Miriam Ottenberg


Miriam Ottenberg was the first woman news reporter for The Washington Star who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960, for a series of articles exposing the practices of unscrupulous used car dealers in Washington D.C.

Background

Her father was Louis Ottenberg, a lawyer for 45 years in the District of Columbia, at whose suggestion the American Bar Association created the Magna Carta Memorial in Runnymede, England.

Career

Ottenberg's follow-up stories led to enactment of remedial law.
With several honors and awards given during her career, Ottenberg also was one of the first reporters to reveal that the Mafia was an organized crime network. She once summed up her feelings about her role as a journalist: "A reporter should expose the bad and campaign for the good. That's the way I was brought up."

Awards and recognition

Ottenberg published the following books: