2023 Hall of Achievement Inductee

Anita Johnson’s life in journalism began with her high school newspaper in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. By the time she graduated in 1947, she knew writing was her career. After high school she worked at the Coeur d'Alene Press. She said the publisher insisted she should forget about college and just continue at the paper. Considering that bad advice, she ignored him and went to the University of Oregon, where she studied journalism at the UO School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) and served as editor of the Daily Emerald newspaper.

“My journalism professors included such inspiring teachers as John Hulteng, Charles Duncan, and Warren Price,” Johnson recalled in the book 100 Years of the School of Journalism and Communication (1916­–2016). “Not one woman taught in the J-school. Professor Price often told me that it was a waste of time to teach women who probably never would go into the field since they would instead marry and raise children. Later I realized that he was really challenging us to become working journalists.”

Upon graduation Johnson took her dream job with the Washington Post writing feature stories. She ended up leaving to return to Eugene to marry Art Johnson and raise four kids. When they were grown, she tiptoed back into journalism, but not until she first suffered through breast cancer. Once she was cured, she and her husband learned the weekly paper in Eugene needed investors to stay alive. The two joined with Fred Taylor ’51, formerly managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and a fellow SOJC alum, to invest in the paper, which today is the Eugene Weekly. That was more than 30 years ago. Many changes have transformed the weekly, including a name change from What's Happening to Eugene Weekly. Johnson has described the paper as a mixture of alternative and standard journalism. She also believes democracy cannot survive without a free press and has supported the weekly’s efforts to fill a void in the community for investigative journalism.

When her husband died several years ago, he requested that she keep the Eugene Weekly alive because of its importance to Eugene. Today the award-winning publication’s 32,000 circulation beats the local daily. In 2021, Editor & Publisher magazine named her one of the 15 most influential journalists in the nation over 50 years old.

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