African American Broadcaster: Carole Simpson
(Image Courtesy of nopactalent.com)
Background
Carole Simpson grew up on the south side of Chicago and graduated from University of Michigan.
She started her television career in Chicago at WMAQ and then moved to NBC News in the late 70s. She joined ABC News in 1982 and became an anchor on World News Tonight weekend edition in 1988 and continued there until 2003. She is known to be the first African American woman to anchor a major network newscast because of the work she has done.
She was the first minority woman to moderate a presidential debate. She moderated the debate held between George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot, at Richmond, Virginia, in 1992.
Simpson is on the Advisory Council at the International Women's Media Foundation.
She retired from ABC News in 2006 to begin teaching journalism at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.
(Carole Simpson being the debate moderator. Image Courtesy of https://www.newsbusters.org)
Racism in Broadcasting
“I suffered a lot of racial slurs and sexual discrimination, like being fondled and terrible things said to me. I worked in a hostile work environment and I had to ‘grin and bear it,’” says Simpson. “And then I found my voice; I was tired of it. I wondered when I would just be Carole, Carole Simpson, not a female or a black person, and it never happened. Because of that, I took it upon myself to be a leader against that, and I worked hard to get women and African Americans into leadership positions.”
A drunken NBC producer told her at the Republican convention: “You think because you’re black and you’re a woman you can get anything you want. And you slut, you don’t deserve it.”
Accomplishments
She was the recipient of the Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
Simpson is a former member of the Radio Television Digital News Foundation Board of Trustees, an affiliate of the Radio Television Digital News Association, where she created the Carole Simpson Scholarship to encourage and help minority students overcome hurdles along their career path, which is offered annually to aspiring journalists.
Wrote a autobiography called Newslady
(Carole Simpson on ABC News. Image Courtesy of http://www.diversityjournal.com/)
Impact on Broadcasting
Many other African American woman have followed in her footsteps. There are now African American woman as head broadcasters on big News Stations like Robin Roberts is the main piece of Good Morning America. She has impacted people and spread her stories through her book and have been on many talk shows trying to promote people to read it. So the unheard stories of racism in broadcasting and many other issues she has faced will finally be brought to light.
Additional Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_Simpson
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/on-being-the-lady-with-the-microphone/262160/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/carole-simpson-debate-moderator_n_1729849.html
(Researched and written by Hannah Martin. )
