Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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ASNE on the move
Fanning, first woman to lead ASNE, dies
Katherine W. Fanning, the first woman to be president of ASNE, died
Oct. 19 of cancer. She was 73.
Fanning was ASNE’s 57th president, serving from 1987-88. She was the
editor of the Christian Science Monitor then.
Fanning’s interest in newspapers began in the 1950s. Her career began
when she and her second husband, Larry Fanning, bought the Anchorage Daily
News in 1967. She was the editor and publisher from 1971-1983.
Under her guidance the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for public service
in 1976 for a series about unions. The paper quadrupled in circulation
by the time Fanning left for The Christian Science Monitor in 1983.
She was with the Monitor until 1988, when she and two top editors resigned
to protest budget cuts.
Fanning told ASNE members her credo in an address at the April 1988
convention:
“... profit is not the purpose of the press, as protected by that First
Amendment; the free, unfettered flow of ideas is. In the end, ideas are
more powerful than dollars.”
She went on to say, “Anyone can see that this particular editor has
a love affair with newspapers, with the vitality, the excitement and the
challenge of making them better.”
Fanning is survived by her husband, Amos Mathews, three children and
eight grandchildren.
