SYD KRONISH / Stamps Women journalists continue tradition

The war in Iraq once again is witness to women journalists doing an outstanding reporting job on the front lines.
Women writers have been receiving accolades over many years for a variety of stories -- not only wars, but front-page investigative features, as well.
Last year the U.S. Postal Service honored "Women in Journalism" with a special quartet of 37-cent stamps depicting their photos with a background of their headline stories. They were: Marguerite Higgins, Ethel L. Payne, Ida M. Tarbell and Nellie Bly.
Higgins (1920-66) of the New York Herald Tribune was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. She covered World War II, the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, the Nuremberg trials and the Soviet Union's blockade of Berlin. She also repeatedly risked her life to cover the war in Korea.
Payne (1911-91) began her journalistic career while working at an Army Special Services club in Japan after World War II. In the early 1950s, she showed her journal to the Defender, a black newspaper with a national readership -- and soon her stories about the experiences of black soldiers became front-page stories. She then covered key events in the civil rights movement and earned a reputation as an aggressive journalist.
Rockefeller's nemesis
Tarbell (1857-1944) began writing for McClure's Magazine. Her most famous project was an exhaustive investigation of the Standard Oil Company and the methods John D. Rockefeller Sr. had used to consolidate his hold on the oil industry.
Tarbell's detailed expos & eacute; -- a series of articles published from 1902 to 1904 -- helped bring about legal actions that resulted in the breakup of Standard Oil several years later.
"Nellie Bly" (1864-1922) was her pen name. Her journalistic fame came from her sensational reporting for the New York World. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, she wrote a number of exposes that became major headline stories. In 1899, she traveled around the world in fewer than 80 days to beat the record set by Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg.
Catalogue
Volume I of the 2004 Scott Catalogue contains listings and values for the United States, United Nations and countries of the world, A-B. The new 2004 Volume I "Value Supplement" is a separate item that features expanded valuing information for the most important U.S. stamps in six grades.
Almost 13,500 values changed in this year's Volume I. The stamps of the United States and its possessions led the way with more than 2,300 value changes, mostly upward. Australia recorded more than 1,600 changes, mainly increases. Activity in the British Commonwealth was particularly heavy.
The cover price for the printed version of Volume I is $49.99. The CD-ROM costs the same. Volume I is Available at your local stamp dealer, or call Scott Publishing Co. (800)-572-6885.