Vered’s Blog

Most of us tend to think that in order to become powerful we need to be born that way, or have certain charisma to attain it. However, Katharine Graham shows that the only difference between powerful people and not is whether they express their power or not. Katharine Graham is a great model for showing that we are all born powerful and can learn how to reclaim that power and express it.

Katharine Graham certainly was not raised to believe that she has the ability, power or qualities to run a newspaper. She was raised to believe that her place is in creating a good home, become a great mother and support her husband in doing whatever he is supposed to do. In that sense Katharine Graham is a great example to leadership that shows us at crisis situations.

Katharine Graham was born on June 16 1917. Her mother, Agnes Meyer, was an educator and her father, Eugene Meyer, was a publisher. He purchased The Washington Post in 1933, and Katharine Meyer began working for the Post five years later. She married Philip Graham in 1940, and in 1945 left the Post to raise her family.

Katharine Graham became one of the most powerful women in America through her ownership of the Washington Post; known for her role in the Post’s disclosures during the Watergate scandal.

Under Katharine Graham’s leadership, The Washington Post became known for its hard-hitting investigations, including the publication of the secret Pentagon Papers against the advice of lawyers and against government directives, followed by the Woodward and Bernstein investigation of the Watergate scandal. For these reasons, she and the newspaper are sometimes credited with bringing about the fall of Richard Nixon.

During Graham’s leadership, the Washington Post grew in influence and stature until by common consent it was judged one of the two best newspapers in the country. It was read and consulted by presidents and prime ministers in this country and abroad and exerted a powerful influence on political life. At the same time, the Post, which boasts a circulation of 725,000, served as a hometown paper for a general audience who enjoyed the features, cartoons, and advice columns.

However, Katharine became into that position only after her husband died. Like most women, Katharine had her more than fair share of husband problems which turned out to be her life’s major challengers. After several years of erratic behavior - sullen, depressed and introverted times a as well as generous, hard-working, brilliant times, later diagnosed as bipolar disorder, Katherine’s husband, Philip Graham, suffered a nervous breakdown.

Also around this time, Katharine discovered her husband had been cheating on her with Robin Webb, an Australian reporter for Newsweek. Her husband declared that he would divorce Katharine for Robin and he made motions to divide up the couple’s assets. At a newspaper conference in Phoenix, AZ, Philip Graham, either drunk, having a nervous breakdown or both told the audience that President Kennedy was having an affair with Mary Pinchot Meyer. Katharine flew to Arizona to retrieve him by private jet, and her sedated husband was flown back to Washington.

In 1963 Philip Graham shot himself to death. Katharine Graham thus had to abruptly take over the newspaper and the company. She assumed control despite it being widely assumed that her lack of management experience would lead her to sell or hand over control to a more experienced proxy. Graham was de facto publisher of the newspaper from 1963 onward, formally assuming the title in 1979, and chairman of the board from 1973 to 1991.

As the only woman to be in such a high position of a publishing company, she had no female role models and had difficulty being taken seriously by a many of her male colleagues and employees. First and foremost, she lacked confidence in herself. At first, she was no feminist but the women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s slowly helped her to realize that all her life, chauvinism attitudes that she was exposed to, made her feel as if she was not as intelligent, articulate, or capable as the men around her.

Katharine Graham was described as a “working publisher.” Determined to preserve the family character of the business, she worked hard not only to build but to improve her publishing empire. She studied the operations, asked questions, consulted with such old friends as James Reston and Walter Lippmann, and made the key decisions which helped to bring in skilled journalists to improve the quality of the paper. She selected Benjamin C. Bradlee, the Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, as managing editor in 1965.

A forceful and courageous publisher, she knew when to rely on the expertise of professionals and allowed her editors maximum responsibility, at the same time strengthening her publications by her willingness to spend to attract top talent in journalism and management.

Katharine Graham is a great role model for all of us how big, powerful we can become when we allow ourselves to spread our wings and trust our own instincts and be in integrity with ourselves.

Have a great day!