Merick was ABC’s first female television field producer in the Vietnam War, and one of only a handful of female network producers who covered the war. In 1967, she and several other female reporters won a battle with Gen. William Westmoreland, who banned female reporters from covering the war in combat situations. She and Ann Bryan Mariano of the Overseas Weekly arranged a meeting with a Pentagon official in Saigon to try to overturn the ban.
“As the only woman TV correspondent in Saigon, I was asked to be the spokeswoman for the group,” Merick wrote in her 2002 book, “War Torn: Stories of War From the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam.” After adjourning for a drink, she wrote, “When he said good night, he added that Westmoreland’s edict would be lifted and we could go back out in the field.”