Shanahan, Eileen

▪ 2002

      American journalist (b. Feb. 29, 1924, Washington, D.C.—d. Nov. 2, 2001, Washington), was a pioneering journalist at the New York Times and, from 1977 to 1979, a spokeswoman for the administration of U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter. Shanahan was hired to work in the Washington bureau of the Times in 1962. She covered national economic policy and was the first female reporter at the bureau to handle an assignment other than coverage of presidential wives. Shanahan attracted widespread attention in 1974 when she and six other female employees at the Times successfully sued the newspaper for sex discrimination; the case was the subject of a 1992 book, The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and the New York Times, by one of Shanahan's fellow plaintiffs, Nan Robertson. After her service in the Carter administration, Shanahan worked as an assistant managing editor at the Washington Star and the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette. In 1987 she also helped found a magazine, Governing, devoted to coverage of state and local governments.

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