Breaking down barriers
By ADAM REILLY | August 27, 2008
Congrats to Boston University journalism professor Caryl Rivers, who’ll receive the Society of Professional Journalists’ Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement — named for the dogged octogenarian White House correspondent — at the SPJ’s annual convention in Atlanta on September 6. It’s an honor that Rivers, who’s paid close attention to the relationship between media and gender, is particularly happy to receive. “I’m absolutely thrilled,” she tells the Phoenix. “Because when I started my career in journalism, Helen Thomas was one of the first women in Washington who actually covered real stuff.”“My first moment of realizing there was discrimination in journalism came in 1965,” Rivers adds. “At that time, in the National Press Club, women couldn’t sit on the floor if a famous speaker came; they had to go up into the balcony where the TV cameras were.” While profiling Carl Rowan, the path-breaking African-American journalist, for the Washington Star, Rivers entered the National Press Club with her subject — at which point she was intercepted by “two big burly guys” who promptly directed her to the women’s section. “Rowan said, ‘When I was a kid in Tennessee, I had to sit in the balcony when I went to the movie theater,’ ” Rivers recalls. “And all of a sudden it clicked.”
Today, Rivers says, the situation for women journalists isn’t perfect: she argues that they face a “glass ceiling,” and cites the paucity of female talking heads on the Sunday-morning political talk shows as evidence. But she also stresses that the overall picture for women in news is greatly improved. “In those days, there were no women television anchors, reporters, bureau chiefs,” Rivers notes. “The only place women were really allowed, for the most part, was on women’s pages. Today, girls can grow up fully expecting to be [CNN’s chief international correspondent] Christiane Amanpour, or a top editor at the Washington Post or the Boston Globe. So it’s just another universe.”
Related:
Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division, Words as music, A call to action, More 
- Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division
In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors ( Sweezy v. New Hampshire ), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom.
- Words as music
He originally set out to be a jazz critic.
- A call to action
In this campaign season of railing against government and the status quo, do you actually know much about all the different things your government does?
- Corrections Department obstructs free press
This week is Sunshine Week, a time when media organizations around the country draw attention to state and federal Freedom of Information laws.
- Feasts and fasts
Ramadan is a family-oriented month, and Islamic societies at universities around town provide new sets of communities for students.
- The unfaithful scholar
Perhaps you were lured by the promise of original Abraham Lincoln speeches (Boston College) or a castle (Emerson’s Kasteel Well, a 12th century landmark in the Netherlands).
- Spelling lessons
A fair number of college students are turning to Wicca for spiritual identity.
- Scenic route to Hell
When it comes to goals a band can strive to achieve, having an excuse to get hammered and make noise with your buddies is surely among the most practical.
- Reggae revival
The climate is tropical, sweet skunk fills the air, and reggae jams are hitting such lofty decibels that I can't even feel my phone vibrate.
- PRC anniversary show
The Photographic Resource Center (PRC) at Boston University, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, has announced a call for entries for the 12th installment of its annual — and acclaimed — juried exhibition.
- A voice for the voiceless
“Where we come from we have a saying: ‘If you live in hell long enough, you get used to it.’ ” That’s Mohammed Harba talking about his former life in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.
- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, Boston University, Society of Professional Journalists, National Press Club, More
, Boston University, Society of Professional Journalists, National Press Club, Helen Thomas, Christiane Amanpour, Less
