Max Robinson (1939-1988) overcame racial barriers in the media industry when he became the first African-American television anchor in Washington, D.C., and again when he joined ABC’s World News Tonight as a cohost in 1978. Robinson fought for racial equality and more positive portrayals of African Americans throughout his career. Robinson was a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Career

Robinson began his television career in 1959, when he was hired for a news job in Portsmouth, Virginia. He had to read the news while hidden behind a slide of the station’s logo. One night, Robinson had the slide removed, and was fired the next day for soing so.  He later went to WRC-TV in Washington, DC, and stayed for three years, winning six journalism awards for coverage of civil-rights events such as the riots that followed the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was also during this time that Robinson won two regional Emmys for a documentary he made on black life in Anacostia entitled The Other Washington.

In 1969, Robinson joined the Eyewitness News team at WTOP-TV in Washington, D.C.  Robinson was teamed with anchor Gordon Peterson, becoming the first African-American anchor on a local television news program, and the newscast took off. During that time, Robinson was so well-liked by viewers that when Hanafi Muslims took hostages at the B’nai B’rith building in Washington they would speak only with Robinson.

ABC News and World News Tonight

In 1978, when Roone Arledge was looking to revamp ABC News’ nightly news broadcast into World News Tonight, he remembered Robinson from a 60 Minutes interview, and hired him to be a part of his new three-anchor format. Robinson would anchor national news from Chicago, while Peter Jennings would anchor international news in London and Frank Reynolds would be the main anchor from Washington. Robinson became the first black man to anchor a nightly network news broadcast. The three-man co-anchor team was a ratings success, and launched spoofs regarding how the three would pitch stories to each other during the telecast by saying the other’s name.

Robinson’s ABC tenure was marked by conflicts between himself and the management of ABC News over viewpoints and the portrayal of African-American America in the news. Robinson was known to fight racism at any turn and often felt unworthy of the admiration he received and was not pleased with what he had accomplished. Together with Bob Strickland, Robinson established a program for mentoring young black broadcast journalists.

After Reynolds died in 1983, and shortly afterward Jennings was named sole anchor of World News Tonight. Robinson was relegated to the weekend anchor post, as well as reading hourly news briefs. He left ABC in 1984 to become the first black anchor at WMAQ-TV in Chicago. He retired in 1985.