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Geneva Overholser
Geneva Overholser's first newspaper experience was in high school. Because her family moved often-her father was a Presbyterian minister and scholar-Overholser attended three high schools. Working on the school paper gave her a niche.
After graduating from Wellesley in 1970 Overholser approached the editor of the Boston Globe for a job. "The editor slapped his thigh and guffawed. He said, 'Girlie, the only way you can get a job is to carry coffee or go to a damn fine journalism school.'" So she went to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. After a few years as a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun, Overholser traveled with her husband to Kinshasa, Zaire and Paris; he taught and she did freelance writing. On their return to the US Overholser became an editorial writer for the Des Moines Register. She was awarded a Nieman Fellowship [a year of study at Harvard for mid-career journalists], then did editorial writing for The New York Times. In 1988 Overholser was asked to return to Des Moines as editor of the Register. Under her leadership the Register added coverage of so-called women's issues: child care, sexual harassment and the safety of contraceptives. In 1995 Overholser was asked to be ombudsman of The Washington Post, dealing with reader complaints, writing a column and critiquing the paper in-house. Since 1998 Overholser has served as a regular columnist for the Post. Overholser was given a Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement in 1994. The Post's biographical statement notes that she was named Best in the Business by the American Journalism Review, Print Journalist of the Year by the National Press Foundation and was twice selected Gannett's editor of the year while she was in Des Moines. She serves as a member of the boards of the Knight Fellowships at Stanford, the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships, the Howard University Center for the Study of Race and Media, and the PBS television show, "Media Matters," and is a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. For recent columns by Geneva Overholser see: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/columns/overholsergeneva/ For more information on Geneva Overholser see: Written by Wilma Slaight
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In
1991 the Des Moines Register, under the editorial guidance
of Geneva Overholser, won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. As
part of a nationwide debate on the routine newsroom practice of
shielding the names of sexual assault victims, Overholser editorialized
that the practice of suppressing the victim's name actually stigmatized
these women rather than protecting them. This prompted rape victim
Nancy Ziegenmeyer to come forward. The resulting articles by reporter
Jane Schorer helped frame a broader debate of the issue and won
the Pulitzer.
Geneva
Overholser nearly did not come to Wellesley College. She wanted
to do something different from her older sister, Nannerl. [Nannerl
Overholser Keohane, President of Wellesley College 1981-93, graduated
in 1961.] Overholser's Wellesley years, 1966-70, were a period of
great change. Students were given a larger role in the governance
of the College, the MIT exchange began, and Wellesley College decided
to remain a woman's college. Overholser, a student member of the
Commission on the Future of the College, recommended that Wellesley
go coed, a stance she later regretted.
