Loretta Mclaughlin is a well–known figure in the community and beyond. She is a role model for those who strive to be a positive influence in their own lives. Let’s read in this post more about Loretta Mclaughlin.
Who is Loretta Mclaughlin?
In the early 1960s, Loretta McLaughlin was a reporter for the Boston Record American. McLaughlin reportedly pushed her editor for the opportunity to investigate the deaths of lone women in their homes.
She broke the story about the serial killer connecting the dots between the murders as the first journalist to do so. She became the Boston Globe’s second Editorial Page Editor in 1992 and the first woman to hold the position.
Mclaughlin and her coworker, Jean Cole decided to investigate and then disclose their findings which ultimately led to the downfall of the local police force.
Before the police made the announcement, they were the first to label the killer a serial killer. Critics claimed the women were providing a playbook for would-be imitators or confessionists. The reporters defended their work saying they were simply reporting the facts in an effort to make women safer.
On March 17, 2023, a new film based on the life of Loretta McLaughlin and her role in the Boston Strangler case premiered. Keira Knightley plays Loretta McLaughlin in the film.
Loretta Mclaughlin was born Loretta McDermott in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1928 to homemaker Anna McDermott and shipyard worker John McDermott of Quincy. Besides John, Sylvester (“DeeDee”) and Margaret were her siblings.
As a child, McLaughlin relocated to South Boston with her family and eventually graduated from South Boston High. McLaughlin studied Journalism at Boston University thanks to a full tuition scholarship. In 1949, she completed her Bachelor of Arts.
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McLaughlin went on to be a science writer for Harvard University and the executive director of public relations at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, where she oversaw a capital campaign that helped to fund the construction of the institution’s major building.
McLaughlin went back to journalism in the 1970s, this time working as a medical reporter for the Herald American (a successor publication to the Boston Record American). When the Boston Globe needed a medical news specialist in 1976, they turned to McLaughlin.
McLaughlin, an outspoken supporter of public health initiatives focused much of her career on reporting on the pandemic. She endorsed Bill Clinton for president, William Weld for governor of Massachusetts and Thomas Menino for mayor of Boston in the Boston Globe.
McLaughlin wrote a book in 1982 titled The Pill, John Rock and the Church: The History of a Revolution which details the history of the birth control pill and its creation.
McLaughlin’s article “AIDS: An Overview,” published in The New England Journal of Public Policy in 1988, was highly critical of the federal government’s approach to the pandemic. McLaughlin was appointed editor of the Editorial Page at the Globe in July 1992, making her only the second woman to hold such a position at the paper.
While serving in this capacity, she gave a presentation at the 1993 New England Health Care Summit. In December 1993, she attained the Globe’s obligatory retirement age of 65 and she resigned. After leaving the Boston Globe, McLaughlin worked as a senior fellow at the Harvard AIDS Center and as a fellow at the Radcliffe College Institute for Public Affairs.
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