23 women who changed journalism forever from past to present

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While the fight for gender equality around the globe has made major strides, inequalities still exist in the field of journalism. For example, in India, women make up half of journalism graduates, but only 20% of full-time journalism jobs. Men account for 64% of reporting jobs, while women hold only 36% of those jobs, the Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media found.

The National Women's History Alliance has declared the 2023 theme for Women's History Month as “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories." These 23 female journalists from the past and present have spent their careers doing just that.

Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was a prominent journalist and activist whose work exposed widespread lynching, white mob violence, segregation and discrimination. She was a leading voice in criticizing white suffrage organizations that ignored lynching.

During her journalism career, Wells published her anti-lynching writing in the New York Age, A Red Record, the Chicago Conservator (which her husband founded) and other local journals. She was also the secretary of the National Afro-American Council and participated in the Niagara Movement, which led to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She also founded the Negro Fellowship League, which aided migrants from the South and founded Chicago’s Alpha Suffrage Club, thought to be the first Black women’s suffrage group.

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a trailblazing journalist and activist.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a trailblazing journalist and activist.

Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor

Subjects of the 2022 drama biopic “She Said” and authors of a book of the same name, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor are The New York Times journalists who exposed sexual abuse allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein.

The original story, published in October 2017, featured several actors and women in Hollywood who experienced sexual harassment, inappropriate conduct and unwanted physical contact with Weinstein. The story, a significant part of the #MeToo movement, earned the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service and helped lead to Weinstein’s conviction on rape and sexual assault charges.

Kantor has also reported on mothers and breastfeeding, Amazon and Barack and Michelle Obama. She is the author of the 2011 book “The Obamas.” Twohey’s other work revolves around the treatment of women and children, including untested rape kits, exposing a black market for adopted children and sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump.

Jane Mayer

Jane Mayer is The New Yorker’s chief Washington correspondent and has been a staff writer since 1995. Mayer has written and co-authored a number of books: “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” inspired by a New Yorker piece she wrote on the Koch brothers’ influence, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” “Strange Justice” and “Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988.”

She was the Wall Street Journal’s first female White House Correspondent, where she covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Mayer has been widely awarded for her work in social justice journalism, political reporting and investigative reporting.

April Ryan

April Ryan has been a member of the White House press corps for 25 years, spanning five presidential administrations. From 1997 to 2020 she reported for American Urban Radio Network. Today, she’s a White House Correspondent and the D.C. Bureau Chief for TheGrio, a Black-owned digital news organization. She is also a political analyst for CNN and serves on the board of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

Ryan has written four books: “The Presidency in Black and White,” “At Mama’s Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White,” “Black Women Will Save the World” and “Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House.”

White House correspondent April Ryan appears onstage at an event celebrating her 25th anniversary covering the White House on April 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
White House correspondent April Ryan appears onstage at an event celebrating her 25th anniversary covering the White House on April 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Carole Simpson

Carole Simpson became the first Black woman to host a major network newscast in 1988, and she anchored ABC News’ “World News Tonight” weekend edition for 15 years. She worked at ABC News for a total of 24 years.

She was also the first person of color to moderate a presidential debate during the 1992 debate between George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

Her memoir “NewsLady” chronicles her journey of “firsts” in her broadcast career, including the racism and sexism she faced in the industry. She retired from ABC News in 2006 but continued teaching broadcast journalism at Emerson College for another 13 years.

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones is a New York Times investigative reporter who covers racial injustice and civil rights. Her work includes the 1619 Project, a New York Times Magazine initiative that chronicles the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans amid the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery. The 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries available to stream on Hulu.

Hannah-Jones is also the founding director of the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University, where she is the Knight Chair in Race in Journalism. Before The New York Times, Hannah-Jones worked as an investigative reporter at ProPublica and covered demographics, the census and county government for The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon.

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Monica Roberts

Monica Roberts founded TransGriot in 2005, a blog that she described as “a proud unapologetic Black trans woman speaking truth to power and discussing the world around her.” In her blog, Roberts wrote about her life, a wide array of trans-related issues, NFL picks and identifying trans murder victims to prevent them from being posthumously misgendered. Her work has also appeared in Bilerico Project, Ebony.com, the Huffington Post, the Advocate and OutSmart magazine. Among her many awards is the 2018 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog.

