Awarded a lifetime achievement award in March, longtime journalist Elizabeth Drew used the opportunity to deliver a scathing speech about the news industry’s treatment of women. By Karen Heller Karen Heller National general features writer for Style Email Bio Follow May 14 at 7:00 AM When veteran political scribe Elizabeth Drew collected the Washington Press Club Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award in March, she did not lavish treacly bromides upon the crowd. That was never going to happen.
Her speech was greeted with sustained silence, then a standing ovation. “She was just a pistol,” says political analyst Charlie Cook. “No, not a pistol. It was more like an Uzi.” A week later, Drew sits in her Georgetown living room, decorated in beige and tomato-bisque red, a Calder print above the fireplace, a covered swimming pool out back, the sort of elegant home found in Allen Drury novels. She is less than happy that her speech didn’t receive much coverage, but there is another point she wants to make.
Conversations with Drew go on scenic peregrinations, salted with piquant asides. She makes several suggestions as to how this article should be written. Her recall is exquisite. She’s active on Twitter and collects young talent, insistently curious about the now. Twice widowed, she goes out constantly.
“You will always know exactly what Elizabeth thinks,” says Time national political correspondent Molly Ball. “She’s wonderfully straightforward.”