Goode, Mal 1908–1995

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Mal Goode 1908–1995

Broadcast journalist

Mal Goode was the first African American to appear on the air regularly as a network news correspondent. When the American Broadcast Company (ABC) hired the veteran Pittsburgh radio and newspaper reporter in 1962, it assigned him the prestigious United Nations bureau post in New York City, where he remained for two decades. Goode’s drive and dedication made him an inspiration and mentor to younger colleagues in broadcast journalism both black and white. Though he covered civil rights marches and integration issues for ABC for many years, he did so because they were of importance to him, not simply because the network assigned its “black” stories to African American reporters. Upon his death in 1995, Goode was praised for the integrity and professionalism he brought to his job, and the doors he gallantly held open for a younger generation of reporters.

Goode was born Malvin Russell Goode in White Plains, Virginia, in 1908, the grandson of former slaves. He grew up around Pittsburgh, and went to public schools in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Goode began working in the steel mills while he was in high school and continued there through out his studies at the University of Pitts-burgh, where he earned a bachelor of arts in 1931. Jobs were scarce during the Great Depression and even scarcer for African American college graduates, so Goode continued working in the mills for another five years.

In 1936 Goode became a probation officer with the juvenile court in Pittsburgh and a director of boys works for a Pittsburgh Young Men’s Christian Association center, which at the time ran extremely popular and influential community programs for urban children. Goode was instrumental in helping to end some of the discriminatory practices of the Pittsburgh YMCA centers. Then, during the 1940s, Goode became part of the management staff at the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, a post he held for six years.

Goode entered journalism in 1948 at the age of 40, when he was hired at the Pittsburgh Courier, the city’s African American newspaper and at the time the most successful of its kind in circulation in the country. In 1949 he began to do 15-minute news broadcasts for the radio station KQV. The following year he jumped ship to WHOD and did a daily five-minute news show. Eventually, Goode and his sister, Mary Dee, had a news

At a Glance…

Born Malvin Russell Goode, February 13, 1908, in White Plains, VA; died after a stroke, September 12, 1995, in Pittsburgh, PA; married Mary Lavelle; children: Mai, Jr., Robert, Richard, Roberta, Ronald, Rosalia. Education: University of Pittsburgh, B.A., 1931.

First African American corespondent for a network news organization. Worked in Pittsburgh-area steel mills, c 1920s; juvenile court probation officer and Pittsburgh Young Men’s Christian Association director of boys works, both from 1936; Pittsburgh Housing Authority, management staff, c. 1940s; Pittsburgh Courier, began as reporter, 1948; KQV (radio station), Pittsburgh, reporter, from 1949; WHOD, news reporter, from 1950, and news director, from 1952—while continuing to report for the Courier; ABC-TV, News Division, New York City, United Nations correspondent, 1962—c. 1982, and consultant, c 1982—c. 1987; National Black Network, special correspondent for international affairs, 1970s, and later consultant. Also served as advisor to Ramapo College and Norfolk State College.

Member: Association of Radio and TV News Analysts, Association of Radio and TV News Directors (first African American member), United Nations Correspondents Association (president, 1972), New York 100 Black Mens’ Club, President’s Plan for Progress Committee, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (board member), Amistad Awards (board member), First Baptist Church of Teaneck, NJ (trustee).

Selected awards: Man of the Year, Alpha Phi Alpha, 1964; honorary doctor of humanities, Shaw University; Mary McLeod Bethune Award, Bethune-Cookman College; Polish Government Award, United Nations, 1972; Michelle Clark Award, Columbia University School of Journalism, 1974.

show on WHOD that was the only brother-sister team in the business. In 1952 he was named news director of the radio station, while maintaining his post at the Pittsburgh Courier. Through his work he became the first African American member of the National Association of Radio and Television News Directors. By this time he had also married Mary Lavelle and begun a family that would eventually produce six children.

In 1962 Goode was hired by ABC News as its first African American reporter and assigned the United Nations beat. His historic first came as a result of a comment made by baseball great Jackie Robinson—the first African American to play in the major leagues and a friend of Goode’s—to ABC vice president James Hagerty on how the only people of color he saw at ABC headquarters appeared to be “a lady with a white uniform in the lobby dusting and a Negro doorman.” ABC chose Goode from among three dozen candidates, partly “because he was considered dark enough so blacks would know he was black, but light enough so that whites wouldn’t feel threatened,” according to information attributed to Goode in the The African American Almanac.

Only two months into his new job, Goode distinguished himself with his coverage of the tense Cuban missile crisis, when many assumed the United States and the Soviet Union were about to declare war. Goode reported from the onerous debates between representatives of both countries at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan. Goode also served as a reporter for ABC’s local affiliate in New York City, WABC, but he was still only one of a meager number of African Americans who appeared on the air.

The riots of the 1960s in cities like Los Angeles, Newark, and Detroit pointed out the bias in broadcast journalism during this era. Previously, media outlets had focused on providing news about a world that seemed exclusively white. The media realized they were portraying a limited view of the world to their audiences when these cities started to burn, and they had few African American reporters they could send out to cover the disturbances. Goode was on of them.

The 1968 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders helped bring more African Americans to jobs at major stations across the country, but by then Goode had already covered the assassinations of prominent African American leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Goode’s long-time ABC colleague George Strait recalled about the seasoned journalist in the New York Times, “He wouldn’t let them assign him only to so-called black stories…. He opened the way for the next generation.” Goode also took his expertise overseas, joining a delegation of other African American colleagues in teaching journalism in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tanzania for two months in 1963.

Goode was the U.N. correspondent until the early 1980s, when he became a consultant to the network. He kept an office at the United Nations until he was nearly 80. For many years he also served as special correspondent on international affairs for the syndicated National Black Network, and was an in-demand public speaker.

Goode died after a stroke at the age of 87 on September 12, 1995. During his career he had provided guidance to several later prominent broadcast journalists, and was eulogized for the color-blindness he brought to his profession. Peter Jennings, ABC World News Tonight anchor, asserted in Jet that Goode “loved his work and he was never shy to tell people who hassled him on the job that this was now a free country. He taught us a lot.” Cable News Network (CNN) anchor Bernie Shaw was another recipient of Goode’s wisdom, and upon his death Shaw created a tribute video in which Goode responded to the query, “How do you want to be remembered?” with the reply “I’d like to be remembered as somebody who tried to do something to make life better for someone, not better for black people, not better for Afro Americans, not better for white people, but better for humanity,” Jet’s obituary reported.