Mal Goode Reporting

In their new book, historians Liann Tsoukas and Rob Ruck spotlight the life and works of a local trailblazer in broadcasting and journalism, Malvin “Mal” Goode.

Mal Goode became network news’s first African American correspondent when ABC News hired him in 1962. Raised in Homestead and Pittsburgh, he worked in the mills, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and went on to become a journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier and later for local radio.

Though race prevented him from breaking into television until Jackie Robinson dared ABC to give him a chance, Goode and his distinctive basso profundo voice initiated the slow integration of network news.

Goode’s life and works are remarkable in their own right, but his struggles and achievements also speak to larger issues of American life and the African American experience.

Copies of the book will be for sale by the publisher. Register today!

Bio:

Liann Tsoukas teaches history at the University of Pittsburgh, where her courses focus on African American history, US surveys, contemporary US history, and gender and sport. Tsoukas directs the sport studies certificate and serves as an assistant dean as well as the History Department’s director of undergraduate studies. She has been recognized with several honors including the 2023 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Rob Ruck is a historian at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches and writes about sport. He focuses on how people use sport to tell a collective story about who they are to themselves and the world. He is the author of Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL, Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game, and Rooney: A Sporting Life, among other titles. His documentaries Kings on the Hill: Baseball’s Forgotten Men and The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game appeared on PBS.