CBS 2 News Anchor Russ Mitchell Visits Aspiring Journalists

On November 3^rd, CBS news anchor and correspondent Russ Mitchell was invited to speak to the young teenagers of the New York Association of Black Journalists. Anchor of both the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News and The Early Show, Russ Mitchell grew up in St. Louis, Missouri to a loving and supportive family. Interested in politics and writing, he decided to pursue a career in broadcast journalism. At seventeen years old, he was a night switchboard operator. Although the job was upsetting, he admitted that it did benefit him. “It still taught a lot,” he said as he chuckled charmingly.After graduating from the University of Missouri in 1982 as a journalism major, Russ Mitchell worked a short while in Kansas City, Missouri. Although he was working in his home state, he still felt uncomfortable working in Kansas City because of the obvious racism that existed there. At the station that he worked at, he acknowledged the fact that his bosses made him cover the “Black” stories. Furthermore, when he got the job at the Kansas City station, his title was the “Minority Reporter Trainee.” However, when a Caucasian man had the job prior to him, that title was simply “Reporter Trainee.” “It’s frustrating,” says Mitchell. “We have to work three times as hard to get half the credit.”Six months later, Mitchell relocated to Dallas, Texas. There he experienced one of the most chilling, bloodcurdling, and baneful assignments ever. In Dallas, Texas, he had no choice but to cover a Klan rally. “The Klan leader didn’t want to shake my hand,” he recalled. When asked how he could get such an uncomfortable assignment, he said plainly and matter-of-factly, “It was a Sunday, and I was the only one in the office.”After returning to Missouri for a short while, he did reporting in Washington D.C. There, he was constantly given assignments in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bosnia, Italy, Haiti, and Indonesia. In some of these countries, he still experienced racial issues. However, these racial issues were more comical than tragic. For example, in Indonesia, after getting off of a plane with blond-haired and blue-eyed people, a civilian asked if he was from a different part of the United States.After working in Washington D.C., he was offered an anchoring job at CBS News in New York. Coming to New York posed a dilemma for him, though. Back in Missouri his caring and encouraging mother was becoming a valetudinarian. Although dealing with deteriorating health, she still insisted that her son remain in New York City.After sharing his interesting past, Russ Mitchell persisted that the young NYABJ journalists look towards their upcoming future. He honestly told of all the obstacles that the adolescents would face in the dog-eat-dog world of communications. According to Mitchell, being African American is tough enough in this business, but being a woman of color is even harder. “Women have it hard,” he said, as he recollected on a memory. In Kansas City, one of the station managers said that one natural looking female reporter was “too ugly to be on TV.” In comparison, the most change that Mitchell ever had to make was “to shave a moustache.”Offering hope, Mitchell still insisted that “you can fight back” by just being intelligent. Reading newspapers daily, watching the news, and working hard all contribute to the intelligence needed to succeed in broadcast journalism.As well, being inquisitive is key, not only in journalism, but in other fields as well, is another point that he brilliantly made to the aspiring journalists. He remembers going to a journalism workshop in Missouri as he was growing up, and befriending a comedic and curious Cedric Antonio Kyles, which is the real name of one of the funniest men in America, Cedric the Entertainer.In closing, he ardently told the teenagers who were wishing, hoping, and dreaming of becoming respected journalists to remember three words. Confidence. Concentration. Fun.

Tags: CBS, Russ Mitchell