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As of 1926, the Associated Press had not hired women to work as reporters. With the appointment of Kent Cooper as general manager, the first woman reporter was hired in that year, followed by the hiring of seven more women who worked at either the AP's New York or Washington, D.C., bureaus between 1928 and 1931. These women reporters provided American readers with numerous stories of women's activities, their style of dress, and other social news. They covered women athletes, women active in politics, and wives of officials, but they did not cover the most important assignments because that territory was claimed by their male counterparts. For the first time, AP assigned women to cover the wives of the presidential candidates, women at the political conventions, and women in the presidential inaugurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article, through a series of interviews conducted with women war correspondents in Great Britain, cautions against undue optimism since sexism in the field, both within the military and among journalists, continues to prevail. The authors of the essay do not subscribe to a feminization of war news theory but instead suggest that a "journalism of attachment," which favors more human stories of civilian victims is creating a productive arena for women reporters. It is suggested that the presence of women in the frontline may also be indicative of a change in war storylines. A female perspective is allowing for greater engagement with the lives of the victims of war rather than its technical and strategic aspects.