“I don’t care if my reporters are sleeping with elephants, as long as they aren’t covering the circus.”
By Layla A. Jones, BillyPenn, Yesterday, 9:00 a.m.
In 1974, Laura Foreman became the first woman political reporter in The Philadelphia Inquirer’s 145-year history.
Three years later, news of her affair with a source would inspire The Inquirer to create its first-ever ethics code, as she became one of the leading public examples of the industry’s double standard for men and women journalists.
She died on June 4, 2020, the New York Times reported last week, confirming through public records and interviews with Foreman’s loved ones that she had been dealing with uterine cancer.
Foreman had recently moved to DC to work for the New York Times, when, in 1977, The Inquirer reported that FBI agents had questioned her in connection with a case against her beau, Henry J. “Buddy” Cianfrani, a former Pennsylvania state senator and South Philly ward leader. The report revealed the pair were romantically involved.
The paper’s subsequent, 17-page account of their relationship effectively cut short her promising rise in journalism.
She didn’t go down without a fight, and defended her reporting, even as she was ostracized by her former colleagues and the general public. She eventually slipped into a successful second career in book publishing.
When Cianfrani returned home from prison in 1980, the pair were married and settled in the DC area. While last week’s Times report said they eventually separated, they were still married when Cianfrani died in 2002.
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