"GIRL REPORTERS" & BREAKING THE RULES FOR BREAKING NEWS

In Front-Page Girls (2006), Jean Marie Lutes asserts that newspaper women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries established a lively tradition of journalism that highlighted the sensational and used their own bodies as "conduits for the news,” which propelled these women into their stories and into their readers’ minds (6). These "girl reporters" often simultaneously generated serious attention and invited ridicule, largely due to the fact that they were frequently willing to benefit from their shock value. This panel aims to explore both real newspaper women (especially "stunt reporters" like Nellie Bly and Annie Laurie) and fictional female reporters. Please email abstracts of approximately 300 words to Dr. Debbie Lelekis at dlelekis@fit.edu by July 27, 2020.

This is for a panel that has already been accepted for the 92nd annual conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association which will take place November 13-15, 2020 as an entirely online event hosted through Accelevents. The theme of SAMLA 92 is Scandal! Literature and Provocation: Breaking Rules, Making Texts.