McLean, Va. (April 3, 2012) – UNITY: Journalists of Color is releasing a seed list of the top U.S. journalists for the past century.
After seeing the lack of diversity in New York University’s “The 100 Outstanding Journalists in the U.S. in the Last 100 Years,” we felt it was necessary to suggest journalists whose inclusion in NYU’s list would have better represented the full diversity of our country, our industry and the past century.
UNITY believes that aggressively pursuing diversity in our newsrooms and news coverage is the key to success for the next century of journalism.
“We do not believe the number of top journalists can be limited to 100, so we have created a seed list,” said Joanna Hernandez, president of UNITY. “This list is by no means comprehensive, but we hope it will inspire our current and next generation of journalists.”
Here is UNITY’s seed list, from Leroy Aarons to Helen Zia.
Leroy F. Aarons: Executive editor, Oakland Tribune; founder of NLGJA
Kevin Abourezk: Award-winning reporter, Lincoln Journal Star
Cecilia Alvear: Mexico City bureau chief, senior producer for Latin America and first Latina producer at NBC Network News; first female Hispanic Nieman Fellow; past president and Hall of Fame member of NAHJ.
Christiane Amanpour: Longtime and distinguished international reporter for CNN, now also at ABC News; two-time George Polk Award winner; recipient of Edward R. Murrow Award.
Tom Arviso: Publisher of Navajo Times; John S. Knight Fellow
Merv Aubespin: Associate editor, The Courier-Journal; former NABJ president; civil rights activist
Dean Baquet: Managing editor, the New York Times; former editor at the Los Angeles Times; Pulitzer Prize winner
Lerone Bennett Jr.: Executive editor emeritus, Ebony magazine
Peter Bhatia: Editor, the Oregonian; first Asian American president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; seven Pulitzers won by newsrooms he has helped lead
Gerald Boyd: First African American metropolitan editor and managing editor at the New York Times, led coverage that won three Pulitzer Prizes; Nieman Fellow
Joe Boyce: Senior editor, the Wall Street Journal; bureau chief, Time; first black reporter at the Chicago Tribune
Ed Bradley: Reporter who covered the Vietnam War, the 1976 presidential race, and the White House at CBS, correspondent on 60 Minutes; Emmy Award winner; George Polk Award winner; George Foster Peabody Award winner
Earl Caldwell: Reporter and columnist for the New York Times, New York Daily News; early civil rights activist
Gloria Campos: Anchor, WFAA-TV, Dallas; Hall of Fame member of NAHJ
Mei-Mei Chan: President and publisher, Fort Myers News-Press
Conroy Chino: Former broadcast journalist in New Mexico; Nieman Fellow; George Foster Peabody Award winner
Connie Chung: Broadcast journalist for NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and MSNBC; the first Asian American and second woman network evening news anchor
Xernona Clayton-Brady: Broadcast pioneer, Trumpet Awards founder
Charles E. Cobb Jr.: Former member of National Geographic Magazine’s editorial staff; writer for AllAfrica.com
Ann Curry: Today Show anchor; three-time Emmy Award winner
Ray Cook: Co-founder of NAJA; editorial editor for Indian Country Today Media Network
Carolyn Curiel: Editor, the Washington Post; producer/writer, Nightline with Ted Koppel; editorial board member, the New York Times; U.S. Ambassador; Purdue University professor
Haven Daley: Video journalist, the Associated Press; Edward R. Murrow Award winner.
