People, Locations, Episodes

Mal Goode, TV’s First Black Network News Reporter

Malvin R. Goode

*On this date, we mark the birth of Mal Goode in 1908. He was a Black television journalist and news correspondent.

Malvin (Mal) Russell Goode was born in White Plains, Virginia, educated in the public school system of Homestead, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1931.  He was employed for twelve years as a laborer in the steel mills while in high school and college and for five years after his graduation. Appointed to a position in the Juvenile Court as a boy's work director at the Centre Avenue YMCA, he spearheaded the fight against discrimination in the Pittsburgh branches of the YMCA. Goode worked with the Pittsburgh Housing Authority for six years and, in 1948, joined the Pittsburgh Courier (where he remained for 14 years).

A year later, he began a career in radio broadcasting with KQV, doing a 15-minute news show two nights a week. Soon, he had a five-minute daily news show on WHOD radio, where in 1952, he was named that station's news director. In 1962 he became the first Black to work as a news correspondent for an American television network (ABC) as United Nations reporter. Goode's first assignment covered the Cuban Missile Crisis; he distinguished himself with incisive TV and radio reports during the long hours of debate at the UN.  For two months in 1963, he joined three of his peers to conduct courses in journalism for over 100 African students in seminars in Lagos, Nigeria; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

He became the first Black member of the National Association of Radio and Television News Directors in 1971. Malvin R. Goode died of a stroke on September 12th, 1995, in Pittsburgh.

to be a Journalist or Reporter