Sob Sister

The newspaperman, and newspaperwoman, have long captured the American imagination – and reporters, anchors, and even photojournalists have served as the protagonists in comics, animation, television and film.

As a woman writer and pop culture herstorian I can’t help but be drawn to places in pop culture where women and journalism intersect – and that means I absolutely adore Lois Lane.

She is not the first woman reporter in popular culture, but Lois is likely the most recognizable – and certainly the longest lasting in the American cultural consciousness, having debuted alongside Superman and Clark Kent in 1938.

Like many real-life women reporters of her day, Lois Lane began her career writing romance columns and covering other "women’s news." Rather than spend her career as a "sob sister", she was anxious to tackle more challenging material, but her editor assigned the hard-hitting stories to Lois’ journalistic rival, Clark Kent, and insisted the work was too important for "a girl."