Outstanding Women

“I thought I would just recognize my fellow honorees for a moment,” said NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly who was recognized for excellence in Journalism at the 4th Annual Washington Women in Journalism Awards reception as a kick-off to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend festivities hosted by Washingtonian president and CEO Cathy Merrill Williams and Gloria Dittus (Story Partners) at Gloria’s home in Kalorama, Washington, DC. “Mary Katharine (Ham), who I have not had the pleasure of knowing before tonight, works in TV so I was prepared to hate her because I knew her hair and make-up would look better than mine, and then she gets up here and she has better shoes than the rest of us, so how can you compete?” Mary Louise Kelly launched the intelligence beat for National Public Radio in 2004 and she has been going where most women and men fear to tread ever since. Her reporting has taken her to the Khyber Pass, the mosques of Hamburg, grimy bars in Belfast and Baghdad at the height of the brutality. Kelly was among two other journalists to receive an award along with the Lifetime Achievement award presented to multi-talented Cokie Roberts.