By: Alyssa N. Salcedo
Throughout her career as a foreign correspondent, columnist and author, Georgie Anne Geyer not only shattered the glass ceiling– she turned it to dust.
Before it was common to see women as foreign correspondents, Geyer was able to interview an impressive collection of international leaders and travel to some of the most war-torn parts of the world, uncovering stories with each stamp of her passport.
Geyer studied journalism at Northwestern University, and after graduating in 1956, spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Vienna. She later returned to Chicago and joined the Chicago Daily News, climbing the ranks from cub reporter to their first female foreign correspondent.
Bradley Hamm, journalism professor at Northwestern University and Geyer’s former colleague, says that Geyer was determined to explore the world from a young age. This, he says, is what drove her to become a foreign correspondent.
“She’s a role model, just in the sense of the willingness to go out and discover the world. I think on top of that, is the level she achieved while doing that and under great obstacles,” Hamm said. “She had some amazing skill and drive, to where she pushed through all of those obstacles and found herself at the center of these important events and telling these stories.”
Geyer interviewed controversial and difficult to reach world figures like Cuban President Fidel Castro, King Hussein of Jordan, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization to name a few. She reported all over the world but spent extensive time reporting in Latin America.
Geyer later became a D.C.-based syndicated columnist and book author. She’s the author of eight books, including “Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro,” and her autobiography “Buying the Night Flight: The Autobiography of a Woman Foreign Correspondent.”
Mike Royko, a famed Chicago based columnist, met Geyer in her early career when she joined the Chicago Daily News. Royko wrote an introduction to Geyer’s autobiography.
“As the years passed,” Royko wrote, “Latin America wasn’t big enough to hold her, and she became one of those genuine, and rare, globe-hopping correspondents.”
Despite her success, Geyer was often criticized for bias in her reporting. She was also criticized for anti-immigrant rhetoric and for her views on U.S. immigration policies, which she shared in her book “Americans No More: The Death of Citizenship.”
However, Hamm believes that Geyer’s intent was not to cause harm, but to dissect U.S. Immigration policies in order to find solutions.
“She believed that on most major issues…if you look at polling, and if you talk to real people, they agree on most of the things,” Hamm said. “She believed that there is a general consensus, and that the people who are running for office ignore that and go to the extremes. And because of that, it’s presented as we are further apart than we’ve ever been. But in reality, we’re not.”
Nearly a decade before her death, Geyer developed cancer of the tongue, which significantly impacted her ability to speak. However, this did not stop her from pursuing her passions and she remained an active journalist until she died at age 84, at her home in Washington, D.C. on May 15, 2019.
Geyer’s ambition and natural curiosity drove her towards success throughout her career. Her bravery allowed her to enter potentially dangerous situations in order to share these stories with the world. Hamm believes these are traits that all journalists should take from Geyer.
“You can’t have fear or irrational fear. You have to have a significant drive. You just have this passion for telling stories, and this passion for the world,” Hamm said.
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