Molly Ivins

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Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007) was an American newspaper columnist, author, political analyst, and humerist.

Ivins, who was born in California and raised in Texas, attended Smith College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

She began her reporting work at the Minneapolis Tribune, where she became the first female police reporter at the paper.

Ivins joined The Texas Observer in the early 1970s and then moved to The New York Times.

After the Times Herald was sold and shuttered, she became a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald in the 1980s and later the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The column was later syndicated by the Creators Syndicate and carried by hundreds of newspapers.

Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith co-authored Ivins: A Rebel Life in 2010. According to the Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994: Ivins' pithy assessments of politics and life at large crackle with broad Texas humour.

She punches out a powerful knockout punch when mixing her culling experience with her razor-sharp wit.

... ahhhh... Ivins' pen penetrates both the brain and the funny bone, whether one agrees with her or not.

Early life

Ivins was born in Monterey, California, and raised in Houston, Texas. Her father, James Ivins, was known as "General Jim" because of his draconian authoritarianism (sometimes "Admiral Jim" for his love of sailing, and the family lived in Houston's upscale River Oaks neighborhood, and she was named "General Jim" for his rigid authoritarianism. In 1962, Ivins graduated from St. John's School. She was heavily involved in extracurricular activities, including the yearbook workers, while in high school. Although she had her first pieces of journalism published in The Review, St. John's School's official student newspaper, she never wrote any of the political columns that would later be her specialization. Ivins became the student paper's arts and culture editor later. In addition, she appeared in theater productions and gained a lifetime membership in Johnnycake, the drama club.

Ivins enrolled in Scripps College in 1962, but was not happy there and migrated to Smith College in 1963. She became intimately involved with Henry "Hank" Holland, Jr., a Yale family friend and alum, whom she referred to as "the love of my life" during that period. After she was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1964, her companions later said she never knew anyone else who could recall his memory. Some believe that is why she never married. She spent her junior year at the Institute of Political Science in Paris and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1966. In 1967, she earned a master's degree from Columbia University's School of Journalism.

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Career

While at Smith, Ivins spent three summers as an intern at the Houston Chronicle. Her jobs there included the complaint department as well as "sewer editor", as she put it, responsible for reporting on the nuts and bolts of local city life. After graduating from Columbia, she took a job in the Twin Cities at the Minneapolis Tribune, where she covered "militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers".

In 1970 Ivins left the Tribune for the city of Austin, Texas, hired by Ronnie Dugger, to be the co-editor and political reporter for The Texas Observer. She covered the Texas Legislature and befriended folklorist John Henry Faulk, Secretary of State Bob Bullock and future Governor Ann Richards, among others. She also gained increasing national attention through op-ed and feature stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post along with a busy speaking schedule inside and outside Texas. The Times, concerned that its prevailing writing style was too staid and lifeless, hired her away from the Observer in 1976, and she wrote for the Times until 1982. During her run there, Ivins became Rocky Mountain bureau chief, covering nine western states, although she was known to say she was named chief because there was no one else in the bureau.

Ivins also wrote the obituary for Elvis Presley in The New York Times for the August 17, 1977 edition. Generally, her more colorful writing style clashed with the editors' expectations, and in 1980, after she wrote about a "community chicken-killing festival" in New Mexico and called it a "gang-pluck", she was recalled to New York City as punishment. When Abe Rosenthal, editor of the Times, accused her of trying to inspire readers to think "dirty thoughts" with these words, her response was, "Damn if I could fool you, Mr. Rosenthal." One friend saw her rebellion against the Times authority structure as a continuation of her rebellion against her father's authority. In late 1981, after receiving an offer from the Dallas Times Herald to write a column about anything she liked, Ivins left New York City for Dallas.

Ivins wrote for the Dallas Times Herald for ten years and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice. By 1985 the editors had moved her to the paper's Austin bureau to reduce friction with Dallas city leaders. Her freelance work and speaking engagements continued to grow, and she hired Elizabeth Faulk, John Henry Faulk's widow, as a personal assistant. In 1991, her book Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? was published, and spent 29 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Also in 1991, rival newspaper, The Dallas Morning News bought the Times Herald and closed it down. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram immediately made Ivins an offer and said she could stay in Austin. Ivins accepted, and wrote a column for the Fort Worth paper from 1992 until 2001, when she became an independent journalist. Her column, syndicated by Creators Syndicate, eventually appeared in nearly 400 newspapers nationwide. Ivins also remained a board member and contributor to the Texas Democracy Foundation, which publishes the Texas Observer in Austin.

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Awards

• William Allen White Award from the University of Kansas (2001)
• Smith Medal from Smith College (2001)
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2001)
• Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service (2003)
• Pringle Prize for Washington Journalism from Columbia University (2003)
• Eugene V. Debs Award in the field of journalism (2003)
• David Brower Award for journalism from the Sierra Club (2004)
• David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University (2006)
• The Molly National Journalism Prize from the Texas Democracy Foundation (2006)
• Otis Social Justice Award from Wheaton College, MA (2004)