Lynne Olson

Lynne Olson has been a reporter and writer since shortly after her graduation from the University of Arizona. In 1971, she went to work for the Associated Press in Salt Lake City, and in 1972, transferred to the AP’s San Francisco bureau, where she specialized in feature writing. Later that same year, Olson was named to AP’s top feature writing team in New York, which focused on developing and writing stories about the country’s rapidly changing social mores. In 1973, she was asked by the AP to become the wire service’s first woman correspondent in Moscow, and she moved to the AP’s foreign desk to prepare for the assignment. She was based in Moscow from 1974 to 1976, once again concentrating on feature stories but also covering such news events as the Apollo-Soyuz space mission and President Nixon’s visit to the Soviet Union. In 1976, Olson was reassigned to Washington, where she was chosen to cover Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.