterman wrote that at the Times, Lewis "filed from Paris what was quite possibly the most boring regular column in the history of journalism," which "certainly contained no hint that the writer was a woman." The New Republic′s "World's Most Boring" headline competition was inspired by a Lewis column titled "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative."[6]
Writings
Flora Lewis wrote four books and contributed to a fifth, according to the Library of Congress catalog.
- A Case History of Hope: The Story of Poland's Peaceful Revolutions (1958)[7]
- Polish Volcano: A Case History of Hope (1959)[8]
- Red Pawn: The Story of Noel Field (1965)[9]
- The Man Who Disappeared: The Strange History of Noel Field (1966)[10]
- Pion rouge: l'histoire de Noël Field (1967)[11]
- One of Our H-Bombs is Missing (1967)[12]
- Europe: A Tapestry of Nations (1987)[13]
- Europe: Road to Unity (1992)[14]
- Avenir de la démocratie: un défi pour la société et l'Eglise (2000)[15]
Photos
- Jewish Women's Archive Flora Lewis (by Bradford Bachrach)
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h Whitney, Craig R. (June 2, 2002). "Flora Lewis, Astute Observer of World Affairs for The Times and Others, Dies at 79". The New York Times.
- ^ "This woman's place was everywhere". Sydney Morning Herald. June 24, 2002.
- ^ a b Pace, Eric (9 March 1998). "Sydney Gruson, 81, Correspondent, Editor and Executive for The New York Times, Dies". The New York Times.
- ^ Goldman, Ari L. "Flora Lewis 1922 – 2002". Jewish Women's Archive.
- ^ Brody, Seymour. "Flora Lewis (1918-2002)". Jewish Virtual Library.
- ^ Alternman, Eric (2000). Sound and Fury: the Making of the Punditocracy. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 132. ISBN 0801486394.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1958). A Case History of Hope: The Story of Poland's Peaceful Revolutions. Garden City: Doubleday. LCCN 58012051.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1959). A Case History of Hope: The Story of Poland's Peaceful Revolutions. London: Secker & Warburg. LCCN 66038052.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1965). Red Pawn: The Story of Noel Field. Garden City: Doubleday.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1965). The Man Who Disappeared: The Strange History of Noel Field. London: Barker. LCCN 66002516.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1967). Pion rouge: l'histoire de Noël Field. Paris: Gallimard. LCCN 68120473.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1967). One of Our H-Bombs is Missing. New York: McGraw-Hill. LCCN 67014674.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1987). Europe: A Tapestry of Nations. New York: Simon & Schuster. LCCN 87012878.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1992). Europe: Road to Unity (revised). New York: Simon & Schuster. LCCN 92234710.
- ^ Lewis, Flora (1992). Avenir de la démocratie: un défi pour la société et l'Eglise. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Bruylant. LCCN 2001348595.
External resources
- Pearson, Richard (3 June 2002). "Journalist, Author Flora Lewis Dies". The Washington Post.
- Cornwall, Rupert (28 June 2002). "Flora Lewis Trailblazing US foreign correspondent". The Independent.[dead link]
- "Flora Lewis, 79; Foreign Correspondent, Expert on Europe". Los Angeles Times. 3 June 2002.[dead link]
- v
- t
- e
- Maria Jimena Duzan, Florica Ichim, Caryle Murphy, Lilianne Pierre-Paul (1990)