Roberts died unexpectedly on October 5, 2020. Her legacy lives on in TransGriot LLC, an online publication that employs and empowers Black trans contributors with the goal of covering trans issues accurately.

Monica Roberts addresses the crowd at a rally for All In for Equality Advocacy Day at the Capitol on Monday, March 20, 2017. Event organizers and participants rallied and spoke with legislators about LGBT issues.
Monica Roberts addresses the crowd at a rally for All In for Equality Advocacy Day at the Capitol on Monday, March 20, 2017. Event organizers and participants rallied and spoke with legislators about LGBT issues.

Elise Hu

Elise Hu is an NPR journalist who was the first bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR’s Seoul office. While in Seoul, she aided with the network’s coverage of both Koreas and Japan. She is NPR’s Future Correspondent and hosts a monthly video series called “Future You” where she explores how science and technology could change what it means to be human.

Hu was also one of the founding reporters at The Texas Tribune, where she contributed to The New York Times’ Texas coverage. She was named the “Best TV Reporter Who Can Write” in the Austin Chronicle’s 2008 Best of Austin.

Maria Ressa

Maria Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her efforts in the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. Ressa co-founded Rappler, a digital news site that has reported on how social media spreads fake news and manipulates public discourse.

Ressa was named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year for her reporting on disinformation. Ressa, whose coverage is often critical of President Rodrigo Duterte and the Philippines government, has faced political harassment and has had to post bail 10 times after being arrested.

Maria Ressa, co-founder and CEO of the Philippines-based news website Rappler, speaking at the Human Rights Press Awards at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong.
Maria Ressa, co-founder and CEO of the Philippines-based news website Rappler, speaking at the Human Rights Press Awards at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong.

Marie Colvin

Marie Colvin was an American war correspondent who wrote for the British newspaper The Sunday Times. Colvin’s work focused on human rights abuses in her 25 years of covering war zones, particularly that of women and children. Colvin was blinded in one eye while reporting in Sri Lanka in 2001, causing her to wear an eye patch that would become a well-known symbol of her work and triumph.

Colvin was killed in Syria in 2012 alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik. She was 56. In 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found the Syrian government liable for her death and that they “specifically targeted (Colvin) because of her profession.”

Kiran Nazish

Kiran Nazish is a Pakistani journalist and the founder of the Coalition for Women in Journalism, an independent network focusing to support female journalists around the world. CFWIJ tracks violence against female journalists, hosts awards and amplifies female, non-binary and minority journalists. According to their site, CFWIJ has evacuated and assisted 402 women journalists and leaders to safety since August 2021.

Her reporting of South Asia and the Middle East surrounded the war against ISIS, the Kurdish struggle and refugee crises. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, USA TODAY, Al Jazeera, the LA Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, New America and more.

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Megan Mitchell

Megan Mitchell is a TV news broadcaster who went viral on TikTok after she shared her experience being an LGBTQ+ news anchor. Mitchell is a WFAA Daybreak reporter in Dallas, Texas, part of the ABC News network. She worked as an anchor and reporter for WLWT in Cincinnati when her TikTok account originally gained traction.

Mitchell’s account chronicles her journey to being an openly gay anchor and breaks down stereotypes of female news anchor clothing by wearing suits she describes as “gender euphoria.”

Rozina Islam

Rozina Islam is a Bangladeshi investigative reporter for daily newspaper Prothom Alo. Islam’s work covers government corruption, justice, health, environment, energy, policy and women’s affairs.

Islan was awarded the Free Press Award for Most Resilient Journalist in 2021. In May 2021, she was arrested after exposing COVID-19-related corruption and malpractice in her country. Her arrest triggered protests from hundreds of reporters, who demanded her release. Islam was honored as one of the Coalition for Women in Journalism’s women journalist heroes this year.

Susan Goldberg

Susan Goldberg was the first female and first Jewish editor-in-chief of National Geographic, which she helmed from 2014 to 2022. National Geographic won nine National Magazine Awards during her tenure, one of which was for the special issue Gender Revolution. The 2017 edition looked into the gender binary, how children are affected by gender issues, masculinity, parental leave, body shaming, violence against women and other issues.

Accompanying a long career in reporting and editing, Goldberg has been recognized for her leadership. She has been named one of the most influential women in D.C. in media and across professions numerous times.

