Alumni Awards profile: Monica Pearson

Most Grady College students arrive seeking knowledge in their chosen field. Monica Pearson (MA ’14) is an alumna because she wanted to share her knowledge of journalism and Georgia.

Pearson is an award-winning journalist who informed generations of Georgians in her 37 years at WSB-TV in Atlanta. She was a broadcast journalist for a total of 45 years.

Pearson is the recipient of the 2020 John Holliman Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award, named after the late John Holliman Jr. (ABJ ’70), a Grady College alumnus and former CNN reporter.

She joins Lindsey Cook (ABJ ’14) and Purvi Farahi (ABJ ’95) as  2020 alumni award winners.

In pursuit of the credentials needed to teach journalism after her days on the nightly anchor desk, Pearson earned her master’s degree from Grady College in 2014.

“My mind was just opened so much at Grady,” Pearson said. “I was a good reporter. I would have been a better reporter if I had gone through this (program) earlier.”

Pearson is the first woman and first minority to anchor the daily evening news in Atlanta. She has won 33 Southern Regional and local Emmy Awards for reporting, anchoring and her Closeups celebrity interview shows.

She is currently a regular radio voice on KISS 104.1 FM and continues her Closeups interviews for WSB.

Pearson is married to John E. Pearson Sr.; has a daughter, Claire Patrice Deveaux and a stepson, John E. Pearson II.

We are celebrating our 2020 Alumni Award winners as their Grady Salutes celebration was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Visit this page for the latest updates on Grady Salutes.