Lynn Olson (’69) was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003.
Lynne Olson ’69
Lynne Olson’s prolific career as a journalist and author began in Salt Lake City in 1971 with the Associated Press. In 1973 she was asked to become the AP’s first woman correspondent in Moscow, where she was based from 1974 to 1976 and covered such news events as the Apollo-Soyuz mission and President Nixon’s visit to the Soviet Union. In 1976, Olson was reassigned to cover Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.
After Carter became president, Olson joined the D.C. bureau of the Baltimore Sun, where she covered national politics and eventually the White House. She left the Sun in 1981 to become a freelance writer and wrote for such publications as American Heritage, Smithsonian, Ms., Elle and the L.A. Times Magazine. She also taught journalism for five years as an assistant professor at American University in Washington, D.C.
Olson has written or co-authored three books in the last eight years. In 1996, with her husband Stanley Cloud, she co-authored “The Murrow Boys,” a highly acclaimed biography of the correspondents who worked with Edward R. Murrow and helped create CBS News. This year the Olson-Cloud team joined forces again to write “A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II,” published in September.
Lynne Olson’s own book, published in 2001, is “Freedom’s Daughters,” the first comprehensive history of women in the civil rights movement. It won a Christopher Award in 2002.
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