COLLEGE PARK — The University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism has selected its 2024 Hall of Fame class, featuring five outstanding alumnae who have built accomplished careers in journalism and related fields, and faculty honoree Dr. Lee Thornton.
The new all-women class of alums includes Bonnie Bernstein (B.S. ’92), Sarah Cohen (M.A. ’92), Angela Davis (B.S. ’90), Sue Kopen Katcef (B.S. ’76) and Michelle Singletary (B.A. RTVF ’84). They will be joined by Thornton, the college’s first Richard Eaton Chair in Broadcast Journalism and the first Black woman to serve as Merrill dean. Thornton, who died in 2013, will be honored posthumously.
The new Hall of Fame class will be inducted April 4 at Knight Hall. Registration for the event is open at go.umd.edu/MerrillHall24.
“This is another remarkable class of individuals who showcase the heights you can reach as a Merrill College alum,” Merrill College Dean Rafael Lorente said. “This year, we honor six women who reached the peak of their respective fields, including a former faculty member who helped make the college what it is today.
“We are proud to induct an impressive class that includes one of the most celebrated sportscasters in recent decades, a Pulitzer Prize winner, three distinguished broadcast journalists and a syndicated Washington Post finance columnist.”
The class was selected by a Hall of Fame committee that consists of members of the Journalism Alumni Network and the Board of Visitors, as well as students and faculty.
Induction into the Hall of Fame recognizes an alum honoree’s lifetime professional achievement in their chosen field, and a faculty honoree’s contributions to Merrill College. This will be the third class inducted into the Merrill College Hall of Fame.
2024 Hall of Famers
Bonnie Bernstein (B.S. ’92) is recognized by the American Sportscasters Association as one of the most accomplished female journalists in her field. Bernstein is the founder and CEO of Walk Swiftly Productions, her latest endeavor in an Emmy Award-winning career that has spanned nearly two decades on-air with ESPN and CBS covering the NFL, NBA, MLB and college football and basketball.
She was the lead reporter covering the NFL and the NCAA men’s basketball championships at CBS. During Super Bowl XXXVIII, Bernstein became the first sideline reporter to serve as both a network TV (CBS) and network radio (Westwood One) correspondent on the same broadcast. Her critically acclaimed series, “She Got Game: Inspiring Women, Inspired by Sports,” which premiered in 2023, is distributed by Audible, with Bernstein serving as the creator, executive producer and host.
Bernstein is a long-serving member of Merrill College’s Board of Visitors and a past advisor for The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism. While at College Park, Bernstein was an Academic All-American (gymnastics) and received the Thomas M. Fields Award for academic and athletic excellence.
Sarah Cohen (M.A. ’92) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who joined Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication as its Knight Chair in Data Journalism in 2018.
She spent most of her career as a reporter and editor at The New York Times and The Washington Post, where her work was awarded most major investigative journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting, the Goldsmith Award, the Selden Ring Award and Investigative Reporters and Editors' medal.
Cohen specializes in the use of public records and analysis of public record databases for investigative and long-term reporting projects. She has also served as the Knight Chair in Computational Journalism at Duke University and is a past president of the board of the 5,000-member IRE.
Angela Davis (B.S. ’90) is the host of MPR News with Angela Davis, a weekday talk show on Minnesota Public Radio that airs at 9 a.m. She joined MPR News in 2018 after more than 25 years of television reporting and anchoring in the Twin Cities and throughout the country.
Davis leads conversations on a wide variety of topics including how the state is changing, Minnesota’s persistent racial disparities, economic issues, education, mental health and the climate crisis. The national award-winning program includes insight from experts as well as listeners who call in during the live broadcast.
Before joining MPR News, Davis anchored morning and evening newscasts and worked as a reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis and KSTP-TV in St. Paul. She has won five regional Emmy awards for anchoring and covering breaking news. Her television career included jobs at CNN in Atlanta, and local stations in Washington, Dallas and Lexington, Kentucky. She is also a Gracie Award winner for her work in public media.
Sue Kopen Katcef (B.S. ’76) is an award-winning broadcast journalist who has worked in both radio and television, and spent nearly two decades teaching full-time at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, where she directed Capital News Service’s broadcast bureau for a decade. Her students and their production, “Maryland Newsline,” won dozens of local, regional and national awards.
Kopen Katcef’s reporting has earned honors from a number of organizations including the Radio Television Digital News Association, the New York Festivals, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association, and both the American Bar and Maryland State Bar Associations. She has been honored by SPJ with its regional Distinguished Service Award, and nationally with its Distinguished Teaching in Journalism Award and its Outstanding Adviser Award.
She is also the recipient of the Capital Emmys Chapter Board of Governors Award and has been inducted into the chapter’s Silver Circle for her outstanding contributions to the broadcast industry. Kopen Katcef is the co-author/editor of “A Journalist’s Guide to Maryland’s Legal System,” which is a legal primer and contact resource for reporters.
Michelle Singletary (B.A. RTVF ’84) is a personal finance columnist for The Washington Post. Her award-winning column, "The Color of Money," which is syndicated by The Washington Post News Service and Syndicate, appears twice a week in dozens of newspapers nationwide.
Singletary is the author of four professionally published books, including “What To Do With Your Money When Crisis Hits: A Survival Guide” and “The 21 Day Financial Fast: Your Path to Financial Peace and Freedom,” a perennial Amazon bestseller. In 2023, she received the Legacy Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. She is the recipient of the 2022 Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, The Washington Post celebrated her long and distinguished career at the newspaper with the Eugene Meyer Award, its highest journalistic honor.
Singletary frequently appears on national TV on such programs as NBC’s “TODAY Show” and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” as well as on CNN and NPR. Singletary earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a master's in business and management at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Lee Thornton was one of the nation’s most distinguished broadcast journalists and worked at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism from 1997-2013. She died in 2013 at age 71. Thornton came to the college as its first Richard Eaton Chair in Broadcast Journalism and a professor. In 2008, she became Merrill College’s interim dean and was the first woman dean of color at the University of Maryland.
Later, she served as associate provost for equity and diversity and ombuds officer for the UMD Graduate School. A dedicated campus citizen, Thornton was named Outstanding Woman of the Year in 2011 by the President's Commission on Women's Issues.
Before coming to Merrill College, Thornton was a senior producer for CNN, and former White House correspondent and general news reporter for CBS, and was on the journalism faculty at Howard University. Thornton was president of the Washington professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She also worked as a consultant and moderator for nationally televised distance-learning programs, a reporter and anchor for the BizNet cable-TV show "Nation's Business Today" and a weekend host on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
A native of Leesburg, Virginia, she received her B.S. degree from Teachers College in Washington, D.C., her M.A. from Michigan State University and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. She started her broadcast career as a reporter-anchor-producer for WLW-TV in Cincinnati, then spent eight years as a CBS News correspondent in Washington.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land
joshland@umd.edu
301-405-1321