Aleene MacMinn, 75; Times TV Editor Was a Pioneer Among Female Journalists
Aleene MacMinn, a former television editor of the Los Angeles Times, died Sunday of an apparent stroke at her home in Glendale, family members said. She was 75.
MacMinn joined The Times as a reporter in 1953, when there were relatively few women in the business. The first day she arrived at work, she doubled the number of female reporters on the Times staff to two.
After four years of reporting, she was named assistant editor of what was then the Family section. She was named assistant television editor in 1960 and television editor in 1965.
“To be television editor in those days was daunting -- not just overseeing the news and reviews, but also the compilation of the daily TV listings, which were all done by hand, without the benefit of computers,” said Lee Margulies, a former television reporter and editor who is The Times’ deputy daily Calendar editor. “She did it all with great aplomb.”
Howard Rosenberg, The Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning former television critic, remembered MacMinn for her professionalism. “Her honesty and sincerity elevated her above the crowd,” he said. “All of us who worked with her respected her total devotion to the paper and to her job.”
Upon leaving the television editing post in 1989, she wrote the Morning Report column in Calendar before retiring in 1993 after 40 years at the paper.
Born in Salt Lake City, MacMinn was a resident of Glendale from the age of 12. She began writing feature stories for the Glendale News-Press while in high school. She attended Glendale College before transferring to USC, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in 1952.
While working at The Times, she was for many years a member of the adjunct journalism faculty at USC.
Her husband, Fraser MacMinn, died in 2000. She is survived by her children, Margaret MacMinn Duplechain and Geordie MacMinn, and four grandchildren.
The funeral will be at 11 a.m. today at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1101 N. Central Ave., Glendale.
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