Loretta June McLaughlin | |
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| Born | Loretta June McDermott 1928 Woburn, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | (aged 90) Milton, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Boston University (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, author |
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| Children | 3 |
Loretta McLaughlin (1928 – November 23, 2018) was an American journalist, author and newspaper editor. As a journalist at theBoston Record American, McLaughlin, along withJean Cole, covered theBoston Strangler murders in 1962. She was the first journalist to connect the murders and break the story about the serial killer. In 1992, she was appointed as Editorial Page Editor for theBoston Globe, only the second woman to serve in this role.
Born Loretta McDermott in 1928 inWoburn, Massachusetts, to Anna (née Ring) McDermott, a homemaker, and John McDermott, who worked for a Quincy, Massachusetts shipyard. Her siblings included: John, Sylvester ("DeeDee"), and Margaret.[1] McLaughlin's family moved toSouth Boston when she was a child, and she graduated from South Boston High School. McLaughlin attended Boston University on an academic scholarship, where she studied journalism. She graduated with a B.A. in 1949.[1]
McLaughlin worked as a journalist for theBoston Record American during the 1950s. During that time, she and Jean (née Cole) Harris (1926–2015)[2] investigated and publicized the 1962Boston Strangler assaults and murders. McLaughlin later went on to work as a science writer forHarvard University, and as executive director of public relations atMassachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, where she led a capital campaign to build its primary facility.[3]
In the 1970s, McLaughlin returned to journalism and joined theHerald American (a subsequent publication of theBoston Record American she previously reported for) as a medical reporter. In 1976, theBoston Globe recruited McLaughlin as a medical news specialist. As a strong advocate for public health, McLaughlin devoted much of her work to covering the AIDS crisis. After she joined the Editorial Page staff in 1992, McLaughlin was critical of elected officials, such as US SenatorJesse Helms, for politicizing the disease, writing in theGlobe in 1995:
Helms is invincibly ignorant about AIDS, a complicated matter that is not suited to moralistic pandering... he can't even tell the difference between his blind prejudice and a slow but world-encompassing plague.[4]
She also wrote the Boston Globe's endorsements ofWilliam Weld for Governor of Massachusetts,Bill Clinton for President of the United States, andThomas Menino for Mayor of Boston.
In 1982 McLaughlin published her bookThe Pill, John Rock, and the Church: The Biography of a Revolution, about the development of the birth control pill. The work was praised inJAMA as "an expression of the synthesis of science and humanism at its best", but panned by reviewerBarbara Ehrenreich inThe New York Times as being almost wholly uncritical of the dubious ethics of many of the research studies that led to the development of the drug.[5][6] The Loretta McLaughlin research and publication records collection is held at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University.[7]
In 1988, The New England Journal of Public Policy published McLaughlin's article "AIDS: An Overview", which was strongly critical of the federal government's response to the epidemic.[8]
In July 1992, McLaughlin became the second woman in the Globe's history to become editor of the Editorial Page. In this role, she spoke at the 1993 New England Health Care Summit.[9] She held this position until December 1993, when she reached the Globe's then-mandatory retirement age of 65.[3]
After retiring from theBoston Globe, McLaughlin was a fellow at the Radcliffe College Institute for Public Policy and was a Senior Fellow at the Harvard AIDS Institute.
Loretta McLaughlin portrayed herself in the 2000 documentaryLawbreakers: Who Was the Real Boston Strangler? and the 2010 episode, "Albert DeSalvo: The Boston Strangler", of the seriesBorn to Kill?.
In March 2023,Hulu releasedBoston Strangler, a film starringKeira Knightley as McLaughlin, andCarrie Coon asJean Cole, following the story of their work connecting the series of murders and breaking the story of the Boston Strangler.[10]
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