Legendary Atlanta Anchor Monica Pearson Says, "It's What You Do With What You Have That Makes You What You Are"

Monica Kaufman Pearson is the first woman and first minority to anchor the daily evening news in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked for 37 years at the leading station, WSB-TV.  She now hosts and produces Monica Pearson One on One, a monthly personality interview program for Gray Media Group. She has won over 33 Southern Regional and local Emmy Awards for reporting, anchoring, and her Closeups celebrity interview show. 

In this episode, Monica shares how viewers did not welcome her when she first debuted on the air, the perfect way to say no, and what battling cancer taught her.

Sh*t I Wish I Knew In My Twenties (SIWIKIMT) is a podcast dedicated to helping 20-somethings thrive in their twenties, not just survive.

Host Debra Alfarone knows how tough being in your twenties can be. As a high-school dropout turned-network-TV-correspondent, she learned most of life’s lessons the hard way. She overcame the odds and now covers the White House for CBS News nationally. She’s also a confidence coach for young women in the TV news industry.

Connect with Monica on IG at @MonicaKPearson  

Transcript:

Debra Alfarone: 

Today's guest is Monica Pearson. She is the first woman and first minority to anchor the daily evening news in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked for 37 years. Yes. 37 years at the leading station, WSB TV. By the way, if I was to tell all the firsts, there'd be no podcast time. 30 Emmys - you're inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. You host Monica Pearson One on One, a monthly personality interview program for Gray Media Group. And here's the thing that I love. You call yourself a woman in “rewirement” making the best of what others call retirement - it doesn’t sound like you retired at all! I mean, you hardly have time to hang out with me!

Monica Pearson:

Debra, you know, “rewirement” is doing what I want to do rather than doing what I have to do. I can say no now. And it's amazing how when you've been the first for so many things, people will use that to try to get you to extend yourself. So now I have finally stopped it. First I'll go no, what part of it don't you understand - smile? And then if they keep on I use this one and it shuts it down - if I drop dead tomorrow, who would you get?

Debra Alfarone: 

You are so good. By the way. I love that sentence. No is a complete sentence. And oh, what part was it that you didn't get?

Monica Pearson:

Yeah. So to me, it's the only way to stop it is to finally say if I dropped tomorrow, who would you get? Because the point is they would get somebody else if I was not available. And when you say that the first reaction is - oh, okay - and then we move on. I have learned to protect myself. Because if I don’t, you know what happens when you do too much. They don't talk about how many things you've done. What they talk about is oh, she wasn't really as good as I remembered her being or, oh, she seemed a little tired. So in order to protect myself, I've learned to say no.

Debra Alfarone: 

And you have to - this is a lesson for everyone listening, you have to say no, sometimes, by the way, even just because you need time for yourself, you got to put yourself first. So if you say no, every once in a while, when you do say yes, people will appreciate it more. Oh, absolutely everything. You're an important commodity.

Monica Pearson:

Well, you know people talk all the time about their brand. And I didn't know what that meant. But I do know that I have to protect who I am. And that if I'm too many places. too many times, then I'm not as precious as I was before.

Debra Alfarone: 

I think I'm going to issue a challenge to everyone listening to this podcast, say no to somebody this week, say no to something this week.

Monica Pearson:

And that includes family, you have to know how even to tell them. Know - your children will pull on you, your husband or your significant other will pull on you. And you have to be able to say to them, you know, I'd like to help you out. But I'm really tired today and I can't do it. How would you figure this out if I wasn't here, and you've got to learn to set priorities and make yourself a priority. I mean, my thing every week, every Monday, I have a body massage for two hours. Every Monday.  If I don't do it in the morning, I do it in the afternoon. But every Monday, that's my treat to myself. And every three weeks I get my nails and my lashes done. That's my treat to myself. And it's an appointment just like a business appointment again, it helps me to be revived and to have energy to move on. And that's something I did not know in my 20s. Because in my 20s it was like, I gotta make it. I gotta make it. I gotta work. I gotta work, I gotta do. And I was wearing myself out. And I remember my mother saying to me, she calls me Moni. She said Moni, you can't be all things to all people. So you have to learn where to put the emphasis. You can't feel guilty because that's the other thing I find most women will do. They'll say no, and then it's like, ‘Oh, I wish, Oh, I wonder how they're going to think about me now’ is no. Yeah, they have to deal with the problem. They have to deal with the No, not me. I'm not going to feel guilty about doing something that is to my betterment.