Belva Davis: One of the first female African American television news anchors in the United States on KPIX-TV in San Francisco in 1966; eight-time Emmy Award winner
Paul Delaney: First black journalist to be appointed to a major news management post, deputy national editor, the New York Times
Frank Del Olmo: reporter, columnist and associate editor, Los Angeles Times; Pulitzer Prize winner; Nieman Fellow; founding member of CCNMA
Paul Demain: CEO of Indian Country Communications and editor of news from Indian Country; past UNITY president
Ysabel Duron: Pioneering Broadcast journalist; winner of several Emmy Awards; inductee, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ “Silver Circle”; Hall of Fame member of NAHJ
Edythe Eyde: Also known as “Lisa Ben,” a pseudonym for the editor of the first lesbian publication called Vice Versa
Renee Ferguson: Chicago’s WBBM-TV, the first African American woman to work as an investigative reporter in Chicago; recipient of seven Chicago Emmy Awards and the DuPont Award
Al Fitzpatrick: Executive editor, Knight Ridder
Ben Fong-Torres: KFOG; KTVU; the first Asian American editor at the executive level of a national magazine as senior editor of Rolling Stone
Angel Franco: Senior photographer, the New York Times; two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Manny Garcia: Executive editor, El Nuevo Herald; first Latino president of Investigative Reporters and Editors; two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Jorge Gestoso: former CNN en Espanol reporter; entrepreneur and founder of news production company GTN; first foreign-language program winner of duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award
Tim Giago: NAJA cofounder; South Dakota Journalists hall of fame
Dorothy Butler Gilliam: “Magnetic presence” as a reporter, editor and columnist at the Washington Post
Barbara Gittings: Editor, The Ladder
Garrett Glaser: First television journalist to come out of the closet, KNBC-TV.
Ronald Gold: Writer and author, Hall of Fame member of NLGJA
Richard Goldstein: Executive editor, the Village Voice
Antonia Gonzalez: Anchor, National Native News on public radio
David Gonzalez: reporter, co-editor of the Lens blog, the New York Times; ASNE award winner
Juan Gonzalez: reporter and columnist New York Daily News; two-time Polk Award winner, co-founder of NAHJ and UNITY
Mal H. Goode: Broke color barrier in network broadcast journalism as ABC News reporter in 1962
Alma Guillermoprieto: Writer, the Guardian; the Washington Post; Newsweek; the New Yorker; the New York Review of Books; teacher at the University of Chicago; MacArthur, Nieman Fellow
Jay T. Harris: First black publisher of a major general interest daily newspaper, San Jose Mercury News
Chinn Ho: Star Bulletin & Pacific Daily News, the first Asian American owner of U.S. daily; Chairman, Gannett-Pacific Corp.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault: American journalist and former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service
Gwen Ifill: Anchor, PBS NewsHour
Vernon Jarrett: First African American syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune, past NABJ president
John H. Johnson: Publisher and chairman, Johnson Publishing Co.
K. Connie Kang: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle; Los Angeles Times; the first Korean American woman reporter at a U.S. mainland daily newspaper.
Ken Kashiwahara: First Asian American network TV news anchor and correspondent who covered Vietnam War; HVH; KABC; ABC News;
Hattie Kauffman: First Native American to report for national networks; Good Morning American, ABC; The Early Show, CBS; four-time Emmy Award winner
Jim Kepner: Writer, ONE magazine
Bruce Koon: News director, KQED Public Radio; executive news editor, pioneering online editor established Knight-Ridder Digital Center; Pulitzer Prize winner
Frank Kwan: KCOP TV, KNBC, one of the first Asian American public affairs host-producers; AAJA co-founder
Richard LaCourse: Reporter, Seattle Post Intelligencer; helped establish American Indian Press Association, then worked with organization that became NAJA
Lloyd LaCuesta: KTVU, first Filipino American TV news reporter in San Francisco, first national president of Unity, first national president of AAJA; Emmy Award winner; first national president of UNITY
Kay Tobin Lahusen: Assistant editor and reporter, The Ladder
Corky Lee: Freelance photojournalist who has chronicled Asian America for 40-plus years, Time, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Village Voice
K.W. Lee: Founder and publisher of Koreatown Weekly, Korea Times, first Korean American journalist in U.S., co-founder of Korean American Journalists Association
Sam Chu Lin: WJPR, KOOL, CBS News, KTTV, the first Asian American radio anchor; one of duear Asian American network news reporters
Ignacio E. Lozano Jr.: Founder of La Prensa in San Antonio; publisher and editor, La Opinión Spanish-language daily in Los Angeles
Monica Lozano: Chairwoman, Impremedia
Phyllis Lyon: Founder, The Ladder magazine
Pilar Marrero: La Opinion political editor and author; columnist, Actualidad Política; political and social analyst for television and radio.
