Chuck Stone Honored With Helen Thomas Award

Posted on Sept. 13, 2007

The Society of Professional Journalists has honored retired Professor Chuck Stone of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication with the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award is given for a lifetime of contribution and service to the journalism profession. It is named for longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who received the first award in 2000.

A member of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, Stone served on the school’s faculty from 1991 to 2005. He is a recipient of the Freedom Forum Free Spirit Award, UNC’s Thomas Jefferson Award and the GAA’s Faculty Service Award.

The author of four books, Stone worked for newspapers, including The Washington Afro-American and The Philadelphia Daily News. He hosted the PBS show Black Perspectives on the News and served as a television news analyst in Montreal, Quebec and Durham. In the 1960s, Stone served as a special assistant to U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell.

He also taught at Columbia College in Chicago and the University of Delaware. He was  the founding president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Stone will be recognized Oct. 6 at a dinner at the 2007 SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference in Washington, D.C.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry, works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists, and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.

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