JOURNAL CENTENNIAL
Managing editor Frankie McCarty shattered barriers, had open-door policy
鈥淢y door is always open!鈥� That was the caption of a cartoon that Journal cartoonist John Trever drew to celebrate Frankie McCarty鈥檚 promotion to managing editor in 1976. She hung it proudly at the entrance to her cubicle in the newsroom. There was no door.
As the first woman hired to cover hard news at the Journal, in 1954, and one of the first women promoted to be a managing editor in the nation, McCarty had to open a lot of doors for herself.
鈥淪he was a woman in a business that was a man鈥檚 world,鈥� longtime Journal writer and editor Fritz Thompson said after her death in 2005. Both McCarty and Thompson started their careers at the Raton Daily Range and built statewide reputations by bringing New Mexico and its people to life for readers.
McCarty earned a promotion from reporter to city editor by writing in-depth articles about complex issues: poverty in New Mexico, for instance, and the state鈥檚 tangled heritage of Spanish land grants.
鈥淚 liked doing stories that took some research and digging,鈥� she told Journal staff writer Leslie Linthicum in 1994, at her retirement.
And digging was exactly what she demanded from those of us who were lucky enough to work for her. We learned that we had to bring something extra into every story, or McCarty would make us go back out and find it.
However, it was her curiosity and warmth that made her exceptional as a newsroom leader.
