Paxson graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1944, and began her newspaper career in Nebraska during World War II, covering hard news for wire services.

She worked at several different newspapers for different reasons that ranged from being replaced by men returning from the war, to seizing opportunities that afforded her the ability to make positive hard news changes to the women's section.

After more than four decades of working to reshape the definition of women's news, Paxson finished her career as a newspaper publisher in Oklahoma.

[4] In accordance with her parents' wishes that she attend her first two years of college close to home, she applied to Rice University, which was only a mile away.

[2] In 1942 Paxson transferred to the University of Missouri for her junior year; within a few weeks, most of her male classmates were drafted for World War II.

[3]: 2  She credited her work at the Columbia Missourian with helping her get her first job at United Press International (UPI) wire service.

[3]: 2 Like many women in the United States, during World War II Paxson was considered for jobs previously limited to men.

[6]: 114  Starting in 1944 she covered hard news for the wire services, first for UPI in the two-person Lincoln, Nebraska, bureau for $25 a week.

[3]: 2  Paxson and the Lincoln bureau manager, Marguerite Davis, reported all state news with the exception of football games, as women were excluded from Nebraska Stadium's press box, and executions, which the state bureau chief, Gaylord Godwin, considered inappropriate for coverage by women.

On a typical Friday she worked all day, covered a party in the evening, returned to the office to file a piece on the event, and got home at 3:00 in the morning.

[2][3]: 4 [11] She moved pictures of brides off the women's section's front page, where most newspapers always ran them, in favor of issue-oriented stories; she later recalled accomplishing this in late 1951 or early 1952.

[11] In 1952 Paxson became women's editor at the Houston Chronicle for $100 a week,[8]: 43–44 [11] but while she supervised a staff of seven, she was not given hiring and firing authority.

[2] While at the Chronicle she published the first photos of black brides in a major Houston newspaper and convinced her managing editor to take a chance on the then little-known advice columnist Ann Landers.

[8]: 43–44 [3]: x  She was mentored in her new position by Jurney and assistant women's editor Marie Anderson and worked alongside Roberta Applegate and Jeanne Voltz.

She was made associate editor of the paper's Sunday magazine, where her assigned tasks were primarily reading page proofs.

"[3]: 9 While Paxson was working at the Bulletin, she took a five-week leave of absence to edit Xilonen, the daily newspaper of the 1975 United Nations World Conference for International Women's Year in Mexico City, hiring a staff of six as reporters.

[2] When she returned to work, she wrote a four-part series about the conference which ran in multiple newspapers across the country but not in the Bulletin.

[3]: 10 [13] Paxson then joined Jurney and Jill Ruckelshaus to work on the official report of the third Commission on the Status of Women.

"[3]: 13 [4] Paxson worked at the Public Opinion for a little under three years[3]: 12  and while there accepted a three-week position as associate editor for the daily newspaper of the 1980 United Nations Mid-Decade Conference for Women in Copenhagen.

Paxson ultimately thought the conference newspaper was demeaning to women, and she wasn't proud of working on it.

[8]: 43–44  The outgoing publisher, Tams Bixby III, had sold the newspaper to Gannett after three generations of his family running it, and he had decided to retire.

[3]: 12 [4] Paxson recalled learning that some on the staff were unhappy that the newspaper's publisher was going to be "one of Gannett's token women.

[14] After she retired she wrote a weekly column for the Phoenix called "Nobody Asked Me But..." which focused on local issues, daily life, and her travels.

[3]: 14 [4] Paxson was elected president of Theta Sigma Phi in 1963 while working at the Miami Herald and held that office until 1967.

[7]: 36  Paxson campaigned for a more professional approach, a stance which was not popular with all members, many of whom disagreed with her emphasis on education and training.

[7]: 37  She led the group to establish a headquarters in Austin, Texas; previously the organization's files had been stored in the national secretary's garage.

[3]: 1  Paxson commented on the remaining resistance to the increasing role of women in journalism, writing in 1967 that "most city editors are men, and there is an inborn prejudice against sending a woman on certain kinds of stories.

[7]: 92 [13] Also at the Phoenix, she discovered the paper had three consistent editorial stances: in favor of alcohol by the drink (then illegal in Muskogee), in support of horse racing, and against the Equal Rights Amendment.

She saw these editors as supporters of the movement, as the women's sections had been the only section of most newspapers to provide coverage in the movement's early years; The New York Times placed the 1965 announcement of the formation of the National Organization for Women between an article about Saks Fifth Avenue and a recipe for turkey stuffing.

[7]: 183, 186, 204 According to journalism researcher Jan Whitt, Paxson "changed the concept of women's pages in Houston and Miami.