Debra Alfarone: 

Oh, I love this. You are pouring into me right now. Let me tell you. Let's take us back to 1975. Okay, you were the first woman, first minority to anchor the daily evening news in Atlanta. How hard is it to be the first? Were viewers welcoming or no?

Monica Pearson:

Viewers were not welcoming. And that was both black and white viewers. Black viewers wanted me to have a fro out to here and, you know, big earrings and be more ethnic, and white viewers didn’t want me there at all. And it was not only because of my color, but also because that wasn't what - you've got to remember - women and minority. So it was a double-edged sword.

But I worked with a man named John Pruitt, who was very welcoming, I was very lucky because a lot of women anchors I've talked to have talked about working with men who didn't want them on the set, and did everything to make them look bad on the set. John Pruitt was never like that, he was absolutely wonderful. So when I look back at my career, I have to say, John Pruitt made it easier for me. But then I also did two other things. And I always tell young reporters this, you may make your money on the air, but you make your living off the air. Because the more you're involved in the community, the more people know your name. And the more people are gonna, when they do those ratings checks, are gonna say, I know her, she was at my school. So I really spent a lot of time being involved in the community, so that I could build a base of support. And that paid off in the long run, Debra, and that means giving of yourself, and a lot of times people don't want to do that. So for me, it was yes, I make my money on TV, but I'm not anchored to the desk. I'm anchored to the community. And I do my appearances at schools and churches, judging contests. As long as I was involved in the community, people got to know me. And then when they got to know me, they would call me with story ideas that paid off really well. So I believe in being a public servant, in that sense that I cannot just sit at a desk, it's important for me to be involved in the community.

Debra Alfarone: 

I feel like as a journalist, you have to have the intention, the intention to be of service, because there's enough stuff that's gonna pull at you. Are you in this market? Did that person say this about you? Did that person get that job? It's a lot. And every time I feel that, you know …..whatever it is, I remember why I do what I do. And it's not for that, exactly. People at home, because we really are helping people make decisions about their lives by telling them the stories that we write, and that we do.

Monica Pearson:

And I think a lot of times reporters forget that, that you're not just going out there and getting both sides of the story, you're getting all sides of the story. And you always have to tell it in a way that reaches the person who's going to be affected. And so, you know, I always said the job in many ways - you're educating people, you’re a social worker, in some instances, when you do stories where you change people's lives, literally. And you're a teacher, because you're telling them about a tax situation or candidate to help them decide how they're going to vote. Our physicians are right now being questioned a lot. But I think that's just cyclical. You know, I just think that's cyclical. I think people need to get back to doing more than just watching TV or listening to radio. I'm a newspaper reader too. So I get my facts from all sorts of areas, both conservative and liberal.

Debra Alfarone: 

Going back to the one thing that is always written first, in your bio, being the first black woman on the air in Atlanta, what would you say you learned most from that experience?

Monica Pearson:

Well, first, I wasn't the first black woman on the air. It was just the first woman and minority during the six o'clock news. There had been other black women in the market, working on the noon show or the morning show. But the bastion as you well know, the important show back then was the six o'clock show. That's where you made your money. That's where you had your bread and butter. So whoo, I can remember, you know, my mother saying to me - get involved in the community. When you hear people say negative things about you, they call you up and curse you out which they did, then you know how to react. It was not a pleasant time. But again, it decreased over time. And what I have to tell you is when I can remember when they were having marches in Forsyth County, Georgia, where all the Black people had been run out of the county, years before. One of the reporters Bill Nigut, who was our political reporter back then came back and said to me Monica, you'll never guess what happened today. So what happened? He said someone came up to me and told me to say, “Tell my girl Monica I said, Hello, I just love her.”

Well, I had spoken at his school. And he remembered me, and because he had seen me face to face, got to touch me, somehow I was different, which is really strange. But what it taught me is when you reach people where they are, they can then accept you when they see that, you know, even though my skin is brown and your’s is white, underneath, we're still the same - that we have the same kind of concerns. It changes people. So in the beginning, it was tough. Debra, I say all the time, had there been social media, I wouldn't have made it. Because social media now decides so much about how people think about issues and other people. And you could have someone on social media tearing you down as an anchor. And if they get enough negative criticism, they might let you go.

Debra Alfarone: 

You are a Louisville, Kentucky native.

Monica Pearson:

Yeah, I'm from Oklahoma. State of Kentucky, fast horses and fast women.

Debra Alfarone: 

I have had the pleasure of visiting Louisville recently, like 2021. I went there. And my very wonderful mentor who has since passed, Bruce Johnson, was from there as well. He went and covered, you know, Muhammad Ali's death. I mean, and so I know it's a special place. And I wonder how did growing up there shape you?

