To Our Readers

By ELIZABETH VALK LONG President

Joelle Attinger remembers precisely the moment when she decided she wanted to become a journalist. At 17, Attinger, our newly appointed chief of correspondents and TIME's first ever female top editor, read an interview of North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap by famed Italian reporter Oriana Fallaci. "She had such a wonderful way of bringing people out," says Attinger. "That she was a woman made me say, 'This is possible.' "

Attinger, who until recently oversaw our domestic bureaus, began her career at TIME in 1973 as a secretary in the Paris-based Europe bureau. When she wasn't clipping news wires, she was mastering her craft, conducting interviews for the magazine with everyone from Pierre Cardin to the head of the Spanish Communist Party and encountering some not so subtle sexism along the way. (Attinger remembers telling a male colleague who covered foreign affairs that she hoped to become a diplomatic correspondent one day. He responded by inviting her to become his secretary.) Ultimately, though, her insight and inquisitiveness won out over her clerical capabilities, and she moved quickly to correspondents' posts in Washington and Boston before heading the New York bureau, where her cover story on the rotting Big Apple left city officialdom smarting. Along the way, she and her husband Bernard deftly handled the tough balancing act of raising a family: daughters Celia, 9, and Abigail, 6.

As chief of correspondents Joelle oversees 63 reporters deployed in 29 cities across the U.S. and around the world. Even in a job where the unexpected is the expected, there are still certifiable crises to contend with, like that frantic phone call from a suddenly strapped-for-cash reporter trapped in Mogadishu. But when chaos reigns and deadlines hover, Joelle calms. "You can always count on her to get you out of a mess," says Cathy Booth, Miami bureau chief. It was Joelle who advised a reporter in Abu Dhabi who discovered there was a contract out on his life (he is safe and out of Abu Dhabi). Colleagues also laud Joelle's ability to shape and define stories; she was instrumental, for example, in directing TIME's award-winning coverage of the B.C.C.I. scandal.

At the helm of TIME's News Service, Joelle will continue to help direct first-rate coverage each week. Her goal is simply stated: "What I care about is generating the best possible journalism." We don't doubt that she will.