TOLEDO, Ohio — Being among the first to do something can be fun and exciting or scary and intimidating. For Charlene Mitchell-Rodgers, becoming one of WTOL 11's first Black female news reporters was a bit of both.
She's proud to have started her nearly 50-year career in her hometown.
"I really love the news. Love it, love it, love it," Mitchell-Rodgers said.
Before she ever stepped out into the field for a news story or got a chance to meet civil rights activist Rosa Parks or former President Bill Clinton, Mitchell-Rogers was just a little girl in Toledo. She had a loving family with parents who encouraged worldly knowledge.
"Since I was a young girl, my mother used to force us to watch the news. I had no mentors to really look to. There weren't any women on television. There weren't any young people on television back in the day," Mitchell-Rodgers said.
Despite those lacks, they didn't stop her from dreaming big.
"I used to stand in the mirror as a young preteen and teenager with a hairbrush pretending it was a microphone," Mitchell-Rodgers said. "I'd be pretending to be Walter Cronkite, with his signature sign off, 'And that's the way it is'. Then I'd switch, 'And that's the way it is.'"
To achieve her dreams, Mitchell-Rodgers studied at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., for her undergraduate studies and then went to Bowling Green State University to earn her master's degree.
Then, in 1972, when a reporter job at WTOL 11 opened up, she was ready to take it. But, given the times and the adversity other Black people had faced, there was some serious and understandable doubt.
"My father was very skeptical and I'll tell you his exact words, 'They are not gonna put a little colored girl on the news,'" Mitchell-Rodgers said.
But she pushed on, applied and got the job.
"The day that I debuted, my father had told half the people in Toledo, people he knew and people he didn't know. He may as well have had a megaphone because he was so, so proud." Mitchell-Rodgers said. "It made the front page of the Blade."
Mitchell-Rodgers said her family is still looking for the newspaper with her announcement on it to this date.
She didn't stay in Toledo for long, though. A talent scout found her and helped her move to her next station in Baltimore, Md. From there she went to Washington, then Boston and then eventually found her way closer to home in Detroit. Everywhere Mitchell-Rodgers went, she delivered the news while being among the firsts at those stations. Not surprisingly, she was met with adversity during her career, even from station management.
"The news director called me in and I was like, 'Oh, what does he want?' " Mitchell-Rodgers said. "He says, 'Do you speak Spanish?' 'Muy Poco. I took it in college. I don't speak it fluently. Why?' He says, 'Well, we did the survey.' He pulls out this big survey thing and he says a lot of people in (Washington) D.C. still have black and white televisions.”
“He says, 'They don't know what you are, and they think you're Hispanic. But we'll cross that off since you can't speak Spanish. Can you wear an Afro?' I said, ‘I tried in college. I had an Afro wig. I wanted to be Angela Davis. But I don’t think that’s going to work,’” she said. “(The news director said) 'Well, we don't know what to do with you.' I said, 'Just let me do my job like everybody else in here. I mean, really?'"
Mitchell-Rodgers said authenticity and factual reporting on the local community are two of the most important things in journalism.
"People need to know what's going on in the world and our lives. We have to be authentic about it," she said. "I would suggest to anyone who wants to go into this field, don't let people tell you there's already too many reporters (or) there's not enough room for you. If you think you have what it takes, go for it."
Mitchell-Rodgers now runs her own agency called Media Consultants P.R.& Marketing.
On April 13, Woodward High School will honor Mitchell-Rodgers for her journalism career and place her in its Alumni Hall of Fame.