I was first inspired to write my book An Unlikely Prospect (She Writes Press, August 2025) by a photograph of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham. She was dressed in a bright blue suit, sitting in a board room with many gray- and brown-suited men. She was the only woman in the room. I find it touching to consider how much courage it must have taken every day for her just to do her job. Graham’s biography, Personal History, taught me a lot about what my novel’s protagonist, Sandy Zimmer, would face as one of only a handful of female publishers in the country.

It got really hard for Graham in June 1971, when she faced a decision that could destroy the Post. With the Pentagon Papers in hand and the New York Times already under a court order to cease publication, Graham had to choose between safeguarding her company’s financial future and fulfilling her newspaper’s fundamental duty to inform the American public.

The stakes could not have been higher. The Post had just gone public. Publishing the classified Pentagon Papers could trigger criminal charges that would devastate their $35 million stock offering. Beyond that, the Post risked losing its television station licenses, a blow that could bring the entire company to its knees.

Yet when the decisive moment came via phone call during a party at her Georgetown home, Graham said, ‘Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Let’s go. Let’s publish.'”

She was the publisher/owner. Business mattered to her. But this wasn’t just a business decision, because some principles transcend profit. The Pentagon Papers revealed how the U.S. government had systematically deceived the public about the Vietnam War, concealing their own pessimism while escalating an unwinnable conflict. Graham understood that democracy cannot function without informed citizens.

By a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court protected the press’s right to publish, and the Post’s reputation soared. More importantly, this decision and experience prepared Graham for the even greater challenge of Watergate, where her newspaper’s reporting would eventually lead to a president’s resignation.

Just this week, the Washington Post’s current owner, Jeff Bezos, killed his editorial board’s endorsement of candidate Kamala Harris, ending their many-decades long history of making such endorsements on the editorial page.

Where Graham risked everything to publish vital truth, today’s Postowner retreats from stating the editors’ considered opinion on the most consequential decision facing American voters. The paper’s own motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” should embarrass him, revealing as it does his own cowardice.

Katharine Graham understood that a newspaper’s duty goes beyond profit and loss statements. When she chose to publish the Pentagon Papers, she wasn’t just protecting the Washington Post’s journalistic integrity. She was defending the fundamental principle that an informed public is essential to democracy.

In times of crisis, journalistic silence is not neutrality. It is abdication. Judge Murray Gurfein wrote of the Pentagon Papers case: “A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.”

Let’s be courageous, not complicit.

Thanks, Shelley