Katharine Graham

Katharine Graham (born June 16, 1917, New York, New York, U.S.—died July 17, 2001, Boise, Idaho) was an American business executive who owned and published various news publications, most notably The Washington Post, which she transformed into one of the leading newspapers in the United States. She was especially known for supporting the Post’s investigation into the Watergate scandal.

Watergate’s legacy: How the scandal changed politics and journalism.

The daughter of the publisher Eugene Meyer and the educator Agnes Meyer, Katharine Meyer attended Vassar College from 1934 to 1936 and then transferred to the University of Chicago, graduating in 1938. After a year as a reporter for the San Francisco News, she joined the editorial staff of The Washington Post, which her father had bought in 1933. She also worked in the editorial and circulation departments of the Sunday Post. In 1940 she married Philip Graham, a law clerk. From 1945 she gave up her career in favour of her family. In 1946 her husband became publisher of the Post, and in 1948 the couple bought the voting stock of the corporation from her father. She remained apart from active involvement in the business as the Washington Post Company acquired the rival Times-Herald in 1954, Newsweek magazine in 1961, and several radio and television stations.

In September 1963, following her husband’s death by suicide, Graham assumed the presidency of the Washington Post Company. (From 1969 to 1979 she also held the title of publisher.) Under her leadership, The Washington Post became known for its aggressive investigative reporting, led by Ben Bradlee, whom Graham named executive editor in 1968. With the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and the newspaper’s unrelenting investigation of Watergate in 1972–74, the Post increased its circulation and became the most influential newspaper in the U.S. capital and one of the most powerful in the nation. In 1972 Graham took over as chief executive officer of the Washington Post Company, thereby becoming the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company; she held the post until 1991. In 1998 she received the Pulitzer Prize for biography for her autobiography, Personal History (1997).