NAPLES, Fla. (AP) - A former television news producer who fought to give female reporters equal access to cover the Vietnam War has died. Anne Morrissy Merick was 83.
Merick's daughter Katherine Anne Engelke said Monday that Merick died May 2 in Naples, Florida, from complications of dementia.
ABC assigned Morrissy Merick to the war in 1967. Shortly afterward, Gen. William Westmoreland prohibited female journalists from spending the night in the field with the troops. That severely limited their access because they couldn't go on an operation and be helicoptered back to the base at night.
Morrissy Merick appealed Westmoreland's decision to the Defense Department, which overturned it.
She and eight other journalists wrote "War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam." It was published in 2002.