Del Martin: Founder, The Ladder magazine
Lori Matsukawa: KING TV anchor, pioneering Asian American broadcast journalist in Seattle
Karen Lincoln Michel: Executive editor, the Daily Advertiser in Louisiana, past UNITY president
Walter Middlebrook: Assistant managing editor, the Detroit News
Bob McGruder: late executive editor of the Detroit Free Press, former managing editor of The
Plain Dealer and lifelong champion of newsroom diversity, namesake of APME award for diversity leadership
Robert C. Maynard: the first African American publisher of a major metropolitan daily Pete Moraga, veteran Los Angeles newsman for KNX radio and KMEX television who worked to improve the image of Latinos through the news media.
Thomas Morgan III: New York Times editor and reporter.
Sonia Nazario: Los Angeles Times and Pulitzer Prize winner.
Jack Nichols: Author and columnist of “Homosexual Citizen,” the first column for gay men by gay men for straight magazine Screw
Lynn Norment: Editor, EBONY Magazine
Soledad O’Brien: Anchor, CNN; Emmy Award winner
Clarence Page: Columnist, the Chicago Tribune, Pulitzer Prizes; NABJ lifetime achievement award winner
Gordon Parks: Renowned photojournalist at Life magazine, author, filmmaker
Mi-Ai Parrish: Kansas City Star publisher
Les Payne: Groundbreaking reporter, editor and columnist, Newsday
Peggy Peterman: St. Petersburg Times
Sarah Pettit: Newsweek senior editor, OutWeek arts editor
Hank Plante: Sentinel Newspapers managing editor, broadcast reporter and editor at KPIX-TV
Ted Poston: Called “dean of black journalists” during New York Post career (1930′s-1960′s)
Dith Pran: New York Times, one of the first Asian American photographers at the New York Times, subject of the film The Killing Fields.
Glenn Proctor: Former vice president/executive editor, Richmond Times-Dispatch; recipient of NABJ Legacy Award; Pulitzer Prize winner
Deb Price: Wrote the first weekly column from a gay perspective at a mainstream newspaper at The Detroit News
Sharon Prill: Publisher of the Yakima Herald-Republic
Norma Quarles: Veteran network anchor and correspondent at NBC News, CNN and PBS
George Ramos: Reporter, editor and columnist at the Los Angeles Times who played a key role in a groundbreaking series on Latinos in Southern California that won the paper a Pulitzer Prize.
Jorge Ramos: anchor, Univision, author, columnist
Jesus Rangel: The New York Times; chair, Smithsonian Latino Center
Marlon Riggs: Writer, documentarian who made “Tongues Untied.”
Geraldo Rivera: host, Geraldo at Large on Fox News
Max Robinson: Founding NABJ Member; former ABC News Anchor
Rossanna Rosado: publisher and CEO, El Diario/La Prensa
Don Ross: Pioneer radio news broadcaster, WWRL Radio in New York
Richard Rouilard: editor in chief of The Advocate, editor at Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. NLGJA founder
Carl T. Rowan: Renowned columnist once called nation’s “most visible black journalist”
Albor Ruiz: Columnist, New York Daily News
Ruben Salazar: Iconic figure for Latino journalist whom the U.S. Postal Service honored on a postage stamp; one of the first Mexican American reporters at the Los Angeles Times where he worked as a correspondent in Vietnam, also bureau chief, columnist. News director, KMEX.
Maria Elena Salinas: Anchor, Univision; NAHJ founder
Anthony Shadid: Foreign correspondent for the New York Times.
Del Shields: Trailblazing creator and moderator of Nightline, call-in radio news host in Philadelphia
Randy Shilts: Advocate reporter, San Francisco Chronicle reporter, author of “And the Band Played On”
Gail Shister: First out reporter at a mainstream newspaper, the first female sportswriter at the Buffalo Evening News, New Orleans States-Item, Philadelphia Inquirer.
