On Nov. 16, 1981, Pam McAllister Johnson is named as publisher of Gannet’s Ithaca (NY) Journal. She is the first African-American woman to head a general circulation newspaper in the US. In 1987 she won the Nafziger Award. Before Ithaca, she wrote for the Chicago Tribune, the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times. She worked as a reporter and announcer for then-WISM radio in Madison and for WISC-TV, WTMJ in Milwaukee and CBS News in Chicago. She was Director of the Ethnic Production Unit at WHA Radio, The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass. and the Courier-News in Bridgewater, N.J.
