She earned many awards, including several from AP and UPI for columns and the Heywood Broun Award for a year-long investigation into the abuse of developmentally disabled youths in a state facility. She also coordinated and edited an award-winning series, “Blacks in Detroit.” A decade later, Watson became assistant city editor and special projects editor, organizing investigations on public schools, health care programs and government fraud, her bio said. She began her career at the paper as a general assignment reporter covering welfare, real estate redlining and discriminatory pricing by auto insurers. ► Follow-up: 'One Of Detroit's All-Time Great Journalists:' Susan Watson Tributes Continue Flowing
In three decades at the paper, she became a leader in gender and race issues in journalism, serving as a role model to women in a male-dominated industry, according to a biography at the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, where she was inducted in 2000. She was one of the first women columnists and the first female editor at the Detroit Free Press. Two months later, she went to work at the Free Press. In 1965, Watson graduated from the University of Michigan. She never returned to the paper, instead turning to work as editor of The Detroit Teacher, a biweekly publication of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. Watson worked at the Freep for three decades before going on strike in July 1995. She was hospitalized recently for complications from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that affected her lungs. Susan Watson, a reporter, editor and columnist for the Detroit Free Press, who was a powerful voice in the Detroit community, died on Saturday at age 76.
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