Farewell to Marlene Sanders and a Career of "Firsts"

Marlene Sanders, who paved the way for women in television journalism, passed away last week at the age of 84. Her remarkable decades-long career saw her become the first female anchor on a network television evening newscast, the first female journalist in Vietnam, and the first woman vice president of news at a major network.

Young women may not recognize Marlene’s name, but it’s a name worth knowing. In addition to being a general glass-ceiling buster, Marlene was one of the first journalists to cover the women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s with the seriousness it deserved. (Before Marlene, her male colleagues had been treating the movement like a joke.)

There are many wonderful tributes to Marlene floating around the internet this week, but we recommend you start with this piece at The New York Times, this post at Women’s eNews, and this piece that Jeffrey Toobin, her son, penned for The New Yorker a few years back.

About the Author

Julianne Helinek is Take The Lead's blog editor and writer of the newsletter Take The Lead This Week. She thinks the women she knows are too talented not to be running the world, and she’s especially interested in bringing more men into the gender equality conversation. Julianne is an MBA student at NYU’s Stern School of Business. For more on feminism in the business school world, follow her on Twitter at @thefeministmba.