Dorothy Ing Russell, 84, trail-blazing Asian-American journalist, dies

Dorothy Diana Ing Russell, reputedly the first Asian-American journalist to work for The Washington Post and a Club member for 39 years, died Oct. 19 at a Maryland hospice. Russell, who lived in Chevy Chase, Md, was 84.

In addition to a 40-year career as a foreign correspondent, reporter and copy editor, Russell was a co-founder and first treasurer of the Washington chapter of the Asian- American Journalists Association (AAJA). In 1995 she received a lifetime achievement award from the national AAJA.

She also established within the AAJA the May Quan Ing Scholarship, in honor of her late mother, to help aspiring young journalists of Asian ancestry.

Russell joined the NPC in 1973, less than two years after women were first admitted to membership. She became a Silver Owl in 1998.

A native of Hamilton, Ontario and a 1951 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Russell was a copy editor at The Post for 23 years, from 1968 until 1991, when she retired in part due to carpal syndrome. She was one of the litigants in a class action lawsuit against The Post, challenging whether it had failed to provide employees with the proper ergonomics furniture. The case was settled out of court.

Russell was only the second woman to work as a national copy desk editor for The Post and was one of the editors, both in that position and as a Metro section copy editor, who handled such major news stories as the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Washington riots of 1968 and the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal.

Prior to joining The Post, Russell was, at the relatively young age of 27, acting Jakarta bureau chief for United Press International in 1955, shortly after Indonesia had won its independence from the Netherlands. The next year she became the Indonesian stringer for The New York Times. She later claimed The Times only hired her because it assumed she was a male, a mistake she took advantage of by avoiding use of her first name and instead adopting the byline "Ing Russell."

Russell later worked as a reporter or editor for a wide assortment of publications, including American Weekly magazine in London, Japan Times, Asahi Evening News, Stars & Stripes in Tokyo and World magazine in New York City.