Tributes paid to Los Angeles Times' first woman reporter

The Los Angeles Times has paid tribute to its first-ever female news reporter - a lone woman in a team of male journalists at the title in the mid-1950s and 1960s.

Dorothy Townsend, who died of cancer at the age of 88, worked for the Times from 1954 to 1986.

She spent the first 10 years writing features for the women's pages and covering society events before insisting on being assigned to local news.

Former LA Times senior editor Noel Greenwood said in an email, published by the paper: "I don't think any of us at that time realised what she had accomplished merely by making it to the newsroom.

"This was during an era when women were thought to be such delicate creatures that they were not fit for the challenges of hard news reporting, and were consigned to the features section. I always remembered Dorothy as a heroine."

Townsend won a Pulitzer prize for her coverage of the city's Watts riots in 1966, in which 34 people were killed. Her determination led to other women being hired in the newsroom in the early 1970s.

One of them, former LA Times reporter Myrna Oliver, told the paper: "She complained that her editors tried to keep her from going into the worst areas.

"She said, 'I can run faster than any of those men in the city room.' She was a tough, petite little lady — and an excellent reporter."

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