E. R. Shipp

Etheleen Renee Shipp (born June 6, 1955) is an American journalist and columnist. As a columnist for the New York Daily News, she was awarded the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for "her penetrating columns on race, welfare and other social issues."

She is an associate professor at Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism & Communication in Baltimore, Maryland.

Early life and education Shipp was born the oldest of six children to an extremely poor African-American family in Conyers, Georgia. The "E. R." stands for "a good southern name" that she hasn't "grown into" yet. Except for a brief stay in public housing, they lacked indoor plumbing and were forced to bring in buckets of water multiple times per day. It was expected that she would work in a factory upon graduation, but teachers pushed her to seek scholarships. She thought journalism "sounded a hell of a lot more interesting and easier than working in a factory" and began working as a home economics correspondent for a local newspaper while still in high school. She moved to New York City and graduated from Columbia University with an MS in journalism in 1979 and a JD in 1980.

Career She began working for The New York Times in 1980. She worked there as a reporter and editor until 1993. Shipp also wrote the paper's obituary for civil rights leader Rosa Parks. It is common practice to write obituaries of famous people in advance. Shipp began the obituary in 1988 and Parks died in 2005, long after Shipp left the Times.

In 1993 she left the Times to pursue graduate work in history. She also became an assistant professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and was faculty supervisor of the student publication Bronx Beat. "There are no sacred cows in a Shipp column", wrote the Daily News in the letter nominating her for a Pulitzer. Her columns have prompted angry feedback,

From 1998 to 2000, Shipp served as the ombudsman at The Washington Post, which had one of the few and perhaps the most independent of such positions in the US news media. As the person responsible for discussing the Posts policies and editorial decisions, among the issues she discussed in her column were the murder of Jesse Dirkhising and the coverage of the candidates in the 2000 presidential election. She complained about the inaccessibility of the newsroom and its lack of communication with readers but expressed hope that these issues could be addressed.

In 2006, The Daily News dropped Shipp's column. She said "I join the rest of my journalistic generation of pioneers who don't have the jobs they thought they had."

In 2012, Shipp was named as "Journo in Residence" at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

Personal life Shipp lived in Center Moriches, New York.