Mal Goode Reporting - by Liann Tsoukas & Rob Ruck

About the Book

The First Comprehensive Biography on a Barrier-Breaking Black Radio and Television Newscaster

Book Synopsis

Mal Goode (1908-1995) became network news's first African American correspondent when ABC News hired him in 1962. Raised in Homestead and Pittsburgh, he worked in the mills, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and went on to become a journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier and later for local radio. With his basso profundo voice resonating on the airwaves, Goode challenged the police, politicians, and segregation, while providing Black listeners a voice that captured their experience. Race prevented him from breaking into television until Jackie Robinson dared ABC to give him a chance. Goode was uncompromising in his belief that network news needed Black voices and perspectives if it were to authentically reflect the nation's complexities. His success at ABC initiated the slow integration of network news. Goode's life and work are remarkable in their own right, but his struggles and achievements also speak to larger issues of American life and the African American experience.

Review Quotes

A new biography of the pioneering broadcaster is finally getting Goode the recognition he deserves.-- "NPR's Weekend Edition"

In a book that is well-researched on so many levels of Black history, Tsoukas and Ruck do their best work in placing the years Goode rose to local and national prominence within the social and cultural life of the Hill.-- "Pittsburgh Quarterly"

With precision and skill, Tsoukas and Ruck have assembled a fascinating and well-researched biography of the first African American broadcast journalist.-- "Choice Reviews"

This is a stellar biography of an important figure in the history of African American and US television journalism. It also illuminates the complicated process by which a working-class Black man made the transition from wage-earning proletariat to salaried member of the African American professional class.--Joe Trotter Jr., Carnegie Mellon University

About the Author

Liann Tsoukas (Author)
Liann Tsoukas teaches history at the University of Pittsburgh, where her courses focus on African American history, US surveys, contemporary US history, and gender and sport. Tsoukas directs the sport studies certificate and serves as an assistant dean as well as the History Department's director of undergraduate studies. She has been recognized with several honors including the 2023 Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Rob Ruck (Author)
Rob Ruck is a historian at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches and writes about sport. He focuses on how people use sport to tell a collective story about who they are to themselves and the world. He is the author of Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL, Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game, and Rooney: A Sporting Life, among other titles. His documentaries Kings on the Hill: Baseball's Forgotten Men and The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game appeared on PBS.