Donna Jean McKinnon

Donna Jean MacKinnon’s Newsgirls tells the stories of ten pioneering female reporters who brazened it out in Canadian newsrooms from the late 1920s into the 1960s. Their stories explain how women like Stasia Evasuk, June Callwoood, Michele Landsberg, and many more succeeded in a male milieu.

With fancy hats, dark lips, a penchant for cigarettes and a stomach for strong drink, these women would sit in their female-designated areas of Canadian newsrooms, and fervently punch out stories on their typewriters; the aim: to get it all out as quickly as possible, so they could be out the door with a pen and paper on the hot trail of a new one.

Their jobs as female journalists take them around the world, but when their stories begin to sound star-studded and frivolous, their work remains serious and noteworthy. Many of these female reporters paved the way for women in the media to be taken seriously – and with caution. Their roles as women in a male-dominated workplace did not prevent them from speaking their minds, telling their bosses what’s what and toting their attitudes around the office with as much grace and as much style as they would tote around their handbags and hats.

A journalist for over two decades, MacKinnon embarks on this journey to share the untold stories of ten female writers who gave way to a new breed of female reporters. She recognizes and gives thanks to those women who forced Canadian society to confront many social issues.