Women’s History Month: Day 26 & Janet Chusmir
Day 24 of Women’s History Month features Janet Chusmir.
Janet Chusmir was a women’s page journalist at the Miami Herald in the late 1960s who rose to the position of Executive Editor at the Herald. She died suddenly in 1990.
According to her obituary, “During her tenure she pushed the Herald to be more sensitive to ethnic and racial concerns, to think about how the events of the day affected real human beings, to publish a newspaper that, in her words, ‘connects with the community.’ As the newspaper’s first executive editor, she also brought diversity to the newsroom by creating new opportunities for women and minorities.”
This is from her own short autobiographical statement written when she won a 1972 Penney-Missouri Award: “I’m typical of women we often write about who launches a career after she has launched the kids. A native of Boston, Mass., I earned a degree in journalism from Boston University in June 1949, got married a week later and then took a 12 year hiatus to rear the children who give me some of my best story ideas.”
