Women in History: Publishing Magnate, Katharine Graham

Katharine Meyer Graham enjoyed a privileged childhood. Her father, Eugene Meyer ran Allied Chemical. He bought the Washington Post in 1933 at a bankruptcy auction. Her mother was friends with the likes of Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, just to name a few. The Meyers owned several homes across the country, but lived mostly in a "castle" in New York. Her mother was also a journalist during an era when few women were employed in the journalism profession.

Graham exhibited an interest in publishing even while attending The Madeira School where she worked on the student newspaper. She attended Vassar College and then the University of Chicago in order to expose herself to a more diverse group of people.

Taking her cue from her mother, Graham worked for a short time at a San Francisco newspaper before getting on board at the Washington Post in 1938. This is where she would make her greatest impact.

Shortly after her marriage to Philip Graham, Katharine's father left the Post to head the World Bank although he continued to be Chairman of the Washington Post Company. He named Philip Graham as Publisher of The Post. With Meyer's death in 1959, Philip Graham became Chairman and quickly expanded the Washington Post Company with television stations and Newsweek Magazine.

Philip Graham was diagnosed with manic depression. Katharine also discovered he was having an affair. Philip was putting into motion filings for a divorce when he suffered a nervous breakdown. He underwent several intermittent stays at the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric facility. In 1963, during a weekend release from Chestnut, Philip Graham committed suicide.

Katharine took over the helm of The Post after Graham's death, a time in history when few women were in such high positions. She found herself facing numerous obstacles in just being taken seriously as a publisher.

However, Graham's strength and determination as a publisher became first evident when The Post ran a series of articles on The Pentagon Papers. These papers were a top-secret study of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. They first surfaced on the pages of The New York Times when Daniel Ellsberg, a contributor to the study, gave most of the papers to Neil Sheehan.

Then Attorney General John N. Mitchell and President Richard M. Nixon tried unsuccessfully to convince the Times to cease publication. Nixon and Mitchell obtained an injunction which forced the New York Times to cease publication until the case was appealed before the U.S. Supreme Court.

When The Post began running their articles regarding the Pentagon Papers, then Assistant U.S. Attorney General William Rehnquist requested The Post cease their publication. Graham refused and Rehnquist sought an injunction against the paper. As a result, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case in conjunction with the New York Times case.

For fifteen days, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press were suspended until the U.S. Supreme Court determined the injunctions to be unconstitutional prior restraint and the government failed to provide the burden of proof required to prior restraint injunction.

Graham's paper was instrumental in breaking the Watergate story. Reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward took the story of the break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters to Graham who approved further investigation. The stories published in The Post linked the break-in to more illegal activities and eventually resulted in the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

Graham no longer had any difficulty in being taken seriously as a publisher. She controlled the fifth largest publishing empire in the United States, growing profits better than 20 percent annually.

Graham's newfound power was further supported by the threat Mitchell made when he warned Bernstein about an upcoming story in The Post: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's published." The two words "her tit" were cut on publication.

Graham and her paper walked a fine line between Freedom of the Press and public knowledge. In a speech to CIA recruits in 1988, Graham stated, "We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."
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In 1975 Graham once again faced a challenge, this one within the very walls of The Post itself. Employees in The Post's pressroom walked out on strike on Oct. 1 of that year, but not before disabling the presses, even setting fire to one of them, and beating a foreman. Instead of giving in to the pressmen's demands, as she was being advised to do, Graham stood strong and eventually won the battle.

Graham named her son, Donald, publisher of The Post in 1979, although she continued to be active in the business. By that time, in addition to The Post and Newsweek, the Washington Post Company also owned the Trenton Times, four television stations and an almost half-interest in a paper company. Graham was head of the Washington Post Company from 1963 until 1993.

In 1998, Graham received a Pulitzer Prize for Biography for her memoirs, "Personal History" published by Vintage, First Vintage Books edition, Feb. 24, 1998.

She died on July 17, 2001 after sustaining a head injury from a fall. President George W. Bush awarded Graham the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2002.

Source:
[1] Counterpunch