Monica Pearson:

Oh, well, first of all, I am the second person in my family to have graduated from high school. My mother was the first on both sides of the family. I'm the first to get a degree. So when my parents, my parents were childhood sweethearts, they got married. And then they got divorced four years later, when I was three years old. So I was raised by a single parent, my mother never got welfare, nor did she get child support from my dad. And my mother's saying was, it's what you do with what you have that makes you what you are.

Meaning, it doesn't matter what part of town you grew up in, it doesn't matter what your parent’s marital status was, it doesn't matter how much money somebody makes. What matters is what you do with the gifts that God gave you, you have a good mind, you have a good body. And you need to learn how to use that mind by getting a good education. And, you know, when I started school, schools were still segregated. So I didn't go to my first integrated school until the third grade. And I was the only Black child - that prepared me for later on real well. But luckily, I was in the Catholic school system. So I didn't have the kind of, you know, the kind of slurs that you would hear elsewhere. But my mother just would always say, you know, you make a liar out of people, you show them how smart you are, and you do what you're supposed to do. And sooner or later they come around. If they don't, that's their problem, not yours. So it's what you do with what you have that makes you what you are. And that has stood with me forever, because a lot of times kids will say, Oh, I can't do that. And I remind them, Jimmy Carter, you know, peanut farmer became the President of the United States. Look at what happened in history to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, he was assassinated. But the point is, he literally gave his life for us to live in a society we live in now. So I always tell my students to dream, and then make those dreams a reality by talking to people who are in the careers you're considering and find out. What does it take to get there? Not just the pluses. But what did you have to give up? What did you sacrifice in order to be in the position you're in - everybody wants to know about the good stuff, but nobody wants to know about the long hours, working holidays, having to work with people who aren't very nice to you because they're jealous, all that crazy stuff that goes on in communications, but it's not just in communications. It happens in almost every career.

Debra Alfarone: 

Your mom said it's what you do with what you have that makes you what you are.

Monica Pearson:

God did not create any crap, each and every one of us has a skill, a talent that we just need to develop. And my mom always said education is the key. I wear this necklace all the time. And the small diamond at the bottom is hers. She said my dad only gave her two good things, the diamond and me. And she used to pawn her wedding band in order to pay my tuition at an all-girls Catholic High School, because education was that important to her. But this is a woman who was sent away to school from Louisville. She worked her way through an all-girls Catholic High School in New Orleans. She worked in the nun’s quarters, she worked in the kitchen. But that allowed her to become the first high school graduate on both sides of the family. So for her education was everything. And I mean, everything. She was so proud when I got my master's degree, I was 67 years old when I got it, you would have thought I was 20. She was just as excited about that as she was when I got my bachelor’s/

Debra Alfarone: 

67 is the new 20. Okay, perfect segue because, you know, I talk to young women all the time - journalists and non-journalists in this world who are like, um, I just talked to one before. She's like, I'm 33….. if I take this job, you know, I'll be 36 by the time I get out of this contract. Like, I feel like everyone's in a race and like, there's the top 40 under 40. And, I need to be at a certain place by a certain time. And I feel like oh, only young people torture themselves like they do.

Monica Pearson:

When I started in Atlanta, I think this market was number 12 or 13. It was you know, it was not in the top 10. But within 10 years of me being here, the population had grown so much, we moved into the top 10. So you know, bloom where you are, I don’t, I’ve never understood this, I gotta race to get to the next job. Because there are mistakes that you make in smaller markets that will not cost you your job. You make that same mistake in a larger market and you're out.

I'll give you an example. Since we're doing the podcast, never say anything around your microphone you wouldn't want your mother to hear.  Dolly Parton. I love her. I just interviewed her a couple of weeks ago for the second time. So I love her, love her, love. She is as real as you see her all the time. But back in the old days. She did Duz commercials ….Duz was a detergent that you use to wash your clothes. And she would do these Duz commercials with Porter Waggoner. And so she was on during the commercial break. And I was working with a weatherman who used to drink his lunch. So he made a really nasty comment about Dolly Parton's anatomy. His microphone, wasn’t on. But when I said “oh shit, Bill, shut up,’ my microphone was on. So everybody in Louisville and southern Indiana heard me say, ‘Oh, sugar honey, iced tea Bill, shut up.’….and my producer said, ‘Monica, I'm sorry, your mic was on.’ So when they came back, I immediately said, ‘if you heard any profanity. you know, I'm really sorry. That's not the policy of WHAS. And, you know, I really am sorry, and it won't happen again.’ So I'm going on with the show. When I got off the show, I had two phone calls. One was from my news director who was laughing his head off and said, at least you apologized. So you're okay. You had the good sense to apologize. He said, But you learned an important lesson. Never say anything around a microphone, you wouldn't want your mother to hear. Well, you know, the second call was from my mother.

