No, I've got no inside info nor am I starting a rumor (not deliberately anyway :) but...how 'bout it? With Marty Baron going to the Washington Post where he's replacing a man and whereas he replaced a man here in Boston and as only one newspaper of a major city (New York Times, interestingly the owner of the Globe) has a woman as editor, e.g. Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, and...need I go on...all have men as editors AND insofar as we've just elected our first senator who is a woman in Massachusetts PLUS our neighbors to the north have a slate of all women representing them, one has to ask: Isn't it time?
(And before someone pipes up with this: Yes, women have been publishers of major papers for a long time.)
Ever since Margaret Fuller nabbed the greatest number of headlines of her time (famously writing 250 articles in 18 months for the New York Herald Tribune following her stint as the first editor of The Dial), the path to the editorial top of newspapers has been paved with testosterone, often very good testorsterone, mind you, but still, it is 2012.
A little googling reveals that a woman did edit a Boston newspaper at one time. 170 years ago, according to the New York State Library's Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones:
Cornelia Walter was editor of the Boston Transcript and the considered to be the first woman to edit a major newspaper in the United States. One of her reporting highlights came on August 3, 1842, during a race riot in Philadelphia, in which she chronicled the plight of the black citizens who had been victimized and left homeless.
Meanwhile, I'm very happy to report that the paper where I got my start, The Pottstown Mercury, has as its editor, Nancy March.
So, Boston Globe Search Committee, how about it? Can you live up to the great standard set by The Merc? (Yeah, I know, The Times is a tad more impressive to some of you rubes...)
