The Women’s Pages at the Charlotte Observer
I just finished reading the above book about the history of the Charlotte Observer. While there were some references to women’s pages, there was no references to the work of Miami Herald women’s page editor Dorothy Jurney who went to the Observer in the 1950s to improve its women’s section.
Here is the explanation from Jurney’s oral history:
Jurney: It was while I was at the Miami Herald that Lee Hills asked me to go, on three different occasions, to the Charlotte Observer after Jimmy Knight had bought it. It wasn’t a very good newspaper. In fact, it didn’t take me long after my first trip to Charlotte to realize that the composing room was running the editorial department, the news department. Deadlines were set by the composing room. As I recall, I don’t think the newsroom of the Charlotte Observer was even dummying inside pages. I think the composing room decided where those stories were going to be. I have confidence that the Observer did indeed dummy—the editors dummied—the front page and the second front. I don’t think—
Jurney: I think the composing room did it all. They just threw the stories onto those page forms where they fit most easily, with no significance as to the content. So I got in touch with Lee and told him this and he and Jimmy Knight very quickly sent Bill Sandlin—who was the foreman or superintendent of production for the Miami Herald—they sent Bill Sandlin up to Charlotte to get this straightened out and Bill got it straightened out very quickly.
Kasper: So that’s an example of the kind of expertise that you were able to offer that made you important to these meetings.
Jurney: Yes. Yes.
Kasper: And made you important to the Knight organization—important enough that they sent you not only to these executive committee meetings, but around the country to various—
Jurney: And, in Charlotte, as I say, I was there on three different occasions, not of long duration, maybe only two to three weeks the first time, maybe four or five weeks the second and third time. I worked very closely with the women’s editor. They only had society sections so that we tried to change that some.
