The Good Girls Revolt Read Online Free PDF

telexes for breaking news, researching background material in the library, chatting with the guys about their stories, and on closing nights, fact-checking the articles. The wires were clacking, the phones were ringing, and we were engaged in lively conversations about things that mattered. It was thrilling to feel the pulse of the news and to have that special pipeline to the truth that civilians couldn’t possibly have. “It was everything you wouldn’t think of growing up in Marion, Pennsylvania,” said Franny Heller Zorn, who still remembered the thrill of finding the first wire report about a breaking news event, in her case when Adlai Stevenson collapsed on a sidewalk in London and died later that day. “The guys were great, the women were terrific, and everyone was smart. It was a privilege to be part of the Newsweek culture and to have that job, even with all the crap we had to do.”
    Our primary job was to fact-check the stories and that meant checking nearly every word in a sentence except “and” and “the.” We underlined what we confirmed and in the margin, we noted the source—the reporter’s file, a newspaper story, or a reference book. All proper names had to be checked against telephone books or directories. If the only source was the reporter, we grilled him on the correct name, title, and spelling. If we had any questions about the accuracy, we would underline the suspicious word or sentence with a red pencil. A fact was not to be checked against a newspaper story unless it was the only source we had. The New York Times was considered the best newspaper, but even that wasn’t to be relied on for spellings or history unless it was a last resort. “If there was a difference of opinion between your research and the reporter, you had to call him up and gingerly say something like, ‘I’m really sorry and I’m sure you’re right, but the New York Times said it happened on Monday and you said Tuesday in your file,’” recalled Lucy Howard. “And the reporter would inevitably say, ‘Goddamn it, what is the point of sending me out here if you’re using the New York Times ?’”
    Unlike our counterparts at Time, we also ran interference between the bureau correspondents and the writers and editors. If a Time researcher had a problem or question on a story, she wasn’t allowed to call the reporter in the field; she could only tell the editor. We were constantly on the phone with the correspondents. “I saw myself as an advocate for the reporter, to keep them out of trouble,” said Lucy. “I wanted to make sure the writer didn’t screw up and spell anything wrong. But I thought it was more important for the reporters to file what they saw and heard rather than worrying that they got the name wrong.” Even Peter Goldman, who had the reputation of being an accurate writer, said, “I don’t think I wrote anything longer than eighty lines where one of the researchers didn’t catch something.”
    The modern, green-glassed Time-Life tower on Sixth Avenue and Forty-Ninth Street was only two blocks away from our modest, Art Deco building on Madison Avenue and Forty-Ninth, but the Newsweek culture was a world away from Henry Luce’s empire. Time was WASPier, classier, and better resourced than us younger, scrappier upstarts at Newsweek . At Newsweek, we spent hours in the thirteenth-floor library, rummaging for relevant information in the “morgue,” which housed valuable old (hence, “dead”) newspaper and magazine clippings and reporter’s files. At Time, the researchers would call up the library for sources, and carts would appear at their doors filled with files and books carrying the appropriate place marks.
    On Friday nights at Newsweek, the writers and researchers went out to the local bars or ordered greasy food from Harman’s or Beefburger on Forty-Ninth Street. At Time, the editorial staffers were treated to a buffet dinner of lobster or filet mignon on a table set with silver