Carole's acceptance speech for Lifetime Achievement
Award from New York Association of Black Journalists

My dear brothers and sisters, I am so sorry I couldn’t be with you tonight. The weather in DC is awful and prevented my travel. Though I am not there in person, please know that my thoughts and good wishes are with you all.

What a coincidence that this award is given to me in the Roone Arledge Auditorium just two days after I attended his funeral. He was a remarkable man and it was he, who assigned me anchoring duties on weekend news almost 15 years ago. We will miss you, Roone.

I want to congratulate those also receiving honors tonight. I find that once you begin receiving awards they provide the incentive to do more, achieve more, and give more. So, like you, I appreciate this recognition by the New York Chapter.

Lifetime Achievement!! When you start receiving such a prestigious award—and I already have a few—it’s another reminder that you are O-L-D, OLD. I think to myself, I’m not getting older, I’m getting better. Then I remember I have been a practicing journalist for 37 years. I bet a good percentage of you hadn’t even been born when I first took up a microphone in 1965.

» NABJ News release »Biography » Interviews with Carole » New York Association of Black Journalists honors Carole » Carole Simpson calls for diverse newsrooms

Just the fact that I am still at it, after all these years, I suppose is worthy of recognition. As an African American woman, it has always been a struggle. When people ask me what my greatest success has been, I always say survival. I am a survivor, not of 30 days on a remote island, but of 37 years of print, radio, and television news.

If I may get on my soapbox for a few seconds, let me point out that my survival did not come from a mentor, a “godfather’, someone guiding my career and giving me opportunities. It took working hard…twice as hard and striving to be twice as good as anyone else.

I want you to remember that. Too many of us just want to get by, but in many ways conditions for African Americans in the year 2002, are worse than they were 20 years ago. To rise to the top, there won’t be special programs. You will simply have to be the best at what you do.

As an older woman journalist, I am concerned about the future and the young people who will be will be in our profession in the 21st century. That’s why I chose the young man who is reading my remarks to you, Geoffrey Bennett. I believe he will someday, be one of the leaders in the television industry.

And because I want to continue helping tomorrow’s generation of journalists, I would like to present this check to your chapter’s scholarship fund. A check for $3000. (I wish it were more, but we’re all dealing with this bad economy.)

Please accept it as a small token of my appreciation for your recognition tonight, with the hope it will help further your mission of producing the excellent black journalists of tomorrow.

I’m Carole Simpson saying, thank you, God bless you, and good night.

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