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person1967–2010

Ellen Goodman

Disciplines:
ethics
journalism
political commentary

Summary

Ellen Goodman is an American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who wrote for The Boston Globe for over 40 years on social, ethical, and political issues.

Core Contribution

Goodman's syndicated column reached 1.7 million readers and modeled a form of ethical journalism that brought feminist and humanist moral analysis to mainstream political commentary; her columns on reproductive technology, medical ethics, and women's lives were widely influential in public debate.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Pulitzer Prize columnist (won the Pulitzer for Commentary in 1980)
  • Reproductive ethics commentary (used the Cecil Jacobson case to argue paternity is a relationship, not a commercial donation)
  • Change-back negotiation (introduced the term 'change-back' for social resistance to feminist progress)
  • Forty-year Boston Globe tenure (one of the longest and most influential columnist careers in American newspaper history)

Notable Works & Achievements

Turning Points

At Large

Making Sense

Value Judgments

Paper Trail

Historical Influences

Betty Friedan Gloria Steinem

Intellectual Lineage

American liberal journalism Second-wave feminist commentary

Contemporaries & Peers

Anna QuindlenMolly IvinsMichael Kingsley

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

Ethical journalism modelFeminist mainstream commentary

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