Athens, Ga. – Award-winning journalist and University of Georgia alumna Charlayne Hunter-Gault (ABJ ’63) will receive DiGamma Kappa’s Distinguished Achievement in Broadcasting Award in a public ceremony Thursday, Feb. 8 at the University of Georgia.
The 6:30 p.m. ceremony, hosted by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, will be held in the South Journalism-Psychology Auditorium. Following the presentation of the award, Hunter-Gault will offer a public address.
Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Hunter-Gault is a distinguished journalist and author who has made a success of challenging convention with her fresh insights on issues both close to home and of global impact.
“Grady College is honored to count Charlayne Hunter-Gault among its alumni,” said E. Culpepper Clark, dean of the Grady College. “The global scope of her career is truly inspirational. We invite all students and the UGA community to join us in welcoming her and celebrating her exceptional career.”
With more than 40 years in the industry, Hunter-Gault has extended her work at various times to all media, beginning her career as the first African-American reporter for The New Yorker before working as a local news anchor for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
A writer known for her “people-centered” journalism, she went on to serve as the Harlem bureau chief for The New York Times and has written articles for Essence, Ms., Life, and O, The Oprah Magazine.
Hunter-Gault joined NPR in 1997 after 20 years with PBS, where she was a national correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and where she also anchored the award-winning newsmagazine on human rights, Rights and Wrongs.
In 1999, she joined CNN as the network’s Johannesburg bureau chief and chief correspondent in Africa. Hunter-Gault introduced viewers to a diverse continent she once called “one of the greatest challenges that we in the media face.” In 2005, she returned to NPR as a foreign correspondent based in South Africa.
Hunter-Gault is also author of the 2006 New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance and 1992’s In My Place, a memoir of her role in the civil rights movement as the first African-American woman admitted to the University of Georgia.
Her numerous honors include two Emmy awards and two Peabody awards-one for her work on Apartheid’s People, a NewsHour series about South African life during apartheid and the other for general coverage of Africa in 1998.
The Grady College also will announce and formally introduce its first Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the ceremony. A reception will follow in the Grady College’s Peabody Suite. For more information about the Hunter-Gault ceremony, contact Diane Murray, Grady College Director of Public Service and Outreach, at murrayd@uga.edu or 706/542-5038.
DiGamma Kappa (DGK) is the nation’s oldest professional broadcasting society for students and was founded at UGA’s Grady College in 1939. Hunter-Gault is the 34th annual recipient of the DGK Distinguished Achievement in Broadcasting Award. She joins previous recipients such as Ed Bradley, Barbara Walters, Charles Kuralt, Ted Turner, Linda Ellerbee, Brian Ross and Bernard Shaw.
Established in 1915, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication provides seven undergraduate majors including advertising, broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and telecommunication arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, visit http://www.grady.uga.edu/.