Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd (born January 14, 1952) is a columnist for The New York Times and an author.

She was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for her series of columns on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Dowd was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of five children in a Roman Catholic family where her County Clare-born father (who had been a member of the Irish Republican Army in Clare) worked as a police officer. Although she has been romantically linked with several high-powered men, Dowd is single and resides in Washington, DC.

Career

In 1973, Dowd received a B.A. in English Literature from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She began her career in 1974 as an editorial assistant for the Washington Star where she later became a sports columnist, metropolitan reporter, and feature writer. When the newspaper closed in 1981, she went to work at Time magazine.

In 1983, she joined The New York Times, initially as a metropolitan reporter. She began serving as correspondent in The Times Washington bureau in 1986. In 1991, Dowd received a Breakthrough Award from Columbia University. In 1992, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting, and in 1994 she won a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications.

In 1995, Dowd replaced opinion columnist Anna Quindlen, who went to work at Newsweek magazine. Dowd was named a Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine in 1996. She was the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary.

In 2000, she won the Damon Runyon award for outstanding contributions to journalism. In 2005, she was awarded the Mary Alice Davis Lectureship award from the College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin.

Most of Dowd's online columns are now only available through the subscriber-only TimesSelect program.

Writing style

Dowd's columns are distinguished by an acerbic, often polemic writing style. Her columns often display a marked irreverence for powerful figures such as President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton, and Pope Benedict XVI.

Dowd sometimes refers to President Bush as "Bubble-Boy", Vice President Cheney as "Vice" and Donald Rumsfeld as "Rummy".

Criticism

Dowd was accused by James Taranto of inserting ellipses to change a quote's intended meaning and thereafter the idiom "dowdify" was sometimes used by conservative bloggers and editorialists as a derogatory term to describe willful misinterpretation of a quote. ^*

Dowd's book, Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide, received mixed reviews from both conservative and liberal sources with most tending toward the negative.

Bibliography

Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk (Putnam, 2004) ISBN 039915258X
Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide (Putnam, 2005) ISBN 0399153322

Notes

References

^* New York Times columns
^* BookNotes: "Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk" by Maureen Dowd, video and transcript, August 8, 2004
^* Are Men Necessary Publisher's description of Are Men Necessary, Putnam Adult, Penguin Group (USA)
Maureen Dowd Necessary?" a review of Are Men Necessary by Katie Roiphe, Slate Magazine, Nov. 2, 2005
^* Sex & the Single Stiletto by Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, Saturday, November 5, 2005
^* The Redhead and the Gray Lady by Ariel Levy, New York Magazine, November 7, 2005
^* "Yes, Maureen Dowd is necessary" a review of Are Men Necessary by Rebecca Traister, Salon Magazine, November 8, 2005
^* Maureen Dowd: Are Men Necessary?: an interview with Maureen Dowd by Terry Gross, Fresh Air, WHYY, National Public Radio, November 9, 2005
"Hating Dowd for all the wrong reasons" by James Poniewozik, Salon.com, April 14, 1999