Molly Turner (1923 – 21 July 2016) was an American television news anchor and
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
-winning television reporter in
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
.
Career
Turner's television career began in 1951, when her mother encouraged her to audition for a Saturday morning show on Florida's
WTVJ
WTVJ (channel 6) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV (channel 51), a flag ...
Channel 4. Turner was given the comedic role of country music singer Cousin Effie in the station's "Uncle Martin Show". She later went on to producing, working on both commercials and a three-hour morning show. In 1960 she became the midday anchor at rival station WLBW Channel 10.
In 1969 WLBW was bought by Post-Newsweek and became WPLG. The focus of its broadcasting shifted to hard news. Turner became a television reporter, the first woman to hold such a position in South Florida. From 1974, she began to specialise in consumer reporting.
Throughout her working life, Turner contributed to community organisations and projects; in the late 1980s she served on the Women's Park Founders' Committee, which established Women's Park in Miami-Dade County.
In 1988 she retired from news reporting.
Recognition
Turner was founder and president of the Gold Coast Chapter of American Women in Radio and Television; in 1975 she was named the organisation's "Woman of the Year" and in 1986 she received its Florida Legend award. In 2001 she won the Imprint Award from the Miami International Press Club. She won three Emmy Awards for investigative reporting on water quality, health clubs, and the women's rights movement, and she also won a
National Press Club
A press club is an organization for journalists and others who are professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press Club ...
merit award in 1997 for a series of articles on housing shortages, entitled ''Locked Out of the American Dream''.
In 2003, WPLG television station invited her back to the station to celebrate her 80th birthday. In 2007, she was visited in her retirement home by
U.S. Representative
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen ( ; ; born July 15, 1952) is an American politician and lobbyist from Miami, Florida, who represented from 1989 to 2019. By the end of her tenure, she was the most senior U.S. Representative from Florida. She was Chairwoman ...
and Turner's former colleague
Dwight Lauderdale
Dwight Lauderdale (born in Columbus, Ohio) is a former TV news anchor. He was the first African American news anchor in South Florida and became one of the state's most watched and longest running anchors.