Edith Efron

Edith Efron (1922 – April 20, 2001) was a conservative-to-libertarian author. Her books included "The News Twisters" (1971), a controversial book which claimed to find media bias in coverage of the 1968 U.S. presidential election, and "The Apocalyptics" (1984), described as "an expose of shoddy science and its effects of environmental policy." She was also ghostwriter for William Simon's "A Time For Truth". She was a contributing editor to Reason Magazine and started her career at the "New York Times Magazine" after attending Columbia Journalism School.

Efron probably made her greatest impact, though, on the American public as an editorial writer for "TV Guide" in the 1960s and 1970s, frequently castigating perceived liberal advocacy in news broadcasts and entertainment programming, while defending conservative politicians such as Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. Efron and other columnists writing in "TV Guide" such as Kevin Phillips and Patrick Buchanan were vocal advocates for the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine by the Federal Communications Commission, in order to permit conservative viewpoints greater access to the airwaves. The FCC would eventually abolish the policy in the late 1980s.

She had been part of Ayn Rand's group and contributed to "The Objectivist" and presented a lecture series on non-fiction writing at the Nathaniel Branden Institute, but was expelled some time before the Brandens were. [http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.16149/article_detail.asp]

External links

* [http://reason.com/hod/efron.shtml "Reason" remembrance]
* [http://www.dynamist.com/edith.html The Woman Who Saw Through Walls] , remembrance by Virginia Postrel
* Her [http://www.reason.com/contrib/show/633.html Reason Articles] on Bill Clinton and Clarence Thomas.