Making it in the field of journalism and finding success is not an easy task by any means.
As the world of journalism and media is constantly changing, no one is necessarily having an easy time adjusting, as getting your foot in the door is difficult enough.
Yet, of all the people striving to succeed in the media, women particularly have always felt at a disadvantage and have had to work a bit harder to prove themselves.
Deborah Nelson, professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, is an example of a woman who broke the boundaries and excelled as a journalist for years.
“My calling is investigative reporting and that has been a male-dominated field for the last half century,” said Nelson. “Early in my career, editors would put me in feature-writing positions because that’s what women did.”
But Nelson didn’t let that deter her. Born and raised in Chicago, she started her career in 1975 as a community reporter for The Daily Chronicle and then associate editor of The DuPage Pace Magazine.
Nelson went on to work in various editorial positions for The Daily Herald from 1977 to 1985, first as a community reporter and then a regional reporter.
“One day the editor of the suburban paper where I worked called me into his office to offer me what he truly considered a “plum assignment” — to cover the fashion beat,” said Nelson. “When I turned it down, he was so angry that he banished me to a local community beat.”
Nelson didn’t mind though; as she went on to win her first national journalism award for investigating small-town sanitary districts. This is when editors stopped seeing her as a feature storywriter and started seeing her as an investigative reporter.
From 1985 to 1995 Nelson was an investigative reporter for The Chicago Sun-Times and from 1995 to 1999 for The Seattle Times.
After living in Seattle for those years working for the Times, Nelson moved to Maryland in 1999 and took on various editorial positions for The Washington Post including being a national and foreign investigative reporter and metro investigative editor in 2001.
In 2001 she went on to become the Washington investigative editor for The Los Angeles Times until 2006, while also working as an adjunct instructor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
Nelson has become a journalist that not only aspiring female journalists can look up to, but also one that everyone in the field can respect and learn from.
“Don’t let anyone else define you, define yourself,” said Nelson when asked what advice she could give to aspiring journalists. “Steal time to pursue stories that matter to you, no matter what beat you cover.”
In her career as an investigative journalist, Nelson won many awards including a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1997 and the American Association for the Advancement in Science Award in 2000.
She continues to teach at the University of Maryland and will be teaching an investigative reporting course in the spring as well as media law. She lives in Maryland with her husband who is a Washington correspondent for Newsday and her two daughters, 19 and 22, who attend the University of Maryland.
Nelson is often asked how she juggles motherhood with a journalism career, as her husband has never been asked how he juggles being a dad and working.
“When we decided to have children—over margaritas at a bar—we scratched out a contract on a napkin agreeing to split parenting duties fifty-fifty,” said Nelson. “We still have the napkin in a box in the attic.”