Trailblazing award-winning journalist, Belva Davis speaks tomorrow at CSUS

Award-winning Bay Area journalist Belva Davis will discuss her book, Never in My Wildest Dreams—A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism. She will be accompanied by co-author Vicki Haddock. The free lecture is sponsored by Sac State’s Friends of the Library.

See,  Praise for Never in My Wildest Dreams: | Belva Davis. Check out her book: Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life ... - Google Books.

As the first black female television journalist in the western United States, Belva Davis overcame the obstacles of racism and sexism, and helped change the face and focus of television news. Now she is sharing the story of her extraordinary life in her poignantly honest memoir, Never in My Wildest Dreams. Davis is no stranger to adversity.

Consider that she was born to a fifteen-year-old Louisiana laundress during the Great Depression and overcame all the obstacles associated with being black in the early fifties and finding a journalism job on television in that era after World War II and throughout the 1950s when television was bringing media into culture across the nation.

Davis, born in 1932, graduated from Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California, class of 1951. Although she was accepted at San Francisco State University, during the great Depression in the USA, her family could not afford the tuition. So after high school graduation, Davis began working at the Naval Supply Center in Oakland.

Her desire to be a writer paid off with a first freelance writing assignment for the magazine, Jet, which was read widely by the black community. Soon after, Davis found writing work with numerous weekly black newspapers such as the Bay Area Independent and the San Francisco Sun-Reporter.

From news writing assignments, Davis switched to radio broadcasting in a staff job, a real job that paid a salary. Her career in broadcasting began at radio station KSAN. Instead of only writing, she had to read the newspaper clips on the air.

This promotion to a staff job gave her the chance to be the first black female at the station. Davis left KSAN to work for another radio station, KDIA. Here she had a regular two-hour radio show which featured music, studio interviews and political coverage.

It took many years to move up the ladder and make the jump from radio to TV. But, at last, by 1966, Davis replaced TV news anchor Nancy Reynolds on KPIX-TV, San Francisco's CBS affiliate. At this time Davis became the first female African American television reporter on the West Coast.

Davis also hosted and helped to create All Together Now, one of the country's first primetime public affairs programs. The program emphasized ethnic communities. By 1977 she left KPIX to work at the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, KQED.

More years passed, and finally she was an anchor for the program, A Closer Look and then Evening Edition from 1977 to 1981. The next job she went into was as an anchor specializing in urban affairs for KRON-4. And as the decades passed, Davis worked there full time until 1999, when she became a special projects reporter for the television station.

Many awards were given to Belva Davis for her work in journalism. She received national recognition from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, San Francisco State University and the National Education Writers Association.

Davis also received She received the Northern California Chapter of National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' highest lifetime achievement award, the Governor's Award, in 1996. To follow the path of media as culture is a natural for Davis who is popular for her work as a labor activist, vice president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and for community work.

Consider that it took 50 years to trail blaze the route for black women in television and radio, and she did it all without a four-year degree, which nowadays is a rare achievement that just a few will achieve. The moral of her biography is like her quote:  "Don’t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it."

 It goes to show you that you don't need a degree in television journalism to get a job as a news anchor. What you need is to know you can make it based on your persistence, patience, and being in the right place at the right time.

Check out her talk tomorrow at CSUS. It will inspire you to dream and then work towards your dream as a reality. These days, media sees culture as a catalyst bringing people together whether it's the social media or visual imagery on mainstream or niche TV and radio networks.

We live in an age when you can start your own radio show online. Check out the sites,  Start your own radio show | BlogTalkRadio.com,  Host Live Talk Radio Show | bbsradio.com, and Start Your Own Internet Radio Station for Free | PCWorld. And read Belva Davis's brief biography on The HistoryMakers website. With media such as Facebook, Twitter, and online radio podcasts and video podcasts, if you have news to report, there's always a niche from mainstream news to citizen journalism.

Half a century after Davis began her media career, journalists can have a voice of confidence and resilience in media without the type of control from publishers and producers that micromanaged womens' careers half a century ago in the media. Is it about self esteem or persistence of a dream?

The markets of today say to those who want to make it in media, all voices can be heard (but you rarely get paid enough to call it a living unless you sell to the advertisers.) And the competition is high turnover unless you have something different that attracts the ratings.

Fifty years ago being the only black female on the West coast in TV was being number one. Today, the market has changed so that thousands of journalism graduates compete against one another for the few jobs available. 

At the same time, the media is merging from many companies to fewer, but with more niche markets that often pay less than the major markets did when there was not as much competition to be a news anchor on TV as it is today.

Regardless, some people do rise to the top because of their persistence, hard work, and appeal to fill a void in what viewers want from the mainstream or niche media. There is a great need for ethnic media nationally. And other niche markets need anchors for numerous audiences.