Katharine Graham: 1917-2001
by Stephanie Kuenn

In the journalism trade, the publisher is often someone behind the scenes, best known around the office for grudgingly signing paychecks and forbidding hot-button debates that might upset the local movers and shakers. But Katharine Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post, defied that stereotype. When Graham died this week at 84, she left behind a rich, storied career that spanned decades and changed the face of journalism.

As a publisher, she took a mediocre newspaper and turned it into an acclaimed media conglomerate, encouraging good writing and solid reporting over profits and power — something evident in her continued support throughout the Post's not-always-popular Watergate investigation.

More importantly, perhaps, she showed it was possible to be a woman and head a major media empire, in the process raising four kids and dealing with her manic-depressive husband's incredibly painful public meltdown and suicide. She worked with Gloria Steinem and others to champion women's causes. In many ways, Graham was the first hero of the women's movements, shocking those who thought a woman could never succeed in a man's business.

But it wasn't just that she did all these things. It's that she did them well, and had no regrets. Katharine Graham's life played out like something from a storybook — the poor little rich girl who lost everything and won it back again — but unlike many a heroine, she built her own happy ending.

Her father, a successful businessman who bought the fledgling Post in an auction in the early 1930s, barely encouraged his daughter's interest in journalism after she graduated from the University of Chicago. After a short stint with the San Francisco News, Graham returned to Washington to work on the Post's editorial page, where her father said that the paper could just fire her if she didn't work out.

It was upon her return that she met Philip Graham, whom she once called "the fizz" in her life. Phil Graham was determined that he and his heiress wife live on their own terms and money, rather than the ones her father dictated. But the patriarch convinced Phil to take over the Post, selling him more shares in the company than Katharine because "no man should ever work for his wife." While her husband worked to expand the Post's empire, Graham became a leading socialite and focused on raising their children, keeping an eye on her husband's increasingly erratic behavior and heavy drinking.

Her seemingly perfect life shattered in the early 1960s when she discovered Phil had not only been carrying on an affair with a Newsweek employee, but also scheming to buy out her shares in the company and take it over completely. The demure doyenne chose to play hardball, refusing to grant her husband a divorce until she had controlling stock in the company and established herself as a force to be reckoned with.

After her husband committed suicide soon after these revelations, Graham, a self-described doormat wife, decided to hold onto the paper herself rather than find a way to wait for her sons to take over. Although she said she felt woefully ignorant most of the time, an anxiety well-documented in "Personal History," her Pulitzer-winning 1998 autobiography, Graham quickly turned the Post into a must-read national newspaper and herself into arguably the most powerful woman in Washington, if not the country.

One of the first things she did was hire Ben Bradlee as executive editor, a move she would forever consider her best decision. Within a few years, she was siding against the Post's lawyers and with Bradlee and the New York Times' in the latter's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers. After a court backed the Times' decision to print, she outraged the Washington elite even further by allowing the Post to follow suit in publishing the papers as well.

Later, Graham took on the Nixon Administration when she and the Post supported young reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward during their investigation of the Watergate break-in, causing John Mitchell to threaten that "Katie Graham's going to get her tit caught in a big fat ringer" for publishing the reporters' findings.

And in an epic labor battle with the Post's press workers, Graham refused to let the paper cease publishing during a strike. She ordered executives and newsroom workers to participate in all aspects of the paper and even sold classifieds herself.

Graham's life reflected the strides women have made in society. For years, Graham thought herself incapable of anything but rearing children and hosting parties, racked with insecurity from her father's lack of support and her husband's constant belittling. But although she remained close to her children and her social invitations were considered second only to the White House, Graham showed it possible for women to have a high-powered career and a family.

She also demonstrated that it was possible to run a profitable news organization that trusted its reporters and placed high-quality journalism as its first priority — something that is rare in these days of newsroom cutbacks, protecting profit margins and constant second-guessing. She didn't always make the easiest or most-liked decisions, and she certainly didn't cater to the political establishment. Katherine Graham was unique in the newspaper world. Journalists everywhere — and their hands-off, profit-minded publishers — would do well to remember her by following her example.

E-mail Stephanie Kuenn at smkuenn at gmail dot com.