Oct

Today in Smithsonian History: October 3, 1974

Journalist Sarah McClendon in the Hall of News Reporting, National Museum of American History, with curator Peter Marzio and public information officer Robert S. Harding. (Photographer unknown)

October 3, 1974 Sarah McClendon (1910-2003), longtime White House reporter who covered presidential politics for half a century, tours the Hall of News Reporting at the National Museum of American History with curator Peter Marzio. She also spoke to the exhibit docents about “Women in the News.”

First mocked in an almost all-male press corps, then scorned as a vocal crank and finally honored as a pioneer, Ms. McClendon was the nation’s longest-serving White House reporter, from 1944 to the early days of the first George W.Bush administration. She became celebrated for questions at presidential news conferences that included local concerns in Texas, her home state, and government lapses overlooked by others.

This profile of McClendon produced by Roberta Oster Sachs with correspondent Josh Mankiewicz originally aired on NBC’s Dateline in 1996.