Corporate Speakers - Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist Ellen Goodman is available to speak at your next conference!

A stylish writer with a humanizing touch on any issue, public or personal, Ellen Goodman is an American original.

Her abundant talents--intellect, wit, style, news judgment--set her apart with an élan uniquely her own. Her Pulitzer Prize commentary appears in more than 450 newspapers, making her one of the two most syndicated columnists in the United States.

One of those rare writers and thinkers who senses emerging shifts in our public and private lives, Goodman alters perceptions of confounding issues. She takes current events and sees their universal truths,says the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

Goodman has been an innovative force in American journalism. She once said, I think readers need to be less alienated from editorial pagesand made them so by expanding the debate on op-ed pages. She has commented on the tumult of social change and its impact on families, and shattered the mold of men writing exclusively about politics. She is widely acclaimed as a voice of sanity, and readers depend on her to help them make sense of their changing lives and relationships.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary, Goodman has won many other awards, including the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award in 1980. She received the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in1988. In 1993, at its Seventh Annual Exceptional Merit Media Award Ceremony, The National Womens Political Caucus gave her the Presidents Award. In 1994, the Womens Research & Education Institute presented her with their American Woman Award.

Goodmans first job was at Newsweek as a researcher, at a time when only men became writers. She landed a job as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press in 1965 and, in 1967, for The Boston Globe where she began writing her column. Her column was syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group beginning in 1976.

Goodmans first book, Turning Points, detailed the effect of the changing roles of women on the family. Five collections of her columns have been published: Close to Home; At Large(Summit Books, 1981); Keeping in Touch; Making Sense; and Value Judgments. She is also co-author with Patricia OBrien of I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Womens Lives.

Ellen Goodman's speech topics include:

Women and Social Change: A Progress Report

Ellen offers a witty and insightful "progress" report from the turbulent front lines of social change. From the myth of Supermom thru the myth of Superwoman, from the halls of Congress to the privacy of the bedroom, she talks about changing American values and analyzes what's happening with men, women and families in today's society.

The Function of Media in a Free Society: Is The Personal (Too) Political?

A 30-year veteran journalist, Ellen takes us from a time when the press shielded the private lives of an FDR and a JFK to the time when the personal has become public with a vengeance. What do we make of cable TV food fights and scandals of the day? Ellen argues for the importance of balancing and deepening the media.

Women and Health

Women play many roles in the evolving story of health care in America. They are family caregivers, the intermediaries between children and doctors, husbands and doctors. They make most of the family decisions about medical care. At the same time, women are patients and research subjects, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

In the past decades we've seen enormous change in all these areas. We've seen women becoming half the medical students. We've seen nurses struggling to gain more respect for their roles. At the same time, we've seen women as patients coping with the research on hormones. The magic pill that was supposed to keep them young forever now appears to be a danger more than a help.

Sex and Sense

Ellen has long written and talked about sex and values, about the transition from a double standard to a single standard to no standards at all. In this presentation, she sets down a path through the struggles of parents and children, men and women, with a deep concern for women's reproductive freedom. Since the terrorism attacks of September 11 and our horror at the Taliban's hostilities toward women, these concerns take on a special relevance and urgency.

ellen goodman speakers bureau Women and Friendship

Ellen and Patricia O'Brien, authors of the New York Times Best Seller, "I Know Just What you Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives" have treated audiences to a lively discussion of the importance of this under-rated relationship in women's lives. As a duet, they show as well as describe this connection.