Katharine Graham

Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 – July 17, 2001) was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. She was one of the first 20th-century female publishers of a major American newspaper and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press. 

Katharine Graham (born June 16, 1917, New York, New York, U.S.—died July 17, 2001, Boise, Idaho) was an American business executive who owned and published various news publications, most notably The Washington Post, which she transformed into one of the leading newspapers in the United States. She was especially known for supporting the Post’s investigation into the Watergate scandal.

The daughter of the publisher Eugene Meyer and the educator Agnes Meyer, Katharine Meyer attended Vassar College from 1934 to 1936 and then transferred to the University of Chicago, graduating in 1938. After a year as a reporter for the San Francisco News, she joined the editorial staff of The Washington Post, which her father had bought in 1933. She also worked in the editorial and circulation departments of the Sunday Post. In 1940 she married Philip Graham, a law clerk. From 1945 she gave up her career in favour of her family. In 1946 her husband became publisher of the Post, and in 1948 the couple bought the voting stock of the corporation from her father. She remained apart from active involvement in the business as the Washington Post Company acquired the rival Times-Herald in 1954, Newsweek magazine in 1961, and several radio and television stations.