Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
As a board member of the Atlanta Press Club for the past five years, I take pride in what we do at the organization. I was never more proud than during our fourth annual Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame dinner, with four well-deserved inductees: retired NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, New York Times reporter Claude Sitton, the late great Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter/columnist Celestine Sibley and 11 Alive anchor Brenda Wood.
Wood, who has been in Atlanta as an anchor and reporter for 26 years, gave an especially emotional speech.
"This is an unbelievable moment," Wood said. "I did wonder the sanity of the selection committee. I don't know how and why this came to be... I never intended to be on camera. God made other plans for me... I was fresh out of college with no journalism background." She said the Huntsville news director who took a chance on her "must have been smoking something strong!"
She said the "journey has never been easy but never boring." For her first job, she was the only black, female in the newsroom and she didn't smoke. "I buckled in for the ride," she said, "feeding the hungry beast of news broadcasts."
Wood recounted 14 co-anchors, 11 general managers and 15 news directors at 11 Alive, yet she is grateful for being there. "This is a business that feeds on change," she said. "I know I've been privileged."
This is the profile shown at the dinner for Wood. All the videos were professionally edited by Richard Crabbe of Kettle Creek Media, narrated by Jaye Watson and scripted by Jon Shirek.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Tom Johnson, former president of CNN, introduced Brokaw, who worked at WSB-TV in the mid-1960s before going national. He said CNN had approached Brokaw to anchor for the network but couldn't get him to leave NBC.
"I was tempted to work with him," Brokaw acknowledged, referencing CNN founder Ted Turner. "But we became really close friends. No one had greater impact on journalism than Ted Turner. It was a transformative moment" when he started CNN.
Johnson said he beamed with pride during the first Gulf War when Brokaw on his NBC evening newscast complimented CNN's work as "the little network that could." "Our newsroom cheered," Johnson said.
Brokaw has suffered from cancer the past year plus but is in recovery. He walked gingerly but appeared strong.
He said his time in Atlanta was fruitful for him, lifting him from the minor leagues to the majors. He not only learned to love butter beans but also how to pronounce Ponce de Leon Ave. correctly.
Here is Brokaw's profile:
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Sitton was a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter and Emory University graduate who covered the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and 1960s for the New York Times. At age 88, he is still alive and well and gave a speech that was humble and focused more on his family and the other honorees than himself. Dean Baquet, executive editor for the New York Times, introduced him.
Here is Sitton's profile:
Celestine Sibley was a legendary reporter and columnist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution for 58 years until her death in 1999. She was one of the first female reporters to cover crime and she had an affinity with the down and out, the bottom rungs of society. "She was tough as nails but had a soft heart as well.
"She treated them as equals," said her friend and author Kathy Trocheck, during her introduction. "She faced real adversity. She was a single mother who married twice, was widowed twice."
She recalled having lunch with Sibley at the Magnolia Room at Rich's downtown. "I ended up paying for lunch because she had given her last dollar to a panhandler at Five Points," she recalled.
Sibley was also an incredibly prolific writer.
And she was never compensated the way her male colleagues were, Trocheck said.
Her grandson John Bazemore accepted the award on her behalf and joked how everything he said and did was fodder for a column. He recalled when he was five and Sibley was driving him to New Orleans. She heard on the radio that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. She pulled over and called the office to see if she could help. She was a dedicated, hard news woman at heart.
He wonders how Sibley would do in this day of social media. "She'd do great but the transition would be a bear," Bazemore said. "To her, a well-written story, a good photo, was a force for good. She was modest, humble to a fault. She would have loved this" Hall of Fame induction.
This is Sibley's piece:
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