Becoming Katharine Graham
PBS Western Reserve (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):
Tuesday, June 16, at 9 PM
Wednesday, June 17, at 2 AM
Fusion (WNEO 45.2 / WEAO 49.2):
Saturday, June 20, at 3 PM
Nominated for a 2026 News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Historical Documentary,BECOMING KATHARINE GRAHAM is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who accomplished extraordinary things, and a paean to the power of a free press.
The documentary tells the story of Graham’s accidental rise to power and how it changed history. Born in 1917, Katharine — known as “Kay” — was raised to believe that men would have careers and women would raise the family. But the course of her life would drastically change once her father, financier Eugene Meyer, bought The Washington Post in 1933, a struggling newspaper on the brink of collapse. The paper’s performance improved under her father’s leadership and then under her husband Phil Graham, but Phil’s suicide in 1963 left Kay with a leaderless newspaper and four young children. Forced to decide whether to take over the family business herself or sell it, she surprised everyone by making the unprecedented decision to run it herself.
At its heart, BECOMING KATHARINE GRAHAM is an absorbing examination of the pivotal events of the 1970s that occurred under Kay’s leadership — the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal, and a violent pressmen’s strike — as well as a look at the treatment she endured as one of the first female leaders in corporate America. This sweeping account combines Kay’s own voice with archival newsreel and television footage, home movies and photographs. Among those lending their insights are longtime friend and investor Warren Buffett, son Don Graham, daughter Lally Weymouth, Gloria Steinem, David Remnick, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Richard Cohen, Lynn Povich, Susie Buffett, Sharon Osberg and others.