Carole Simpson: Once & Always a ‘News Lady’

By Molly Stark Dean 

ABC’s Carole Simpson was the subject of Howard Kurtz’s piece in “The Daily Beast” today — where she spoke about being black in the news biz, what has changed over the years, and her new book, “News Lady.”

Simpson was the first black woman hired by NBC’s DC bureau — where a drunken NBC producer told her at the Republican convention: “You think because you’re black and you’re a woman you can get anything you want. And you slut, you don’t deserve it.”

At NBC in 1974, the black newswoman heard that she was regarded as “lazy” after a long period of not being on the air. Simpson wrote about the incident in her new book:

Advertisement

To me that was a racial epithet. Black people—to ignorant people—don’t want to work, are stupid, and unqualified.

Then she became an anchor at ABC. “My color and gender may have played a role in ABC’s strong interest, but I also had the experience and the skills,” Simpson wrote.

Former ABC news division president Roone Arledge told Simpson repeatedly “You are so articulate,” which is a “loaded phrase” for blacks — a lesson that Joe Biden had to learn the hard way, Kurtz wrote in his post, “Carole Simpson’s Network Scars.”

Advertisement