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Among her editorial peers around the country, Fanning is noted as a voice for restraint. She is chairman of the ethics committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and during a panel discussion of privacy issues at A.S.N.E.'s convention in May, she said that "the public reaction to the press is finally getting through, and it may lead to a more humane journalism." Says Publisher James Hoge of the Sun-Times: "Fanning is always asking a series of questions to get your opinion on this or that. Yet she does not edit a paper by public opinion polls, but by her conscience." At gatherings of news executives, Fanning seemingly commands perhaps more attention than any other woman except Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post.
Weeks before Fanning was chosen to run a paper entirely on her own merits, her son Frederick Field and his half brother Marshall Field V put the paper where she never got a job, the Sun-Times, up for sale. The decision "saddened" Fanning. But she reacted in a way that might serve as her axiom in giving rebirth to the Monitor. Said she: "I hate to see traditions die. But I do not believe in tradition for tradition's sake." —By William A. Henry III.
Reported by Richard Hornik/Boston