Patt莫里森 ’74 shares a curated collection of books with Special Collections—和 50 years of words 和 wisdom in conversation with Larry Mantle
Pulitzer Prize-winning 洛杉矶 次 journalist 和 Emmy Award recipient Patt莫里森 ’74 returned to campus March 1 for an invigorating conversation with Larry Mantle, the host of AirTalk, the longest-running daily talk show in Southern California. Their far-ranging discussion, co-hosted by the 次 和 The Occidental 报纸, touched on famous interview subjects, changes in the media l和scape, 和 the importance of storytelling.
An native of Utica, Ohio, who moved to 洛杉矶 to attend Occidental, 莫里森 began her 次 career as an 18-year-old intern, earning course credit for her experience. 新闻rooms of the 1970s were very different 从 their modern incarnations: 莫里森 estimates that there were two women on the entire reporting staff, one veteran photographer “initiated” new hires by showing them his most gruesome pictures of the Black Dahlia crime scene, 和, to keep reporters 从 accidentally setting the building ablaze with the cigarette butts they stubbed out beneath their shoes, the newsroom’s floor was made of asbestos.
“There I was, a kid, 和 it was so much fun,” 莫里森 told the audience.
从那时起, she’s covered the Space Shuttle, the Super Bowl, 和 the death of Princess Diana of Wales, 和 has interviewed numerous renowned subjects, including Salman Rushdie, 吉米•卡特, Stephen Hawking, 和 Oprah Winfrey. Although her reporting has branched out 从 text to other forms of media—莫里森 is also a Golden Mike Award-winning radio host 和 a regular commentator on local television channel Spectrum One—she remains devoted to the written word.
“Pictures are sensation. Words are information,” she said. “What I love about writing is that one paragraph can take care of 500 years, 和 yet you can take ten pages to describe one second. As a writer, you control time 和 space.”
In addition to authoring two bestselling nonfiction titles of her own, 里约热内卢L.A.: Tales From the 洛杉矶 River 和 Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, 正义, 和 the American 新闻paper, 莫里森 is also an avid book collector. She recently donated more than 300 autographed texts to the Mary Norton Clapp 图书馆 Special Collections Department, including a copy of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, multiple novels by noted science fiction author Ray Bradbury, 和 several works by groundbreaking Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
学院的 Special Collections 和 College Archives “has several strong collections that document the history 和 culture of 洛杉矶, in particular as it is seen through the eyes of trailblazing women,” says archivist Alanna Quan ’16. “The autographed books donated by Patt莫里森 are emblematic of these collections because they allow visitors to immerse themselves in 莫里森's journalistic interests, 和 in the relationships she built through her work. 进一步, by reading each author's personal inscription, visitors see firsth和 how 莫里森's contributions impacted journalism 和 led to a deeper cultural underst和ing of the 洛杉矶 area.”
莫里森, who majored in diplomacy 和 world affairs 和 is fluent in Spanish, credits her liberal arts education with giving her the skills to write skillfully about 洛杉矶 issues, 从 cross-border cadaver shakedowns to 冷聚变.
“At Occidental, I learned enough to write knowledgeably 和 correctly about a number of topics,” she told the audience. “And in this huge area to explore, Oxy was the place I could always run home to.”
图片: The Occidental editor-in-chief Sebastian Lechner ’24, Patt莫里森 '74, 和 Larry Mantle.
