E. R. Shipp 1955–

Journalist

At a Glance…

Selected writings

Sources

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New York City-based columnist E. R. Shipp often elicits controversy for the forthright views she articulately delivers in her weekly column for the New York Daily; News. In 1996, her talent was recognized when she was named that year’s Pulitzer Prize recipient for commentary, bestowing her with American journalism’s most coveted honor. A Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, Shipp spent 13 years at the New York Times, where she often investigated and reported on stories that aroused public ire and served as bellwethers of race relations. Such experience-combined with her own, far-from-privileged background-have given Shipp a unique perspective on issues of race and politics, and sometimes make her opinion a dissenting one inside the African American community.

Shipp was born in Conyers, Georgia, in 1955. She grew up in a strict and God-fearing household, as well as a larger Southern community where neighborhood elders “had the right to punish you and chastise you, and then you could go home and be punished again,” she told Carolyn Magnuson in Editor & Publisher. She was the first of six children, and as the eldest sibling, some onerous household tasks fell to her. The Shipp home lacked indoor plumbing, so bringing buckets of water into the house several times a day was one chore; she also had to take the chamberpots to the outhouse regularly. The family did not have running water and indoor plumbing until they obtained a spot in a public-housing project. Later, they were “deemed capable of making it on our own,” as Shipp recalled in a New York Daily News 1995 column, and lost their eligibility for the subsidized housing. “The notion of taking a little government help to tide oneself over one of life’s rough spots, and then moving on and hopefully up, seems lost on many aid recipients today, whether they are on welfare or live in the projects,” Shipp wrote.

Shipp’s affinity for the written word developed at an early age. In junior high school, her main rival for the school’s academic honors was a white youth; Shipp would engage in vehement debates with him. “The classroom became the battlefield where she learned she could move people with words, “wrote Connie Aitcheson in the journal of the New York Association of Black Journalists-or as Shipp put it, compel them to “acknowledge her humanity in ways they hadn’t before.” In high school, Shipp’s writing talents found an outlet in her school newspaper and

At a Glance…

Born 1955, in Conyers, CA.Education: Georgia State University, B.A., 1976; Columbia University, M.S., 1979, J.D., 1980, M.A., 1994.Religion: Baptist

Worked as a home economics correspondent for a local newspaper while still in high school;New York Times, New York, NY, began as reporter, became editor, 1980-93; New York Daily News, New York, NY, part-time oped page columnist, 1994-; columns syndicated by the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York, NY, assistant professor in journalism; commentator on the interactive cable-news channel MSNBC, 1996-.

Awards: Pulitzer Prize for commentary, Columbia University, 1996

Member: New York Association of Black Journalists.

Addresses: Home-Harlem, NY.Office-New York Daily News, 450 W. 33rd St., New York, NY 10001-2681.

yearbook projects, while she also served as a home economics correspondent for a local newspaper.

Yet life in Conyers offered little future. The Shipps expected their daughter to get a job in the local factory, despite the fact teachers encouraged the promising student to try for scholarships, and the idea of becoming a journalist entered Shipp’s head-which “sounded a hell of a lot more interesting and easier than working in a factory,” she told Aitcheson. She graduated from Georgia State University in 1976, with a B.A. in journalism. Moving to New York City, she earned an M.S. in 1979, and a law degree in 1980, both from Columbia University; that same year she began her career as a reporter for the New York Times, inarguably journalism’s most sought-after workplace. For several years Shipp wrote for the paper, eventually becoming an editor.

With five other reporters from the Times Shipp authored the 1990 book Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax. All six had worked on the story of the young teenager found in a garbage bag with excrement and racial epithets over her body in 1987, and all six came to the conclusion that the story had been fabricated from the onset and then degenerated into an unwinnable battle between African American activists and conservative white elements. “In Outrage,” wrote New York Times Book Review critic Ellen Goodman, Shipp and her colleagues “chase down every lead, go down every blind alley, talk to every Deep Throat [informer], profile every character in a cast as long and exotic as that of a [Russian author Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn novel.”

In 1993 Shipp left the Times to pursue a Ph.D. in history at Columbia University. She would later become an assistant professor of journalism there, and in her classes, she often tells her fledgling student newspaper reporters about the faculty and university events which offer free food, perhaps remembering her own budget-conscious student days. The following year Shipp was hired as a part-time opinion-editorial [op-ed] page columnist at the New York Daily News. Her weekly columns soon attracted notoriety for their reality-check messages.

Shipp wrote of the circus-like criminal proceedings for the trial of former football legend O. J. Simpson, who was accused of murdering his ex-wife and a friend. She declared that “the notion that Simpson is now the symbol of a quest that began when blacks arrived on these shores ...is laughable,” she asserted. Elsewhere, she declared her disapproval of the way her fellow African American colleagues lauded Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran and remarked that the case “is not a trial of all black people.” She also spoke out against the cheers her colleagues gave Cochran after he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.

Shipp is a careful critic of affirmative action, though she concedes that it does have some beneficial aspects. After observing a Harlem heritage parade in which uniformed marchers were jeered at-the crowds expressing their disapproval of black police officers, corrections officers, and members of the military-Shipp wrote: “We demand that doors to hiring and promotions be opened; we stigmatize those who enter. We demand a responsive city administration; we boo the mayor and his aides....Something’s wrong with this picture.”

In April of 1996, such eloquence was awarded the profession’s top honor, the Pulitzer Prize, conferred upon Shipp in the commentary category for her New York Daily News pieces. In the interview with Aitcheson in the Journal of the New York Association of Black Journalists, the wry Shipp conceded that “I guess I have the gold seal of approval from the profession’s highest and most prestigious honor. But my work has been recognized by the people of New York. I walk through Harlem and someone’s always got something to say about what they think of my column.”

In 1997, Shipp was still completing a thesis for her Ph.D., examining relations between the South’s former slaves and their one-time owners in rural Georgia, a topic she sees as vital to understanding contemporary race relations. Shipp still teaches at Columbia and supervises a hands-on newspaper project for graduate journalism students-the community-based Bronx Beat paper, which they must report, edit, and publish themselves. She hopes to instill in this new generation of journalists a sense of responsibility and respect for their chosen profession.

Shipp decries the fluff and tabloid-esque nature of contemporary news reporting: “The news business is singled out by the Constitution not so we can spend our time on trivial matters, but because we have a crucial role to play,” Shipp told Editor & Publisher’s Magnu-son. “I see this business as a calling. I would only hope that more people see it that way and not as a way to celebrity and not as a way to become rich.” Shipp’s opinions have earned her a commentary spot on the provocative interactive cable-news channel MSNBC, noted for its attempt to provide a non-mainstream slant to the news. She still writes for the Daily News, and her Wednesday columns continue to spark debate. For her words, Shipp often receives vehement letters from readers of all ethnic backgrounds; “They hate my guts,” she remarked to Aitcheson about her most vocal critics. “But my feeling is you had to read it, sucker.”

Selected writings

(With Robert D. McFadden, Ralph Blumenthal, M. A. Farber, Charles Strum and Craig Wolff)Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax, Bantam, 1990.

Sources

Periodicals

B.E.T. Weekend, December 1996, p. 20.

City Sun, May 8, 1996.

Editor & Publisher, November 9, 1996, p. 38.

New York Daily News, June 7, 1995; June 28, 1995; September 27, 1995; April 9, 1996.

New York Times Book Review, July 29, 1990, p. 7.

Other

Additional information for this profile was provided by publicity materials from the New York Daily News, including the Fall 1996 issue of the Journal of the New York Association of Black Journalists.

—Carol Brennan