Her Story
About Mary
Mary Bishop-Baldwin is a seasoned journalist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a career spanning more than 40 years. She served as an editor at the Tulsa World for 30 years after teaching journalism for nine years and working in the journalism field for an additional year. Bishop-Baldwin earned a bachelor's degree in mass communication from East Central University in 1983 and a master's degree in mass communication from Arkansas State University in 1985, and she completed coursework toward a doctorate at Oklahoma State University. In her current position, which she has held since April 2026, she reviews and organizes artifacts and historical documents for Oklahomans for Equality, an organization she has supported since 2008, while using her journalism expertise to research and write articles on LGBTQ history and conduct oral history interviews. Her notable achievements include a landmark 2004 lawsuit that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Oklahoma in 2014. Bishop-Baldwin has been recognized with numerous awards, such as induction into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2019, the Madam President award in 2022, and the 100 Oklahoma Women Trailblazers honor in 2018, among many others.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mary
01What do you attribute your success to?
A bit of righteous indignation. If something is right, I'm gonna stand up for it. If it's important enough to me, I will put my job on the line, my name on the line, whatever it takes to stand up for what's right. That's what I did with the lawsuit, and that's what I've done with my career. I've just always tried to do the right thing.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
When I was putting my journalism teaching job on the line by standing up for the freedom of the student press, my department head told me: "Pick your battles." He meant I should back down from this fight with the university administration. But I knew that my integrity depended on standing up for what I knew to be the right thing. Because I would rather lose my job than my integrity, I continued my fight for the rights of student journalists. I lost that job, but it was worth it. That was more than 30 years ago. I did pick my battle then, and I've continued to do that throughout my life.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Learn all aspects of communication. Not just writing; not just editing, but learn to shoot video. Learn to edit video. Learn the technological aspects of media today. Learn to do short snippets of news in video. And learn to do podcasts. Because these things are becoming the wave in journalism. You can't be just a specialist; you have to be a kind of jack-of-all-trades these days. As an editor, please learn grammar, punctuation, and style. Those are so important for professionalism. Have standards, and remain professional. Stick by your ethics.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The field of journalism has changed so much. The challenge today is to create a completely new forum for journalism because people today don't want to read newspapers. With the advent of the internet, people think they can get news for free, mostly getting tidbits and opinions and not in-depth stories by professional journalists. I worry for our republic because people aren't learning civics anymore and aren't reading professionally researched journalism. The opportunity is to find a new way to reach readers.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I value honesty and integrity above all.
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