Spring Break
SMU professor has trailblazing history
Courtney Sartor, Contributing Writer, csartor@smu.edu
Issue date: 11/10/06 Section: News
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Patrick Barta remembers calling his mother everyday when he got home from school between four and five o'clock. What is there to eat? What is there to do? What time will you be home?
Carolyn Barta took the calls and answered her son's questions patiently and calmly.
Patrick Barta said that as a child, he didn't realize his mom was a successful political journalist. Getting calls from her children must have been "highly stressful," he said. Yet she still had time for him, even for his calls at deadline.
SMU journalism professor Carolyn Barta worked for The Dallas Morning News more than 30 years, and she still writes political stories for the Morning News and writes columns for Dallasblog.com.
Barta started her career in the 1960s as a Texas Tech student interning at the DMN. After graduation, she worked in the Women's News Department covering home furnishings, cooking, society news and other feature stories.
In 1963 she quit the paper and moved to Hawaii, where she continued to work writing for a weekly newsletter.
"I just wanted to go somewhere and do something different," she said.
In Hawaii, Barta broke a story about the city of Dallas buying the transit system. A Dallas official was in Hawaii and she got an interview. Barta called editors at the DMN, asking if they were interested in the story. They were.
"She impressed the men," said Anne Atterberry, Barta's former editor in the Women's News Department.
In 1964, before she went back to the paper, Barta worked for Texas Senator Yarborough in Washington, D.C. She moved to Austin in the fall of 1964 to continue working on his campaign and to get her master's degree at the University of Texas.
She returned with one of the three jobs available to women on the City Desk of the DMN, according to Atterberry.
Atterberry said Barta joked that she came back "because the candy canes melted on her Christmas tree," but Atterberry knew it was really because she wanted to work on the hard news side of journalism.
Carolyn Barta took the calls and answered her son's questions patiently and calmly.
Patrick Barta said that as a child, he didn't realize his mom was a successful political journalist. Getting calls from her children must have been "highly stressful," he said. Yet she still had time for him, even for his calls at deadline.
SMU journalism professor Carolyn Barta worked for The Dallas Morning News more than 30 years, and she still writes political stories for the Morning News and writes columns for Dallasblog.com.
Barta started her career in the 1960s as a Texas Tech student interning at the DMN. After graduation, she worked in the Women's News Department covering home furnishings, cooking, society news and other feature stories.
In 1963 she quit the paper and moved to Hawaii, where she continued to work writing for a weekly newsletter.
"I just wanted to go somewhere and do something different," she said.
In Hawaii, Barta broke a story about the city of Dallas buying the transit system. A Dallas official was in Hawaii and she got an interview. Barta called editors at the DMN, asking if they were interested in the story. They were.
"She impressed the men," said Anne Atterberry, Barta's former editor in the Women's News Department.
In 1964, before she went back to the paper, Barta worked for Texas Senator Yarborough in Washington, D.C. She moved to Austin in the fall of 1964 to continue working on his campaign and to get her master's degree at the University of Texas.
She returned with one of the three jobs available to women on the City Desk of the DMN, according to Atterberry.
Atterberry said Barta joked that she came back "because the candy canes melted on her Christmas tree," but Atterberry knew it was really because she wanted to work on the hard news side of journalism.
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