She gave the hard news, but had a passion for reporting the ‘good news’
by Rob Taylor Jr.
Courier Staff Writer
The new local news is filled with the bad stuff—shootings, stabbings, rapes, robberies, fires, carjackings…
But in the mid-to-late 1990s, it was Brenda Waters who deviated from the usual, and gave Pittsburgh viewers the good news.
Not just the good news, but the “good news in your neighborhood.”
It was a daily staple on KDKA’s highly-ranked 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts back then, further establishing Waters, an African American woman, as a powerful force in Pittsburgh TV news.
On Friday, May 29, after 41 years on TV in the market, 35 with KDKA-TV (2), she said her final good-bye.
“Someone once said that life is like writing a book, there’s a beginning and there’s an end, and this is the end of just one of my chapters,” Waters said to KDKA viewers near the end of the 6 p.m. newscast.
“And very few people are blessed to have a career for more than three decades that they really love…I can tell you, I love getting up every morning going to work…and I work with some of the best in town. Not just in town, in this market, but I would say, in the country.”
Waters began her Pittsburgh career at WPXI-TV (11) in 1979, then moved to KDKA in 1985 as a general assignment reporter. In 1990, Waters and colleague John Shumway made history, anchoring the first KDKA weekday morning newscast. The mornings was where viewers soon became intimately familiar with Waters’ succinct delivery and poise.
BRENDA WATERS began her career at WPXI-TV (11) in 1979 and moved to KDKA-TV (2) in 1985. She officially retired on May 29.
As the ‘90s rolled on, viewers began to see Waters during the 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts with, “good news.” KDKA’s 6 p.m. hour-long newscast has long been the market leader in total viewers in its timeslot, but Waters’ “good news” segment wasn’t buried near the end of the show. It was often seen within the first 10 to 12 minutes of the newscast.
The New Pittsburgh Courier flashed back to a KDKA broadcast from June 2, 1999, where Waters told the “good news” stories of motorcycle maker Harley Davidson’s traveling museum making a stop in Washington, Pa., where residents could see some vintage bikes, and a teacher in West Virginia teaching his middle school class the art of turkey calling.
Waters found good news in nearly all Pittsburgh communities; the African American community was no exception.
She most recently spent years anchoring the Saturday morning news for KDKA, while continuing to report from the field and her signature “On a Positive Note” segments.
In 2018, Waters provided KDKA viewers a story on an area resident, Stephanie Turman, the stepdaughter of iconic singer Aretha Franklin. Turman’s father, Glynn Turman, was married to Franklin from 1978-84.
“I would come home from school and she (Franklin) and Luther Vandross would be sitting at the piano and singing…I would walk home into stuff like that,” Turman told Waters in the exclusive report.
“She (Franklin) poured into my spirit and helped me become the woman that I am today, and for that I am forever grateful,” Turman added.
Franklin died in 2018 at age 76.
It was just one of many exclusive, motivational stories that Pittsburgh viewers came to expect from Waters.
Her final “On a Positive Note” segments included a 19-year-old freshman art student at Pitt who hosted an art challenge on social media, and a local man they call “Mr. Good Deeds,” who drives in his “Pittsburgh Good Deeds” truck helping others, such as home repairs. Waters reported in her May 25 segment that John Potter, aka Mr. Good Deeds, recently raised and gave away more than $30,000 to those in need.
The “On a Positive Note” series has won a regional Emmy Award.
Waters’ other honors include two Associated Press awards, “Who’s Who Among Black Americans,” the Cecile B. Springer Womenpower Award (recognizing women as superior role models in Pittsburgh), two awards from Ebenezer Baptist Church as an “outstanding woman in the community,” and a Woman of Excellence Award from the Courier in 2008.
Waters was born in Goldsboro, N.C., and raised in Washington, D.C. She earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland and a master’s at American University, in Washington.
Waters’ retirement wasn’t the only African American talent at KDKA to call it a career with the station. Veteran reporter and Pittsburgh native Bob Allen retired on March 27 after 20 years at the One Gateway Center station, and more than 40 years in professional media.
BOB ALLEN, after 20 years at KDKA-TV, retired in March.
“This is much more than a retirement, it’s a celebration, it’s the fulfillment of a dream,” Allen said on air, March 27. “It was such an honor and a pleasure to work at KDKA, after growing up, watching the station.”
Allen, a Langley High School graduate, told the story of how, as he watched KDKA with his mother while in his 20s, his mother pointed to a reporter on the television and said, “You can do that.”
Mom was right.
Waters is not a Pittsburgh native, but after being in Pittsburgh since the late ‘70s, she considers Pittsburgh home.
“The entire news staff, they’ve just been great, they’ve been my family,” Waters said. “They’ve been with me for ups and downs, good days, bad days, they were with me when both of my parents passed away, they were with me when my brother passed away, and recently, when I had back surgery.
“The viewers, they, too are my family, they’ve allowed me to come into their homes for more than 30 years.
You know, family will tell you when they don’t like something, and Lord knows they’ve told me when they didn’t like something I said on TV, if they didn’t like something that I was wearing, if they didn’t like any of my many hairstyles, and I appreciate that so much.”
Waters’ final statement on-air as she headed into retirement? “I wasn’t born and raised in Pittsburgh, but I consider myself a Pittsburgher…and this is just the start of the second act.”
About Post Author
