MAX ROBINSON

TV NEWS CORRESPONDENT

A pioneer in breaking racial barriers in television broadcasting, Max Robinson became the first African-American to anchor a network news program. As such, he was a role model for other young black people seeking careers in the communications media, and he was a founder of the Association of Black Journalists.

Having grown up in Richmond, Virginia, Robinson attended Oberlin College in Ohio. In the middle 1960s he joined the staff of WTOP (later WUSA), the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC. There he developed the skills that made him a confident and effective communicator on camera. In 1978, ABC made him co-anchor (with Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings) of World News Tonight, a nightly network program. Based in Chicago, Robinson was the first black broadcaster to hold such a position. In 1981 he offended network executives by publicly stating that the news media in the United States are "a crooked mirror in which white America views itself." When Reynolds died in 1983, Jennings was made sole anchor of the nightly show, and Robinson was given weekend assignments. In 1984 he left ABC and went to work for WMAQ, the NBC affiliate in Chicago, but he did not last a full year there.

Three times married and divorced, Robinson was plagued by alcoholism and depression. Like many others with AIDS, he kept his disease a secret. His surviving family members said they had no idea how he had contracted it, but they said he had requested that the cause of his death be revealed afterwards to emphasize the importance-particularly in the black community-of education about AIDS. He was 49 when he died on December 20, 1988. Next Card 46: STEVE RUBELL: Real Estate Developer

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