Atlanta Press Club inducts Robin Meade, Scott Slade into Hall of Fame

ROBIN MEADE

Meade, who was fired as morning anchor after 21-plus years in late 2022 when Warner Bros. Discovery shut down its HLN news division in a cost-cutting move, arrived to the ceremony at the InterContinental Hotel in Buckhead with blonde hair in a ponytail, making her resemble Gwen Stefani.

Her friend and CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta introduced her at the dais by saying they bonded as two Midwesterners who arrived at CNN around the same time in 2001. “She is authentic, she is genuine, she is sincere,” he said. “What you see on TV is the real deal. She is whip smart and has a razor sharp sense of humor. She is no nonsense and breezy at the same time.”

When she arrived on stage, she quickly acknowledged her blonde locks.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “She’s going to Fox News!”

That was a joke. She is still under contract with Warner Bros. Discovery through the end of the year so her next move won’t happen until next year.

On stage, she told a story about how her blue-collar father did not want her to pursue music. She took a test in high school to gauge what career would match her skillsets. The result: communications. She wasn’t sure what to write in as a specific career path so she swiped an idea from a friend: broadcast news anchor. And that is exactly what she ended up doing. .

She thanked the viewers for keeping her on the air so long.

“I hope you felt like you had an emotional guardian on patrol for you every morning,” Meade said, ‘Without the viewer, we would be fired.” Then she paused for effect. “Wait a minute, we were fired.” The crowd laughed.

Meade thanked her team at HLN, many who stayed with her for many years until the end. “Without you, there never would have been us,” she said.

Credit: KRYSALEX

Credit: KRYSALEX

SCOTT SLADE

For more than 32 years, Scott Slade manned the morning news on WSB radio without fail, rising at 1:30 a.m. and prepping for hours before hitting the airwaves as most of Atlanta was waking up. He retired from daily anchoring earlier this year.

Condace Pressley, his producer for his first 10 years of the show, introduced him, noting how consistently strong his ratings were over the years. “That’s the trust the community put in him and his unyielding leadership and unwavering reliability,” she said.

She also noted that in 2001 he came up with the idea of an annual WSB Care-a-Thon for the AFLAC Cancer Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Over 22 years, Slade and the station raised more than $32 million.

Slade on the dais said he felt “blown away. I feel like I’m walking among giants in this incredible class.”

His final words: “Please keep the fires of truth burning here in Atlanta.”

Credit: KRYSALEX PHOT

Credit: KRYSALEX PHOT

PATRICIA JANOIT

Janoit, born in Columbia, is the first Hispanic journalist to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, which began in 2011.

She was the longtime face of CNN en Español, which used to be based in Atlanta. Her career there spanned almost 27 years. She left CNN in 2017 to co-anchor a late-night network newscast on Univision. Now retired from TV broadcasting, she is working on her first book and airs her own YouTube news program.

Over the decades, she worked in war zones and natural disasters and interviewed no shortage of leaders such as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Augusto Pinochet as well as Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates and Richard Branson.

Accepting the induction, she recalled trying to get the attention of Castro at a press conference by wearing an electric green blouse and spending 90 minutes walking back-and-forth in the back of the room while Castro spoke. When he finally began taking questions, he chose Janoit first. “The advantages of not having to wear a dark suit,” she mused.

Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com

Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com

COREY G. JOHNSON

Atlanta native Corey G. Johnson was originally a researcher, not a journalist. But several mentors saw his potential and convinced him to become an investigative reporter. He was relentless and made a difference at every media publication he worked at, from The Daily Reflector in Greenville, South Carolina to the Tampa Bay Times.

He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022 as part of a team that showed how a Florida battery plant was poisoning an entire community.

“He has saved the lives of readers and viewers and entire communities,” said Nicole Carr, who co-introduced Johnson and works with him at ProPublica. “He has also saved Black journalists and saved newsrooms from losing us.”

Johnson credited his mentors, all of whom were in the room, to “pull me into this space and into a purpose in life... They saved my life and gave me an opportunity.”

Credit: KRYSALEX PHOTOGRAPHY

Credit: KRYSALEX PHOTOGRAPHY

JACK NELSON

An Alabama native, Nelson spent 15 years at The Atlanta Constitution from 1952 to 1965, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for a series of articles that revealed inhumane practices at a mental hospital in Milledgeville, GA.

He was hired to the Los Angeles Times in 1965 out of Atlanta, then moved to Washington D.C., where he was the Washington bureau chief for 21 years and retired in 2001. He covered the civil rights movement, peeved FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and nabbed exclusives regarding Watergate. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2009 at age 80.

“His nickname was Scoop,” said Kevin Merida, executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and presenter. “Who doesn’t want the nickname Scoop?”

Merida called Nelson “a legend for real... Jack was among the toughest investigative reporters in the country... His interview style was direct and sometimes blunt and when necessary, an inch shy of bullying. If he was getting the runaround, he said so.”

Barbara Matusow, his widow and a fellow journalist, said “he was positively ferocious in his desire to be first... There was some ego involved in that but there was a belief that being first was being best.”

DISCLOSURE: Rodney Ho has been on the board of The Atlanta Press Club since 2009.