From Staff Reports
Long-time award-winning journalist Ellen Rochelle Brown, will be remembered in services this week.
Word traveled fast of her death on Saturday, after a brief illness, and tributes rolled in from across the country.
Known for her bubbly personality and wide smile, as well as her attention to detail and expert story-telling, Rochelle, as she was called by many, was a highly respected journalist and television producer.
A product of Dallas Independent School District, she attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas where she received her B.F.A. degree in broadcast film arts in 1971; the first African American woman to do so. After completing a summer fellowship at Columbia University in New York City, Brown worked as a news researcher for NBC News in New York.
In 1975, Brown was offered a television news anchor and reporter job at WROC- TV, the CBS affiliate in Rochester, New York. After making her mark there, she returned home to Dallas in January of 1978 to work for the CBS affiliate, KDFW-TV (now FOX4) as the community affairs di- rector.
As executive producer, she created “In-sights” a popular public affairs program, that became the longest-running public affairs program on television in Northern Texas. She also hosted the show, spending almost 30 years “connecting the station to the Dallas community in positive ways.”
Thousands of children in the Dallas Public School System have reaped benefits from the “Adopt-A-School” Program created by the City of Dallas. Brown made sure that her station participated in this program.
She also acted as KDFW’s multicultural affairs director, ensuring that all cultures and races in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were well represented in the news coverage. Mentor and Emily Blue remembered her internship days with Brown.
“Under her tutelage, I learned so much. It was there that my love for diversity, cultural sensitivity, and community in media was deepened while my interviewing and production skills were cultivated. I also served as associate producer of “Insights” while interning with her,” wrote Blue, on FaceBook. “Rochelle Brown’s bubbly personality made work so much fun. I learned from an incredible trailblazer and I continue her legacy of mentorship through my own work in media.”
Fellow journalist Ester Davis spoke to Brown’s professional prowess.
“Rochelle was not only a ‘pretty face’. She was a sheer master of television production. She had knowledge and talent that most cannot relate to. On her show, she was the writer, producer, director, could set lighting, could work anything and everything in the studio behind the camera and in front.”
Brown is the recipient of the prestigious Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award, honoring excellence in broadcast journalism for her news segment “Children Having Children.”
She was a fixture around the Metroplex and was frequently recognized for her jounalistic excellence and community service. Born in Denton in 1949; she never met a stranger and left an indelible mark on every- one she came into contact with.
Brown was 75.
