US WSB-TV continues to have fun its seventy fifth anniversary, we’re trying again on some of the vital figures within the station’s historical past: Jocelyn Dorsey.
Dorsey is Atlanta’s first African American information anchor who did a lot for our station and our neighborhood all through her 45 years right here at WSB-TV.
As you step off the elevator on the third flooring of WSB-TV‘s studios in midtown Atlanta and take a left, down the corridor is the Wall of Fame with the town’s most interesting broadcast journalists of at present and yesterday.
[SPECIAL SECTION: WSB-TV Celebrates 75 Years]
However there was one who did the station — and a individuals — very proud lengthy earlier than there was a wall.
In July 1973, Atlanta’s first African American information anchor hit the airwaves on WSB-TV.
Dorsey grew up in Cincinnati, attended Ohio State College, and pursued a profession in broadcasting.
“I loved the tales. I loved digging for the tales,” Dorsey informed Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen.
And on the age of 23, Dorsey landed a job with the No. 1 information station within the South.
“It was a tradition shock. Everybody was trying to choose you. I used to be at all times placed on the spot,” Dorsey stated.
All through her profession, she was despatched straight into the hearth. She lined segregationist JB Stoner’s marketing campaign for governor.
“And I walked in, and it was an uproar. It was as if I began a riot. Individuals had been yelling, ‘Get the ‘n’ out of right here,’” Dorsey stated about masking the marketing campaign.
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Even some within the Black neighborhood had been gradual to just accept her. In spite of everything, she was from “up north.”
“They felt as if I knew nothing of Black tradition, and positively nothing about Atlanta Black tradition. So, I caught it each methods,” Dorsey stated.
However she by no means lets up.
“I wished to show to the newsroom internally, and the neighborhood externally, that we had been good at what we did, and we had been simply nearly as good as any white journalist,” Dorsey stated.
She went on to cowl Atlanta’s largest tales from the town’s first black main, Maynard Jackson to a brand new residence run king – Hank Aaron.
“He jogged my memory a lot of my dad,” Dorsey stated.
Then there was a newly elected president from Plains, Jimmy Carter, and masking a civil rights icon, Coretta Scott King.
“She was my second mom,” Dorsey stated.
Dorsey received all of the awards. Proclamations had been issued in her honor.
However what touched her coronary heart most was the assembly of so many Atlanta mothers who watched her on the information and named their daughter Jocelyn.
“It was actually humbling to assume individuals would assume that a lot of you to call their youngsters after you,” Dorsey stated.
And on the residence of WSB-TV, the Wall of Fame is one in every of range and inclusion. And the one who helped pave the way in which has a much-deserved place of distinction.
She stated it typically felt like the load of the world was on her shoulders. However she carried the load.
“I felt that as a result of I used to be in that place, I wanted to show we might do the job and do it nicely. As a result of I knew there have been different individuals who might come behind me. And if I failed, the entire race might fail,” Dorsey stated.
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