Debra Alfarone: 

Oh snap

Monica Pearson:

And yes, she goes, Monica, Rosie Lee Jones Kauffman. Why would you put something in your mouth you wouldn't hold in your hand?

Debra Alfarone: 

What is the quote? Man, like she is quote factory.

Monica Pearson:

Amazing. But I tell students that all the time that you know that happened and the small market was like market number 26 or something. And because I had the good sense to apologize, I got away with it. But when I came to Atlanta, there was a woman who was on the air who off mic said the same word. And she got suspended without pay for like a week. So the difference between a small market and a big market is you make mistakes in that small market, that when you get to a big market, you know, not to make the mistakes.

Debra Alfarone: 

You have won more than 30 Emmys and other awards as well, of course, what story did you learn the most from? Do you know, I mean, I know that it's hard.

Monica Pearson:

I think the story I know, I think the story I learned the most on was actually a newspaper story that I did. And that story taught me there's more than one way to skin a cat. That's the only way to explain it. And that as a reporter, you sometimes need to provide answers to people when they can't see it. There was a woman who was blind, and her husband had left her, she was in a kitchen that was all gas, she can't see. So how is she going to light the stove to cook. And they were going to put her out of her apartment, because they said she was a fire hazard. She had a small child who wasn't old enough to be able to turn it on for her. So you know, the story was she called us saying I'm going to be put out, I don't know what I'm going to do. And the solution was as simple as get her an electric stove. Sometimes, in covering a story, you need to provide information for other people to help get it done. And sure enough, people donated an electric stove to this woman so she could stay in her apartment. Now most people would have gone in there and just done the story of this. You know…… she's gonna have to move. You know, what are they going to do about it all these horrible people? But the story was, let's find a happy medium. How can we solve this problem? And it was an electric stove.

Debra Alfarone: 

You had breast cancer and liver cancer and survived?

Monica Pearson:

Yes.

Debra Alfarone: 

I mean, like I said in your bio. It's incredible the things that you've personally…..what did that teach you about life?

Monica Pearson:

The breast cancer taught me I was married to the wrong person, that the stress of being married to that person, because there's no breast cancer on either side of my family. And that taught me I needed to clean house, meaning get rid of the husband, get rid of friends who are not really friends. It made me examine the people around me. And the stress that those people were causing on me. And that was really hard - the second time with liver cancer. I don't even know where that came from. Except again, I think it was stress. I just retired and went to the University of Georgia to get my master's degree. It was an hour and a half drive each way. I stopped eating correctly. I stopped exercising. I was averaging about four hours of sleep. And I've learned one thing with me that stress attacks the weakest part of your body. And for me, it was my liver. And before that my breast. So what I learned from that is not to try to be all things to all people and not be perfect. Yeah, I graduated, you know, magna cum laude. But I also graduated with liver cancer. But until you can make me laugh at liver, yeah. But I'll tell you something else that I learned with both of them. I was very open with people and telling them about both cancers. And it made people go and get their mammograms. And some people came to me later and said, ‘Oh my God, I am so glad’ because they found a lump. And now I'm having you know surgery with the liver cancer……they would say things like I didn't know you drank that much. As an adult it’s just my time in the hopper. But to find out how people assume, make assumptions about your health, when you have a certain disease. So I use both of my cancers to educate people about stress, about early detection, about getting your physicals regularly, and have not been afraid to go to the doctor, being afraid could cause you to drop dead, because by the time they find what's wrong with you, it's too far to cure. So I am the poster child for early detection.

Debra Alfarone: 

You know, you make such a great point, yeah, I'm realizing the stress that I'm under, you know, with work, but really, it's not always work, sometimes. It's your family, you know, and your loved ones that put you through stress. And I know that I take a hit to my health. And this is a really important conversation to have with the young, the 20-somethings who are out there.

Monica Pearson:

Delegate, delegate, you know, when my daughter was little, I don't just close the door on her room, because I don't live in that room, so she can't find her stuff. Guess what, she'll clean it up so she can find it. She learned to wash clothes early, because I don't wear them. And that was stress on me. And my husband washes his own clothes. That's a break. And oftentimes, we'll take turns cooking, you know, not that we don't fit into those roles that people want to give, well, a woman does this, a man does that, right? We help each other. There will be days I’ll cook, there'll be days he cooks. And plus, we have a 92-year-old houseguest who has Alzheimer's - his mom. So we have to have this ebb and flow that we share the load. But we also have learned to take time to relax. And you know, maybe that's going to a movie, until my knees got bad, it would be going over to the park to walk. But we make sure that we have time for us ‘cause she sleeps late some days. So we'll go to a nice brunch. And it's so nice to have a date.

