Photo credit: Janet Donovan
Congratulations to Jay Newton-Small, winner of the National Press Foundation’s 2016 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress created in 1980 in honor of the late Republican Senator from Illinois. The award is intended to recognize U.S.-based journalists whose work shows thoughtful appraisal and insight into the workings of the U.S. Congress and represents the highest standards of journalism. Newton-Small’s reporting on the women in the U.S. Senate and their ability to work around the Capitol’s gridlock was published in ELLE Magazine. She is also a contributor to Time magazine. The NPF judges said: “Jay Newton-Small’s story showed originality and reminded us that Congress, or this female subset, can actually get things done. In 2014, women senators produced and passed 75 percent of the legislation. How? The women senators have regular bipartisan dinners. They go to each other’s homes and visit each other’s states. Newton-Small’s reporting shows that personal relationships can help dissolve the rancor in Congress and break the gridlock.”
Franco Nuschese, Jay Newton-Small and Kimball Stroud
Jay is also the author of Broad Influence. Her interview with Hollywood on the Potomac in January gives readers additional insight into her work:
“The book is dedicated to my mother who actually died five years ago,” author Jay Newton-Small told Hollywood on the Potomac at a book party in her honor at Cafe Milano in Georgetown hosted by Juleanna Glover, Giovanna Lockhart, Chris & Kathleen Matthews, Franco Nuschese, Heather Podesta, Michael Sherer, Kimball Stroud and Brian Wolff. “I wish that she’d been here to see the book because to some degree it is the reason why I wrote it – because of her experiences. She was a very highly educated woman who had degrees from Oxford and Cambridge and Columbia, but she had a really, really hard time in the workforce,” she added. “She had men who wouldn’t look at her. She worked in the United Nations so she had Middle Eastern men who wouldn’t look at her and wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t shake her hand, wouldn’t take orders from her. She had Latin American men who she worked with who thought it was part of her job description to sleep with them. She had a really hard time in her career, and part of that is why she didn’t actually want me to have a career when I was first entering the workforce. She just wanted me to get married and have kids, because she wanted my life to be easier than hers was.”
Betsy Fischer Martin and Tim Burger
“I ended up interviewing over 200 women for this book,” Jay added, “and it was so amazing and inspirational to me to talk to them and to hear their stories and to share them with you. I hope that you will read them and be as inspired as I was and to understand at the end of the book I realized that we first got women into the workforce in the 1940s with Rosie the Riveter when the economy demanded it. We will really begin to see women entering the workforce fully when the economy demands it, and we are right there or we’re nearly there. By the year 2030, when the Baby Boomer generation retires, we’ll be short 26 million workers. The only way to overcome that shortfall is either to bring in new immigration, which is very hard to imagine with this Congress, or bring women to full employment. That is something that essentially, yes, has to happen in the next few years. Whomever the next president is, whomever he or she may be, that will be a priority for that president. It’s an exciting time to think that we’re right at the cusp of this critical mass and to see the change that we’re seeing.”
Anne and Patrick Gavin
“Jay and I were fellows together at Harvard last January to June,” said Kay Hagan. “We got to be very very very dear friends with a hundred and ten inches of snow. We spent a lot of time sipping that wine and really talking about a lot of things. The book is really excellent. When she talks about the critical mass and the different issues that women are involved in, and the difference that that critical mass of women can make when they hit thirty percent and on up, we can change the country. While we were there, the Prime Minister of Japan came, Prime Minister Abe. Caroline Kennedy was there, introduced him. One person talked about women employed in Japan and about how he realized that he’s got to have that workforce if they’re going to have a burgeoning economy. It’s exactly what Jay is saying – that the more women get employed and do these kinds of tough jobs, it’ll be better for our country. As the mother of two daughters you better believe we’re a hundred percent behind you.”
