Fanning, Katherine Woodruff

▪ 2001

“Kay” 

      American journalist (b. Oct. 18, 1927, Joliet, Ill.—d. Oct. 19, 2000, Boston, Mass.), was a relative latecomer to her profession but rose to become one of the most highly respected and influential figures in her field. Considered a pioneer, she helped the Anchorage Daily News grow to be Alaska's largest newspaper and a Pulitzer Prize winner, became the first female editor of The Christian Science Monitor, and was the first woman to serve as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Having graduated from Smith College, Northampton, Mass., in 1949 and from 1950 to 1963 been married to department store heir and Chicago Sun-Times publisher Marshall Field IV, she moved to Alaska in 1965, took a low-level job at the Anchorage Daily News, and, employing the knowledge of journalism she gained during her marriage, worked her way up to the position of reporter. In 1966 she married Larry Fanning, and the couple bought the Daily News the following year. Under their leadership the paper was transformed into an arm of investigative journalism, a path Fanning continued after her husband's death in 1971. With her as editor and publisher, it raised its daily circulation from 12,000 to 50,000 and in 1976 won the Pulitzer for a 15-part series that exposed Teamsters Union activities during the construction of the Alaska oil pipeline. Fanning sold the Daily News in 1983 and moved to Boston, where she became editor of The Christian Science Monitor. By the time she left five years later, in protest against budget cuts, she had built the paper into one of national importance, noted for its quality of international news coverage. Fanning thereafter spent a year at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, until 1993 was an adjunct professor at Boston University, and served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and as a board member of the Boston Globe, the Associated Press, and the Pulitzer Prize organization.

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