Jane Chesnutt had no trouble determining what her major would be when she started classes at the University of Texas.
“My father’s family owned a small newspaper, and though it seldom contained anything resembling news, the smell of those presses was in my blood.”
She was, she says, only a “so-so student” in her journalism classes but found her footing when she joined The Daily Texan her junior year, working in the features department, as features editor during her last semester.
She graduated in 1973 with no job and no money with which to buy a car so she could find a job. “Two weeks later, a friend and I got into her car and drove to New York, where she had a job and I had a floor to sleep on. I wound up staying, falling in love with the city, making a life and a career there.”
She eventually became the long-time editor-in-chief of Woman’s Day.
“My years at UT profoundly shaped my life,” she says. She landed her critical second job in large part because of the national reputations of both the School of Journalism and The Daily Texan.
She also says, “Working in features on The Texan was terrific training for working at a lifestyle magazine like Woman’s Day. And It was on campus that I was first exposed to things — art, for example — that became lifelong personal passions.”
She was named Editor-in-Chief/Vice President of Woman’s Day in 1991, staying in that position until 2009. During her tenure, WD was always among the top three best-selling magazines in the country, at its peak reaching an estimated 22 million women.
Her signature achievement as editor-in-chief was to use the power of Woman’s Day to raise awareness of the risk of heart disease in women, a subject that was ignored at the time, even within the medical profession.
“I’d been a health editor for many years. I’d been to dozens of events and luncheons for just about every disease that affects women—except for heart disease, which happens to be women’s greatest health risk and killer. I thought, this is absurd. Something has to be done.”
Working with a small group of committed women (“and a few good men”), she became one of the founders of what ultimately became the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign, which continues today.
Jane first joined Woman’s Day in 1978 as an assistant editor in charge of health coverage, adding responsibility for beauty coverage in 1987, then becoming Beauty, Fashion and Health Director two years later. She began her career at the Environment Information Center and as an editorial assistant at the American Journal of Nursing.
Among her honors is a Clarion Award from Women in Communications, Inc. for a 1984 survey that was one of the very first research efforts to seriously study the gender gap. In 1992, she was one of Adweek’s “Editors of the Year.” In 2011, the Texas Exes named her a Distinguished Alumna. She is a member of the Women’s Forum of New York.
————————-
Register to attend at: