A study examined the portrait of the woman journalist as revealed through the autobiographies of eight women journalists whose careers spanned the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. The portrait was derived from several factors in the autobiographies: education and career commitment, character of personality traits, jobs in the profession, statements of attitudes about women and women journalists, personal life and its influence on career, and factors that may have to do with being female. The portrait was then compared with that portrayed in fiction, which was assumed to reflect the attitude of the society toward women journalists. Findings showed that (1) the declining professional commitment of women journalists portrayed in the fiction was not reinforced in the personal histories; (2) the autobiographies showed diversity of women's positions in their profession, but the women remained assigned primarily to features and women's news, as the fiction portrayed; (3) both fiction and autobiographies associated women with stereotypes; and (4) both showed their assignments primarily to be what was thought of as women's issues rather than issues of general interest. (HOD)