mPARA ePAR@ ` ìTEXT ` Graham, Katharine Meyer1917╨newspaper publisherBorn in New York City on June 16, 1917, Katharine Meyer grew up in Washington, D.C., and attended private schools. She entered Vassar College in 1935, transferred to the University of Chicago a year later, and graduated 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 June 1940 she married Philip L. Graham, a lawyer. From 1945 she gave up her career in favor of her family. In 1946 Philip Graham became publisher of the Post, and in 1948 he and Mrs. Graham bought the voting stock of the corporation from her father. She remained apart from active involvement in the business as her husband built up the paper and 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, Katherine Graham assumed the presidency of the Washington Post Company. (Later, in January 1969, she also assumed the title of publisher.) After a period of study of the newspaper╒s situation she moved forcefully to make it into a journal of national importance. Greatly increasing the editorial budget and expanding the staff, she built up a corps of reporters and editors that made the Post a formidable competitor to such established national papers as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. In particular the Post built a reputation for aggressive investigative reporting: in 1971 it and the New York Times published lengthy excerpts from the classified ╥Pentagon Papers╙ after fighting judicial prior restraint orders in the Supreme Court, and in 1972╨1974 it was the Post, and specifically reporters Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward, working under editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, who pursued the Watergate story into the White House, uncovering obstruction of justice that involved President Nixon himself and winning their paper a Pulitzer Prize in the process. Throughout these and other controversial cases, when the Post was criticized not only by political leaders╤Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew was particularly harsh╤but frequently also by less uncompromising journalists, Graham staunchly upheld her editors╒ decisions. In 1973 she moved up from president to chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of the Washington Post Company. She handed over the position of publisher to her son in 1979, and, retaining her control of the company as chairman and CEO, she expanded Newsweek and increased the scope of the company by purchasing more television stations and moving into cable television and cellular telephone operations. She stepped down as CEO in 1991. She was, in addition, a leading Capitol hostess and the recipient of numerous honors and awards. ╢styl ` " ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ 3 !I = !I O !I v !I à !I ± !I ⁿ !I ¥ !I í !I s !I !I ë !I æ !I ╤ 5¬ ╥ !I û !I Ü !I ▐ !I ∞ !I ⌡ !I !I !I !I n !I | !I !I # !I !I â !I