Carole Simpson: Former ABC Anchor, World News Tonight Sunday
Bill Sing: Los Angeles Times business editor, economics editor, AAJA co-founder
Don Slater: ONE magazine founder.
Ernest Sotomayor: Editor at Dallas Times Herald, Newsday; assistant dean for career services at Columbia University
Frank Sotomayor: Los Angeles Times, first Latino Nieman Fellow; Pulitzer Prize winner
Sree Sreenivasan: Dean, Columbia University, who has revolutionized how journalists use technology; founder, the South Asian Journalists Association
Ray Suarez: senior correspondent, PBS Newshour; two-time winner of DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award
Will Sutton: Editor, vice president, Post-Tribune; deputy managing editor, the News and Observer; Nieman Fellow; co-founder of UNITY
Patty Talahongva: NAJA leader, former Native America calling host
Juan Tamayo: Miami Herald correspondent in Cuba, foreign editor, Nieman Fellow.
Tritia Toyota: KNX, KNBC, KCBS TV, first Asian American woman reporter & evening news anchor in Los Angeles, AAJA Founder
Mark Trahant: writer, former editorial editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Chuck Trimble: NAJA cofounder
Minnie Two Shoes: NAJA founding member, instrumental in finding information on the 1975 murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.
Nick Ut: Photographer for the Associated Press, Pulitzer Prize winner
Nuri Vallbona: Photojournalist, Nieman Fellow
Felix Varela: Founded one of first Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S.
Larry Whiteside: Reporter, The Boston Globe
William F. Woo: Kansas City Times, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, first Asian American chief editor of a major metropolitan daily newspaper
Roy Wood: Pioneer radio news broadcaster, WVON Radio in Chicago
Ida B. Wells: for whom NABJ’s highest honor is named
Jan Yanehiro: KFRC, KPIX Evening Magazine, one of the first journalists to introduce the magazine format to television.
Helen Zia: Author, former executive editor of Ms. Magazine.
Meet some of these journalists at the UNITY Convention in Las Vegas, Aug. 1-4, 2012. Register for the convention by June 29 for the best rates at http://unityconvention.org.
Mimi Chen was the first Asian American talk radio host full-time in an English format.
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Good list. However, to post Les Payne solely as “former Newsday columnist” is a great injustice to one of the top journalists of our era. He won Pulitzers as a reporter and editor, survived Idi Amin’s jail, had the foresight to reposition Newsday’s European office well before the fall of the wall was foreseen (and staff it with a reporter who spoke German as well as Serbo-Croatian, Roy Gutman, who won a Pulitzer and, unlike the grey lady actually used the word “ethinic cleansing”), moved the middle east office from Israel to Cairo to allow for a different perspective than the majority of other papers, nudged Patrick Sloyan into investigation of “friendly fire” in the Kuwait War winning a Pulitzer and on and on. He sent septugenerian Murray Kempton to El Salvador at the height of the war. I worked for Les, he let me go to Bangladesh, he reminded me to go to the morgue after the Tiananmen Square massacre while my colleagues were all at diplomatic briefings. He is and was more than just a “former columnist.”
Although I see recognition for nearly every career in news…I see no mention of great broadcast cameramen like Willie Kee (KTVU) or others who began the great traditions of visual storytelling that continue in today’s media and with today’s videojournalists.
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Good list, but like the NYU list there is a conspicuously absent figure.
Robert Sengstacke Abbott, creator of the Chicago Defender, must be on the 20th century list.
His newspaper was the instrument that powered a mass social movement, the black migration out of the agrarian South to the industrial North.
How’s that for influential?
Abbott should not be MIA.
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Two more names to consider:
Joe Oglesby, former editor / editorial page editor, Miami Herald, Pulitzer Prize, Nieman fellow.
John H. White, photographer, Chicago Sun-Times and formerly Chicago Daily News, Pulitzer Prize, teacher.