Iola Vivian Johnson (born October 10, 1950)"Iola Vivian Johnson" in ''Who's Who Among African Americans'', 23rd edition Gale, 2009. Retrieved July 28, 2010. is an American television anchor, reporter, journalist. She was the first

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

for a

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

television station and believed to be the first in the country.

Career

Johnson was born in

Texarkana, Arkansas Texarkana is a city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Miller County, on the southwest border of the state. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 29,387. It is the twin city of Texarkana, Texas, located just acros ...

. Her first professional position was with

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

affiliate KVOA in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

, where she was a reporter, wrote for the 10 o'clock news, had a morning interview program and anchored weekends. In 1973, she was hired at

WFAA WFAA (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving as the American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliate for the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Decatur, Texas, Decatur-li ...

in Dallas and debuted as a weekend news anchor in May of that year. In 1975, she was teamed with a fellow reporter named Tracy Rowlett and together they began a ten-year run as co-anchors of the 6 and 10 pm weeknight newscasts. Within the first year, the new anchor team catapulted to number one in the ratings. It was the most successful news team in Dallas-Fort Worth television history. Johnson remained at WFAA-TV for more than 12 years. In 1985, Johnson left her anchor position with WFAA-TV to start her own business. (Her last night on WFAA-TV being March 2, 1985.) Iola's second anchor stint was with KTVI in St. Louis. Her co-anchor was Kevin Cokely. After working for a short time in

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

, she returned to Dallas to work as the managing editor and news reporter for a morning show on KKDA AM radio. In September 2000, Johnson chose to return to television news to help launch a new hour-long newscast at 4 pm on KTVT CBS 11 in Dallas-Fort Worth with longtime friend and former WFAA colleague Tracy Rowlett. After two years, Tracy and Iola left the 4pm newscast when itJohnson is the former host of ''Positively Texas'' (a weekly public affairs television show that aired on CBS 11 and TXA 21 KTXA, CBS 11's sister station and former UPN affiliate). was cancelled. In 2012, television came calling again and she was hired as a television contributor for The Texas Daily news program on

KTXD-TV KTXD-TV (channel 47) is a television station licensed to Greenville, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The station is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, a partner company of Sinclair Broadcast Group. It carries pr ...

, channel 41, an independent station in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. There, she was teamed with former WFAA anchors Jeff Brady, Tracy Rowlett, John Criswell, Midge Hill, Debbie Denmon, and Troy Dungan.

References

Living people 1950 births African-American television personalities 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people {{Tv-actor-stub