Pamela Sorensen, Rebecca Cooper, Polson Kanneth
“I do actually read a lot of books and get asked to read a lot of books,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL, told an attentive audience. “Jay brought me her book at Kimball’s wedding in my cabin at about 1:30 in the morning when my four-month old twins refused to go to sleep. I sat up and I read it all night. I think that there’s really something happening in this country where people are recognizing the power of women and women’s equality. Not just women superseding, but the domino effect that we get when women are empowered to make a difference. Jay’s book crystallizes that in a way that nothing else that I’ve seen has. One of the things I say is, I am too young to have been participating in politics where the issues I work on were truly bipartisan, but not too young to remember when the issues that I work on were bipartisan. One of the things that I’ve done in this really bitter rancor of a political debate is use Jay’s book to get our Republican supporters and our Democratic supporters together and make this moment count for women. What are we waiting for? Jay’s book has been an incredible vehicle for that and I’m deeply grateful for that.”
Jay Newton-Small
“Kathleen Matthews is going to be two minutes away right now,” said Chris Matthews who always gives her credit for his success. “I just want to say, she’s been teaching me for about twenty, thirty years now. We’ve been together since 1978. We met at the White House, at the Radio/TV Correspondents’ dinner. The thing she taught me way ahead of a lot, not ahead of you maybe, is the idea of how men and women operate politically. Men go into a room and they try to establish quickly who’s John Wayne. Then John Wayne calls the shots once they’ve done the pecking order. Women go into a room and they try to figure out how to get the job done, which is interesting. I find it fascinating. That’s one of the things that’s in your book. It seems like a lot of women are in Congress now because there never were any except Margaret Chase Smith for a thousand years. She was the only woman in Congress. Now, it’s a higher percentage; but compared to France and Germany and the other countries that are on our level in terms of Western civilization, if you will, we’re way behind in terms of percentages of women. That’s interesting. I have a lot of theories about this.” Chris went on and on about politics as only Chris can, sighting years of political info on women in the workforce. “I’m saying all this to stretch out until Kathy can get here,” he joked. “I’m trying to remember every lesson she’s taught me. She’s downstairs now, and she’s one of the sponsors tonight. I just wrote the check to Franco. I think she has a right to speak. She’s involved in public life in a new way right now, which I can’t even talk about, because I’m restricted.” But we’re not, restricted that is. Kathy is running for Congress in Maryland.
Chris Matthews
“I’m sorry I missed Chris’ remarks,” Kathleen said. “But I have to tell you, he came home with your book when he got the advanced copy, and he said, ‘You got to read this book! It’s amazing what’s in this book! I mean, women are having broad influence in our society, Kath!’ It’s like, light bulb goes off, right? For me, there’s so much about this book that resonates at this point in my life as I try to follow the example of people like Kay Hagan and actually run for office. A big part of this is women also have a responsibility to put ourselves out there in addition to having the opportunities. I’m admiring of women that have done his in the political realm. In the business realm, I can’t tell you how much your chapters about business resonated for me. When I first went to Marriott International after a career in journalism, I was the only woman reporting to the CEO. Every time I would talk in the board room at the monthly executive meetings with the CEO, all the guys would look at me with this expression of ‘Why is she talking?’ My predecessor had not felt that she could weigh in on all the issues that were outside her particular portfolio; yet the guys could wax poetic about what everybody had to say, and everybody else’s portfolio! I at that point said, ‘I’m going to make sure it’s not just one woman out of eight reporting to the CEO, but that we get gender balance.’ When I left, it was three. Now it’s four. It changes the entire dynamic, just as it does in the US Congress and what you talk about. It’s highlighting these things that is so important. I think you also point the way to the kind of partnerships we need going forward to make sure that we have that diversity of views and diversity of opinions that make for much better outcomes; whether it’s our democracy, or it’s our economy, or it’s how journalists tell the story of what’s going on in our society. I salute you for doing this, and I might even absorb that name, or take on that name, ‘Broad.’ I’m a little nervous about that, but I think you might make it part of the lexicon that we all embrace.”
Peter Mirijanian and Kathleen Matthews
Hollywood on the Potomac sat down with Jay Newton-Small prior to the book signing. She talked about being in boarding school, her mother, her career and how women can and should become a higher percentage in high level positions from Congress to the Boardroom:
