Lynn Sherr

Sherr was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Lower Merion High School in Ardmore. She received a B.A. from Wellesley College.

She was a freelance host at WNET-TV in New York City, then staff. She worked for the Associated Press and WCBS-TV. In 1977, she was the guest host of the MacNeil–Lehrer Report while Robert MacNeil was absent, and has hosted a number of PBS specials. In 1983–85 she was a reporter/editor for Condé Nast. In 2008, she left the television network ABC after working with them for 31 years. She is the author of Outside the Box: A Memoir, published in September 2006, which chronicles her life on and off TV, including her husband's death from cancer as well as her own battle with colon cancer.[1][2]

She received a 1994 George Foster Peabody Award along with producer Alan B. Goldberg for the "Hunger Inside" a 20/20 documentary about extreme anorexia.

Sherr is a feminist. She has twice (in 1989 and 1992) been the recipient of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's (PPFA) Margaret Sanger Award (known as the "Maggie"), which is awarded to journalists for "exceptional coverage of reproductive rights and health care issues" in the view of PPFA.[3] She also hosted PPFA's Maggie Awards luncheon in 2010.[3]

Sherr has rejected calls for a "new feminism", remarking, "What's wrong with the old feminism?"[4] She has criticized Sarah Palin for calling herself a feminist, demanding, "What, exactly, has she done legislatively for other women? What paths has she forged?"[4]

Sherr was featured in the Jewish Women's Archive web feature, Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.[5]

External video
Booknotes interview with Sherr on Failure Is Impossible, May 5, 1995, C-SPAN

• Susan B. Anthony Slept Here: A Guide to American Women's Landmarks (co-author, 1994)
• Lynn Sherr (1996). Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-76529-1.
• Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes. Andrews McMeel Publishing. 1 August 1997. ISBN 978-0-8362-2769-7.
• Lynn Sherr (2001). America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nations's Favorite Song. Public Affairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-085-1.
• Outside the Box: A Memoir. Rodale. 5 September 2006. ISBN 978-1-60529-786-6.
• Swim: Why We Love the Water. PublicAffairs. March 2012. ISBN 978-1-61039-047-7.
• Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space. Simon and Schuster. 3 June 2014. ISBN 978-1-4767-2578-9.

• ABC News 20/20 profile
• Lynn Sherr at IMDb
• The Giraffe Conservation Foundation where Lynn Sherr is a Founding Patron.
• Appearances on C-SPAN