Atlanta Press Club to Enshrine Four Into Hall of Fame

ATLANTA — Four notable journalists with Atlanta backgrounds will be enshrined in the Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame during a dinner and ceremony next month.

Tom Brokaw, Celestine Sibley, Claude Sitton and Brenda Wood will join 16 others who have been inducted in the Hall since its founding in 2011. Previous honorees include legendary Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady, author Margaret Mitchell, former WSB-TV anchor Monica Pearson and CNN founder Ted Turner.

“Journalism has played and continues to play such an important role in shaping the history of Atlanta, Georgia and the Southeast,” said Anita Sharpe, president of the Atlanta Press Club. “Induction into the Atlanta Press Club’s Hall of Fame is the highest honor we can bestow on these remarkable journalists for their contributions, and we are honored to take a moment to celebrate their work.”

This year’s Hall of Fame dinner will be held Nov. 7 at the InterContinental Buckhead. The reception starts at 6 p.m. and is followed by the dinner and awards program at 7 p.m.

The Hall of Fame ceremony will be a highlight of the Atlanta Press Club’s yearlong 50th Anniversary celebration. Ceremony attendees will watch a brief video and receive an eight-page booklet highlighting the club’s history, while Sharpe will deliver a toast to the Club’s past, present and future.

Tickets for this year’s event are available for $75 for members and $100 for nonmembers; tables are available for $750 for members and $1,000 for nonmembers. Proceeds from the event will help provide paid internships to college students studying journalism.

Brokaw served as editor for WSB-TV before joining NBC News in 1966, where he served as White House correspondent during the Watergate scandal and later anchored “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.” During his career, Brokaw has won numerous awards, including two DuPonts, a Peabody and several Emmys.

Former CNN president and 2011 Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame Inductee Tom Johnson will induct Brokaw. Turner, a close friend of Brokaw, is also set to attend.

Sibley, who died in 1999, was a reporter and columnist for The Atlanta Constitution from 1941 until 1999. During her career, she penned more than 10,000 columns and news stories and also authored more than 30 books between 1958 and 1997.

Bestselling Southern author Kathy Trocheck, better known by her pen name Mary Kay Andrews, will induct Sibley. Susan Bazemore, Sibley’s daughter, will accept the honor.

Sitton joined The New York Times in 1958 as the newspaper’s Southern correspondent. In that role, he established himself as one of the leading reporters on the Civil Rights movement and was honored in 1983 with a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary while with The News & Observer newspaper in Raleigh, N.C.

Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, will induct Sitton. New York Times Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. will also attend in honor of Sitton.

Wood joined WXIA-TV in 1997 after stints in Huntsville, Ala.; Memphis, Tenn.; and Nashville, Tenn. Among her many awards are 15 Emmys from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), six awards from the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists (AABJ) and three honors from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters (GAB).

Noted journalist and 2012 Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame Inductee Xernona Clayton will induct Wood.

For more information, call (404) 577-7377 or visit atlantapressclub.org/2014-hall-of-fame/.