Smith city’s first black TV anchor

ALBANY, Ga. — When Romney Smith was named the local FOX television affiliate’s main news anchor last month, she became the first African-American to be the prime anchor for one of Albany’s two television news outlets.

She accepted the job with a mixture of joy and sorrow.

“Taking the job made me happy and sad,” Smith, who joined the station as a reporter in August of 2009, said. “I was extremely happy about getting this promotion during Black History Month because I was kind of shocked it had never happened before. My frame of reference was always large metro areas that had black and Hispanic anchors.”

Growing up in Marietta, Smith, 28, drew her inspiration from long-time WSB anchor Monica (Kaufman) Pearson and aspired to be like her.

Smith earned her BA in Rhetoric and Communication at the University of Richmond in 2004. After graduation, she worked in pharmaceutical sales for four years.

But she was bitten by the “news bug,” returned to school and received a masters in journalism from The University of Maryland in 2009.

“This was my first on-air reporting job,” Smith said, remembering her hiring by WFXL two years ago. “After I graduated, I wanted to come South. I hated the snow in the mid-Atlantic region, and I was comfortable with the South because I grew up in Marietta and I still have family there.”

Still, Albany is not Marietta, and the move south was an adjustment for her.

“The biggest adjustment to Albany, you mean other than getting used to the gnats?” Smith laughed. “I moved down here from the (Washington) D.C. area, and that is a very, very liberal area. The people here are different. The pace is slower, and people are really set in their ways.

“But I really like the incredible passion of the people in Albany. From their grandkids to Georgia football, they are incredibly passionate about it.”

Last month Smith was called into the office of new WFXL President Brenda Holloway. Station Manager Deborah Gay and News Director Terry Graham were also at the meeting.

“They asked me if I would be interested in taking the main anchor slot,” Smith recalled. “It caught me completely off guard.”

She was given 24 hours to either accept or turn down the promotion.

“At first I didn’t know what to do,” Smith said. “I called my mentor, David Burns at UM, I called my mother and I called a reporter friend in Little Rock. I prayed over it and decided taking the job would be good for my career. That was the major factor in me accepting.”

Smith, however, did not want to give up reporting, and she asked for some editorial control over news content.

“I love reporting, and I did not want to give that up. They asked ‘you want to do more work?'” she laughed. “They gave me everything I asked for.”

Smith promised she would take her new job seriously.

“I look at being the first black main news anchor in Albany as a personal responsibility,” she said. “I want to be the best reporter and news anchor I can be, but I also want to be a good role model, specifically for young black women. I’m making a conscious effort to get out and talk to people, especially students.

“I want to encourage the people of Albany. We have it here, it’s just that no one has forced it into a positive flow. Albany has it, I’d like to help the city stop complaining and start bragging.”