Robin Adams Cheeley: Best and worst of times: The Winston-Salem Chronicle turns 50 (2024)

When readers scan the Sept. 5 edition of the Winston-Salem Chronicle, they’ll be perusing a dream made real.

After he had failed to get his student investigative article printed in a local newspaper, the Chronicle’s founder, Ernie Pitt, was clear and simple in his response: He’d start his own paper.

Pitt, a Greensboro native, pledged to cover a community overlooked by the media unless it involved a crime or unless the Black person who was featured was wealthy or deemed worthy by the white community.

He picked Winston-Salem because it was the state’s largest city without a Black newspaper. He’d do the hard news but also provide sports, arts and entertainment, community news and editorials. He’d show them.

He dared to dream.

It has been an aspiration fraught with highs and lows, but 50 years later, a tamer version of Pitt’s vision still covers Winston-Salem’s Black and minority communities.

The first edition was published on Sept. 5, 1974, and the Chronicle has been published uninterrupted every Thursday since. At 6 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2024, a pop-up exhibit and panel discussion among former Chronicle staff members, including myself, will occur at MUSE Winston-Salem at 226 S. Liberty St.

But the Chronicle wasn’t just Pitt’s dream. It was a dream for minority journalists seeking an opportunity to hone and practice their craft. Not only did most white newspapers not cover the Black community, but they also didn’t hire Black journalists either.

Trust me, I know.

I came to the Chronicle after short stints at the Alamance News in Graham and the News & Record in South Boston, Va. After getting married and moving to Greensboro, I’d been turned down for a job at the Times-News in Burlington (the editor said I had “moxie,” but he couldn’t use “a person like you”), and neither the Greensboro Daily News nor the Record would hire me. But Pitt and his editor at the time, Allen Johnson, did.

I started in 1983 as one of the paper’s two writers and ended my tenure in 1985.

By then, the Chronicle had built a reputation as a good newspaper on its way to being great. It was well-designed and edited and, more importantly, unafraid to tell the truth — no sacred cows allowed.

The paper was the only Black member of the N.C. Press Association and racked up numerous awards at the group’s annual meeting. In competition with Black newspapers nationwide, the Chronicle stood head and shoulders above the others.

As publisher, Pitt stayed out of the newsroom, and while I’m sure some editorials weren’t good for the paper’s bottom line, he didn’t slash one syllable.

When a young Black man, Darryl Hunt, was charged in 1984 with murdering a newspaper copy editor, the Chronicle was the first local news outlet to start raising doubts about the arrest. Hunt was convicted in 1985 but was exonerated and freed 19 years later.

When police arrested a Black city official for stealing $7 from his secretary’s purse, the Chronicle broke the story.

When Winston-Salem State University ousted a faculty member after discovering he had no Ph.D., no master’s, no bachelor’s degree, no nothing, the Chronicle was there.

When Winston Mutual, one of the oldest Black businesses, was sold, the Chronicle was there.

It was there to report the low number of Black principals in the school system, and it reported church bankruptcies, and ministers’ dismissals and dillydallying.

The Chronicle was there to follow the Board of Aldermen (what the City Council was called then), NAACP, Urban League, Black Leadership Roundtable and Board of Commissioners.

But, more importantly, the Chronicle was there to tell the stories of outstanding youth, carry a column from one of the county’s Cooperative Extension agents, share upcoming church programs and activities and print periodic man-on-the-street interviews about hot topics.

Yes, the Chronicle was a dream.

But at times, for many of us, it was a nightmare. It could be a stressful place to work. The hours were long. The money was short. Management was learning on the job, and employees were the case studies. Pitt’s personality pushed him to succeed and at times made him hard to work for and with.

Even so, my tenure at the Chronicle was one of the best times of my life. I became a better writer and reporter, made life-long friends and helped give the community a voice. Pitt provided the venue, but my colleagues (the late Ruthell Howard, John Slade, Ed Hill, Audrey Williams Trogden, Robin Barksdale Ervin, David Bulla, Robert Eller, James Parker and Johnson) wrote the script and directed the production.

Pitt sold the paper in 2017. It now boasts that it exclusively publishes positive news. In a time when so much of what we read is negative and degrading, there is space for a good-news Winston-Salem Chronicle.

Happy anniversary.