Debra Alfarone: 

You said about how cancer made you realize you know that that relationship you're in was stressful. I think relationships, sometimes we're in them, and the stress just kind of creeps up. And so this is a really good point to people. We’re listening to just know, do you have relationships that make you happy? Are you like, I don't like dealing with this. Listen to yourself.

Monica Pearson:

Yeah. Because it can really stress you out to the point of where you are sick. And I've seen it in other women too, who've told me you know, when you said that, I didn't really believe it. But then I started thinking about it. And it's like, I get this. I remember one woman telling me, she said when he walks in the door, my stomach starts to hurt. Ah, yeah, that's scary.

Debra Alfarone: 

What is the one thing you, Monica Pearson, wish you knew in your 20s?

Monica Pearson:

One thing I wish I had known in my 20s is that you didn't have to be married to have sex. Catholic girl, you know, you get married. And then you can have sex? Well, I wasn't. I didn't know who I was. Yeah. And so until I knew who I was, I didn't make a good mate. And, you know, I really, and I'm always careful, I don't say this with teenage girls. I only say this to grown women, that you know, you have to be who you are. And know you can stand on your own two feet. And that you don't need that affirmation from somebody else that you know this whole thing. I'll give my daughter as an example. She's 42, never married and no kids, and she's happy. I would love to have grandchildren. But I want her to be happy. This is the way she lives her life. So I'm not going to stress her out about get married and have kids, which a lot of parents do to their kids?.Yes, they do. They do and in the end, if they get into something that's not good for them, then they're miserable. So I really have believed very strongly that if I had to do it all over again, I would stay in college after my sophomore year. And rather than getting married, I would have stayed in college and gone on through, got my degree, got my first job in television, but then I might not have gotten into television because when I looked at TV back then there weren't many women like me doing the news. Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky. Diane Sawyer was a WEATHER GIRL. Yeah, so you know, everything happens for a reason. But I share that to say you got to know who you are first.

Debra Alfarone: 

But there is something to that saying what happens to you, happens for you - who said that it might have been Oprah, but I do believe even the tough stuff that we go through is something that we weren't going to learn by reading a book. I always ask everybody this question. What is the one thing that you look back in your 20s? Whether it be a job or an outfit or a hairstyle that you look? Or, or a bad date or something like that in your 20s that you look back on.

Monica Pearson:

Oh my God, the mushroom hairdo. You know we all had those bangs that came around? And they went around here and it was short here. It was the mushroom. The mushroom hair. When I see pictures of me like that I almost cry. Mushroom hairdo. That's the thing,

Debra Alfarone: 

The thing about working in this business for a while is that then when you leave, they take those pictures of you from a while ago. And then they make this like montage. And you're like, yes, the hairstyles.

Monica Pearson:

And the clothes. Oh, I remember when I first started out in Atlanta. That was the time when they were trying to make all of us look like men. So I would have this nice little blazer with a nice little shirt with a little bow tie here. And it was so preppy. So unlike me.

Debra Alfarone: 

And that's another thing is like we had to be cookie cutters for a while. I love that people are just being themselves now.

Monica Pearson:

Yes. It's when I look back to when I started in the business. Even in Louisville. The change with women has been wonderful. I can remember in Louisville, we had a tornado come through. And my news director told all the women reporters to stay in, he didn't want us to get be in any danger. We were good. We didn't raise hell right then. But we did afterwards. And we told him you know, we're reporters you can't tell us to stay in just because we're female. We let him have it. That doesn’t happen anymore.

Debra Alfarone: 

Wow. It's incredible. Yeah, let me tell you, I've been thrown out in some, in some really bad areas, like some bad weather situations. Sometimes I wish someone would tell me no.

Monica Pearson:

I know that's not true. Because you are as driven as I am when it comes to getting a story. So no, you wouldn't do that. Now, that's not you, Debra.

Debra Alfarone: 

Got a compliment from THE Monica Pearson! It was an honor to talk to you…..I will be smiling from ear to ear and I know that everyone who listens will feel the same way. Thank you so much.

Monica Pearson:

You are more than welcome, Debra. And if ever I can do anything for you. All you got to do is call!