Rochelle Riley

Rochelle Riley is the Director of Arts and Culture for the City of Detroit. She formerly was a nationally syndicated columnist for the Detroit Free Press in Detroit, Michigan, United States. She was an advocate in her column for improved race relations, literacy, community building, and children.[1][2]

Rochelle Riley
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (journalism).
University of Michigan (film and creative writing)
OccupationColumnist for the Detroit Free Press
Home townTarboro, North Carolina
AwardsNABJ Ida B. Wells Award 2017,
Eugene C. Pulliam Editorial Fellowship from SPJ 2017,
Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame 2016,
National Headliner Award 2013,
National Scripps Howard Award 2011, National Society of Newspaper Columnists 2011,
UNC Distinguished Alumni Award 2010,
Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting 2009
Websiterochelleriley.com

Personal

Rochelle Riley grew up in Tarboro, North Carolina. She was raised in part by her grandfather Willie Bennie Pitt and grandmother Lowney Hilliard Pitt.[2] She said in her acceptance speech at the Ida B. Wells Award that her grandmother's curiosity influenced her own curiosity about current events and their impact on our lives.[3] She has one daughter. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she majored in journalism and English. In 2008, she completed a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan.[4]

Career

Rochelle Riley has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN and FOX2.[5] She has worked as an editor or reporter at The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. In Louisville, she was deputy managing editor, 1992–96, associate editor and columnist, 1996-2000; and from 2000 to 2019, she was a Detroit Free Press columnist. In 1985, when she was with The Dallas Morning News, she founded the DFW/ABC Urban Journalism Workshop to train minority youth to be journalists.[6]

Notable works of journalism

Her columns about former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick were a part of the entry that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. She is also notable for her excellence in journalism and for mentoring future journalists to ensure that newsrooms reflect the diversity of their communities, which is why she won the Ida B. Wells Award from the National Association of Black Journalists and Northwestern University. She also is known for advocating for press freedom as a member of the International Press Institute and the NABJ Global Journalism Task Force. She has spent years crusading for better lives for children, government accountability, improved race relations and increased adult literacy, by helping to raise nearly $2 million for literacy causes in Michigan.[7][2][8][9]

Context

Riley was known as one of the top African-American journalists in the United States; she has received several awards for her nationally syndicated columns. When she was named deputy managing editor of The Courier-Journal in Louisville in 1992, she was the paper's first African-American news executive.[2]

Bibliography
  • The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery (Wayne State University Press, 2018)[9]

Awards
  • 2019 Inductee, N.C. Media and Journalism Hall of Fame
  • 2019 National Headliner Award
  • 2017, NABJ Ida B. Wells Award[9]
  • 2017, Pulliam Editorial Fellowship[10]
  • 2016, Inductee Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame[5][11][12][13][14]
  • 2013, National Headliner Award
  • 2011, National Scripps Howard Award[15]
  • 2011, Will Rogers Humanitarian Award, National Society of Newspaper Columnists.[15][16]
  • 2010, Harvey Beech Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of North Carolina Alumni Association BAR Committee[17]
  • 2009, Pulitzer Prize for local reporting[15]
  • 2004, National Journalism Award for Distinguished Service to Literacy Scripps Howard Foundation[2]

See also

References
  1. "ABOUT ROCHELLE -". www.rochelleriley.com.
  2. "Rochelle Riley Biography - Found Life Unimaginable without Books, Led Teen Discussion, Backed Cosby, Selected writings". biography.jrank.org.
  3. "Rochelle Riley accepts award with remarks that bring down the house".
  4. "Rochelle Riley". Techonomy.
  5. "NABJ Congratulations Rochelle Riley".
  6. "Educators, We Need Your Help!".
  7. "Weinstein response shouldn't be 'Why didn't they?' but 'Why did he?".
  8. "Start Here / Never Stop Podcast: Rochelle Riley '81".
  9. "NABJ to Honor Columnist Rochelle Riley with Ida B. Wells Award - National Association of Black Journalists". www.nabj.org.
  10. "Rochelle Riley wins $75K Pulliam Fellowship; will study students and trauma".
  11. "Two Free Press journalists recognized by Hall of Fame".
  12. "Rochelle Riley - Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame". j-school.jrn.msu.edu.
  13. "Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame to induct new members".
  14. "Ex-News Reporter Mleczko, Freep Columnist Riley Named to Journalism Hall of Fame". www.deadlinedetroit.com.
  15. "Rochelle Riley wins Humanitarian Award". 1 May 2011.
  16. "National Society of Newspaper Columnists coming here for their convention". 21 June 2011.
  17. "BAR Awards Profile - Rochelle Riley '81 - UNC General Alumni Association". alumni.unc.edu.
  18. "Leading journalists join IPI North American Committee board".
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