2 Quotes & Sayings By Aljean Harmetz
Aljean Harmetz is one of the most influential editors in the history of American journalism. A pioneer in introducing the American public to the world of television, she also served as an inspiration for female journalists. She was born Aljean Maxwell in 1927 in New York City. She began her career as a reporter for The New York Daily News, and later became film editor at Newsweek, where she met her future husband, movie critic Gene Mosher
When Mosher became film critic for The New York Post, Harmetz joined him there as his assistant. He later became film critic for The New York Times, but Harmetz was already editing films at Columbia Pictures. In 1967 she assumed the editorship of Newsweek.
She became a key force in transforming Newsweek from a weekly to a biweekly publication and shaping its editorial content along a centrist path between traditional liberalism and conservatism. During her 21 years as editor, Newsweek introduced America to such leaders as Martin Luther King Jr., Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the first woman Prime Minister of Ceylon), Indira Gandhi (the first woman Prime Minister of India), Sirhan Sirhan (the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy), Colin Powell (the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), John Glenn (the first man to orbit the Earth), and Mikhail Gorbachev (the last head of state of the Soviet Union).
Harmetz died on March 13, 2007.