Lillian Ross, the ever-watchful New Yorker reporter whose close narrative style defined a memorable and influential 70-year career has died at age 99.
Ross died early Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital after suffering a stroke.
Ross’ approach, later made famous by the “New Journalists” of the 1960s, used dialogue, scene structure and other techniques associated with fiction writers.
She regarded herself as a short story writer who worked with facts, or even as a director, trying to “build scenes into little story-films.”
In 1999, her 1964 collection of articles, “Reporting,” was selected by a panel of experts as one of the 100 best examples of American journalism in the 20th century.
The group, assembled by New York University, ranked it No. 66.
Lillian Ross: Know More- Born in Syracuse, New York, she was always more comfortable as an observer and played hooky just to hang around professional newspaper offices.
- She graduated from Hunter College, worked at the liberal New York Citydaily PM, then was hired by The New Yorker in the mid-1940s, when the magazine was looking for women writers because so many men were serving in World War II.