Paris Lees

Paris Lees is a British journalist and writer who was the first trans person to become a regular columnist at Vogue in the outlet’s history. She was also the first trans woman to present on BBC Radio 1, Channel 4 and the first trans person to appear on BBC Question Time.

Her columns, prompted by the header “The Life-Changing Power Of” discussed confidence, beauty, sex, love and politics. Her writing also includes profiles and her 2021 hybrid memoir and novel “What It Feels Like for a Girl.”

Gail Shister

Gail Shister is often referred to as the first “out” reporter in U.S. mainstream news media and served as the vice president of print for the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists. Her work earned her a spot in the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame.

Shister was the first female sports writer at the Buffalo Evening News, the New Orleans States-Item and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She continued as a TV columnist at the Inquirer for 25 years and regularly appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

Abby Phillip

Abby Phillip is a senior political correspondent and the anchor of Inside Politics Sunday at CNN. In her time at CNN, she has covered the Trump Administration as a White House correspondent and anchored the 2020 election coverage. Before CNN, she reported on the White House for The Washington Post, politics for ABC News and the Obama administration for POLITICO.

She was honored in the 2021 Time 100 Next list, which spotlighted her “calm assurance in the midst of historic divides.”

Abby Phillip is a senior political correspondent at CNN.
Abby Phillip is a senior political correspondent at CNN.

Soledad O’Brien

Soledad O’Brien is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist who anchors and produces Hearst Television program “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.” She has anchored shows for MSNBC, CNN and NBC, including NBC’s Weekend Today and contributing to the TODAY Show and Nightly News.

During her time at CNN, she created the “In America” documentary series which produced “Black in America” and “Latino in America.” She has written two books – “The Next Big Story” and “Latino in America.”

Maria Hinojosa

Maria Hinojosa is a multimedia journalist and the founder of Futuro Media, a nonprofit newsroom based in New York City focused on highlighting underreported issues and raising up the next generation of diverse journalists.

Hinojosa was the first Latina reporter in many of the newsrooms she’s worked in, including being the first Latina to anchor PBS Frontline. Her career, spanning three decades, includes PBS, CBS, WNBC, CNN, NPR and the Emmy Award-winning WGBH talk show “Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One.” Much of her reporting revolves around urban communities, and her PBS Frontline report was the first to explore abuse at immigrant detention facilities, Futuro Media says.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was the first Black, female newspaper editor in North American history. Shadd was born in 1823 in Delaware but moved to Pennsylvania, where she eventually became a teacher. Her family participated in the Underground Railroad. Cary moved to Canada to join other Black Americans who had left the U.S. and published The Provincial Freeman, Canada’s first antislavery newspaper.

She returned to the U.S. during the Civil War to help recruit soldiers and then enrolled in Howard University Law School’s first class. While in D.C., she also wrote for Frederick Douglass’ local paper The New National Era.

Raquel Willis

Before Raquel Willis was a national activist for Black transgender rights, she was a local reporter in her home state of Georgia.
Before Raquel Willis was a national activist for Black transgender rights, she was a local reporter in her home state of Georgia.

Raquel Willis is a writer and activist and was the first trans person to act as executive editor of Out Magazine. In 2020, she won the GLAAD award for Outstanding Magazine Article for “The Trans Obituaries Project: Honoring the Trans Women of Color Lost in 2019.” Willis co-founded Transgender Week of Visibility and Action and created the Black trans flag. She was one of The Advocate’s people of the year in 2022.

In addition to Out, her writing has appeared in Essence, Buzzfeed, them, Vice News and Huffpost. Her memoir, “The Risk It Takes to Bloom” comes out in October 2023.

Elaine Quijano

Elaine Quijano is a CBS News anchor for the nightly politics show “Red And Blue.” During the 2016 vice presidential debate, Quijano became the first anchor from a digital network to moderate a national debate in a general election. Quijano, who is Filipino American, was the first Asian American journalist to moderate a national debate. She was also the youngest debate moderator since the 1980s.

Her most well-known work covers the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, the Boston Marathon bombings, Superstorm Sandy, the 2014 World Cup and the 2012 Newtown shooting.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Get to know these 23 trailblazing reporters for Women's History Month