Rena Pederson is an acclaimed journalist and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author. She began writing for the San Angelo Standard-Times as a teenager before relocating to Dallas after graduate school. There, she worked for outlets including United Press International, The Associated Press, and The Dallas Morning News, where she also served as Vice President and Editorial Page Editor. While primarily based out of Dallas, Rena’s career took her all over the world, including to interview Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Julia Child, and Aung San Suu Kyi. In April 2024, Rena published her fifth book, The King of Diamonds: The Search for the Elusive Texas Jewel Thief. Recently, Rena sat down with Lili Clark of the Learning from Leaders podcast to discuss leadership in the newsroom, changes within journalism, breaking the glass ceiling, and the allure of a mystery.

“The bad news is I had to cut it in half. The good news is I have another book left over.”

Rena Pederson
Rena Pederson (right) on the Learning From Leaders podcast with Lili Clark.

Character-Driven Leadership

To Rena, the most important quality for leadership within journalism is good character. Citing the unique pressures of the newsroom, including the fast pace and tight deadlines, she emphasizes the need for editors who “stand up to pressure” and “try to do the right thing.” As she explains, character and competence allow an editor to build trust with newsroom staff, make effective decisions, and deal with disgruntled members of the public. Rena recounts the name-calling and outrage she experienced over the phone from readers as Editorial Page Editor at The Dallas Morning News. In today’s information age, journalism moves ever more quickly and “the stakes have gotten even higher,” including threats on journalists’ lives. To her, it’s more important than ever that editors lead with character, “have a good foundation and know what [they’re] doing.”

Another critical aspect of leadership in journalism is community involvement. As she says, “you need to know where your community is and how you’re reflecting” it in order to best cover its news. To best understand Dallas, Rena has conducted outreach and served on various boards – including Southwestern Medical Foundation – both of which have allowed her to better meet the needs of the community through her writing.

Breaking Journalism’s Glass Ceiling

When she joined the Dallas bureau of the Associated Press, Rena was the first female reporter in the newsroom. Later, she was the first female Editorial Page Editor at The Dallas Morning News. She recalls how throughout her career, she was frequently “the only woman in the room.” As she notes, “For the women of that era in the sixties and seventies, you had to work harder.” After moving up the ranks, Rena helped those coming up behind her by acting as a mentor and hiring other women. Beyond the newsroom, when volunteering on boards within the community, she made it a point to recommend hiring people from diverse backgrounds. As she states, “I think that’s one of the most important things that you can do…have different voices in the room [rather than] just an echo chamber.”

Listen to the Podcast Episode

The Importance of Mentorship

When asked about a mentor of her own, Rena recalls her high school journalism teacher, Ed Cole. As she remembers, “he would make me come in on my lunch hour and practice writing news stories and feature stories and headlines.” At the time, she would have preferred to be hanging out with her friends at Dairy Queen during lunch. In time, however, she has come to appreciate her lunchtime writing sessions because they gave her a strong foundation that helped her navigate tight deadlines. As she says, “I was later in situations that I had to write something very quickly, and I didn’t have to worry about the order or the format. I knew it. It was baked into me.”

Another early mentor was her editor at the San Angelo Standard-Times, who “took a real chance on me” in hiring the paper’s first female journalist. While Rena was still a teenager, he trusted her to cover crime, which included riding along with police officers and covering cases as they were still developing. Rena emphasizes the “generosity…and vision” of individuals who “opened the door for me,” and intends to keep doing that for others for a long time to come.

Rena Pederson

Following Curiosity

Since retiring from The Dallas Morning News in 2004, Rena has had more time to focus on writing books. Her latest work of nonfiction, The King of Diamonds, arose out of a curiosity stoked over fifty years ago. While a reporter at United Press International following graduate school, Rena heard about an elusive jewel thief who targeted Dallas’ wealthiest individuals. As Rena remembers, “I wasn’t in a position to pursue it then, but I marinated on it, I guess you could say, for fifty years.” When she did return to the mystery decades later, she uncovered a complex story with many layers and numerous actors. To map the thief’s burglaries–which she believes numbered nearly a hundred–she conducted research in libraries, Las Vegas casinos, online databases, and public records websites, and interviewed more than two hundred people. Because of the depth of research and complexity of the case, Rena spent six years crafting the book. As Rena says, “to have something that can’t be figured out or isn’t known” is like “catnip to me.” She continues: “as long as I can, I’m going to keep going for it.”

Rena had gathered so much information that her original manuscript was nearly twice the size of the final book. Rena stated, “The bad news is I had to cut it in half. The good news is I have another book left over.”