- Lyubov Kovalevskaya (1991)
- Catherine Gicheru, Kemal Kurspahic, Gordana Knezevic (1992)
- Donna Ferrato, Mirsada Sakic-Hatibovic, Arijana Saracevic, Cecilia Valenzuela (1993)
- Christiane Amanpour, Razia Bhatti, Marie-Yolande Saint-Fleur (1994)
- Chris Anyanwu, Horria Saihi, Gao Yu (1995)
- Ayse Onal, Saida Ramadan, Lucy Sichone (1996)
- Bina Bektiati, Corinne Dufka, Maribel Gutierrez Moreno (1997)
- Elizabeth Neuffer, Blanca Rosales Valencia, Anna Zarkova (1998)
- Sharifa Akhlas, Kim Bolan, Aferdita Kelmendi (1999)
- Marie Colvin, Agnès Nindorera, Zamira Sydykova (2000)
- Amal Abbas of Sudan, ineth Bedoya Lima, Carmen Gurruchaga (2001)
- Kathy Gannon, Sandra Nyaira, Anna Politkovskaya (2002)
- Anne Garrels, Tatyana Goryachova, Marielos Monzon (2003)
- Gwen Lister, Mabel Rehnfeldt, Salima Tlemcani (2004)
- Sumi Khan, Anja Niedringhaus, Shahla Sherkat (2005)
- Jill Carroll, May Chidiac (2006)
- Lydia Cacho, Serkalem Fasil, McClatchy's Baghdad bureau (Shatha al Awsy, Zaineb Obeid, Huda Ahmed, Ban Adil Sarhan, Alaa Majeed, Sahar Issa) (2007)
- Farida Nekzad, Sevgul Uludag, Aye Aye Win (2008)
- Jila Baniyaghoob, Iryna Khalip, Agnes Taile, Amira Hass (2009)
- Claudia Julieta Duque, Vicky Ntetema, Tsering Woeser (2010)
- Adela Navarro Bello, Parisa Hafezi, Chiranuch Premchaiporn (2011)
- Reeyot Alemu, Asmaa Al-Ghoul, Khadija Ismayilova (2012)
- Najiba Ayubi, Nour Kelze, Bopha Phorn, Anne Finucane (2013)
- Arwa Damon, Solange Lusiku Nsimire, Brankica Stanković, Alexandra Trower (2014)
- Mwape Kumwenda, Anna Nemtsova, Lourdes Ramirez (2015)
- Mabel Cáceres, Janine di Giovanni, Stella Paul (2016)
- Deborah Amos, Saniya Toiken, Hadeel al-Yamani (2017)
- Meridith, Nima Elbagir, Rosario Mosso Castro, Anna Babinets, Zehra Doğan (2018)
- Anna Babinets, Anna Nimiriano, Liz Sly, Lucia Pineda, Nastya Stanko (2019)
- Gulchehra Hoja, Jessikka Aro, Solafa Magdy, Yakeen Bido (2020)
- Khabar Lahariya newsroom, Paola Ugaz, Vanessa Charlot (2021)
- Cerise Castle, Lynsey Addario, Victoria Roshchyna (2022)
- María Teresa Montaño Delgado, Women of The Washington Post Reporting on Ukraine (Isabelle Khurshudyan, Anastacia Galouchka, Kamila Hrabchuk, Siobhán O'Grady, Whitney Shefte, Whitney Leaming, Heidi Levine, Louisa Loveluck, Missy Ryan, Samantha Schmidt, Loveday Morris, Kasia Strek, Joyce Koh, Miriam Berger) (2023)
- Marites Vitug (1991)
- Barbara Walters (1992)
- Nan Robertson (1993)
- Katharine Graham (1994)
- Helen Thomas (1995)
- Meg Greenfield (1996)
- Nancy Woodhull (1997)
- Bonnie Angelo (1998)
- Peggy Peterman (1999)
- Flora Lewis (2000)
- Colleen "Koky" Dishon (2001)
- Mary McGrory (2002)
- Magdalena Ruiz (2003)
- Belva Davis (2004)
- Molly Ivins (2005)
- Elena Poniatowska (2006)
- Peta Thornycroft (2007)
- Edith Lederer (2008)
- Amira Hass (2009)
- Alma Guillermoprieto (2010)
- Kate Adie (2011)
- Zubeida Mustafa (2013)
- Edna Machirori (2014)
- Linda Deutsch (2015)
- Diane Rehm (2016)
- Andrea Mitchell (2017)
- Lesley Stahl (2018)
- Heidi Levine (2015)
- Adriane Ohanesian (2016)
- Stephanie Sinclair (2017)
- Andrea Bruce (2018)
- Eloisa Lopez (2019)
- Masrat Zahra (2020)
- Fatima Shbair (2021)
- Paula Bronstein (2022)
- Laurence Geai (2023)
- Michele Norris (2017)
- Karen Toulon (2018)
- Nikole Hannah-Jones (2019)
- Yamiche Alcindor (2020)
- Sisi Wei (2021)
- Mc Nelly Torres (2022
- Karen Grigsby Bates (2023)
- Katsiaryna Andreyeva, Darya Chultsova (2021)
- Xueqin (Sophia) Huang (2922)
- Yalda Moaiery (2023)