Education
A native of Los Angeles, Ruth Ashton graduated in 1939 from Long Beach Polytechnic High School.
A native of Los Angeles, Ruth Ashton graduated in 1939 from Long Beach Polytechnic High School.
She was the first female newscaster on television in Los Angeles and the West Coast. She relocated to New York City thereafter, receiving a master"s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1944. When she first began as a writer and producer there, she had no thoughts of going on air as, to her knowledge, it simply wasn"t done in major news markets.
According to Ashton, Columbia Broadcasting System management didn"t want to broadcast women because they "just didn"t like those squeaky voices".
However, by 1949, she was on the air, interviewing such notable individuals as Albert Einstein. Eventually, she was transferred to a religious program, and, disappointed by her exclusion from news broadcasting, she left Columbia Broadcasting System radio in New York and returned to Los Los Angeles
In 1951, she became the first woman in Los Angeles or on the West Coast on television news when she took a job with Los Angeles"s KNXT-television (now KCBS). Although originally hired to cover the "Women"s Angle", she has indicated in interviews that the lack of conventional roles for women in broadcasting gave her considerable freedom in the stories she selected to cover.
In 1958, she left briefly to work as a public information officer at a college before returning in 1962.
She officially retired in 1989, but continued occasionally contributing into her 70s. As a news reporter and program host, she became an influential figure on subsequent female journalists, with numerous industry awards and a career that included notable interviews with such diverse people as Jimmy Carter and Jimmy Durante. During her time in broadcasting, Ashton Taylor became a widely known and celebrated figure.
In 1983, The Los Angeles Times indicated that she had a reputation as "one of the best newspeople in television".
A 2007 article in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media described her as "one of the most recognizable people on radio and television in Los Angeles"
She received a Star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990. The Good News Foundation, an organization of women journalists in Los Angeles, offers in her name to female students intending a career in journalism a scholarship which not only provides financial assistance but also the mentorship of a working professional.
Following her graduation, she took a job as a news writer at Columbia Broadcasting System radio, taking a place among the original members of the documentary unit of Edward R. Murrow.