Deborah Howell, who helped lead the International Women’s Media Foundation as a board member and officer for more than 10 years, has died in an accident involving an automobile in New Zealand.
Howell was on vacation with her husband, C. Peter Magrath, at the time of the accident. A pioneering journalist who was one of the first women to head a large daily American paper, Howell was a member of the IWMF executive committee at the time of her death. Earlier she served as vice chair of the board.
Howell grew up in Texas as the daughter of a newspaper reporter. She became the top editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, leading that paper to two Pulitzer Prizes. She later left Minnesota to run the Washington bureau of Newhouse News Service. She then served a three-year term as ombudsman for The Washington Post. At the time of her death, she was a consultant for Advance Publications, Inc.