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PUBLIC INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
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Baez Honored for Journalism Career
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Gilbert Baez (left) shares a
moment
with Campbell senior Guy Spillers. |
Campbell University adjunct professor Gilbert Baez
was honored in April at the Triangle Association of Black
Journalists’ annual scholarship banquet. He has been an adjunct
professor at Campbell since 1990.
Baez received a Journalism Excellence of Today award at
the banquet titled “Journalism Excellence: Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow.” Campbell University helped sponsor the event.
“This is really not to honor me—this is about the future
of broadcasting,” said Baez, accepting the award. He encouraged other
journalists, saying, “Any opportunity you have to pass on to students
what you know about journalism, do that.”
Since 1990, Baez has taught several mass communication
courses, including Television Reporting, Radio Production, Electronic
News Gathering, Photography, and Speaking for Radio and Television.
Baez is a native of Philadelphia and a graduate of
Central State University in Wilberforce, OH, where he earned a
bachelor’s degree in English with special emphasis in Radio and
Television Broadcasting. An army veteran and graduate of the esteemed
U.S. Army Ranger School, he was once stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC as a
combat communications officer.
Baez’s television career began in 1986 as a
weathercaster and reporter for WKFT-TV 40 in Fayetteville. He also
worked as a weathercaster and reporter for WRAL-TV, where he served as
Fayetteville bureau chief. Today, he works for WTVD-11 as a Fayetteville
reporter. Baez has reported from a number of military hot spots around
the world including Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Albania, Somalia, Egypt,
Jordan, and El Salvador.
“Gilbert Baez definitely exemplifies what members of
this association stand for, and that means standing behind, and standing
with, each other,” said WNCN-TV reporter Renee McCoy; a colleague of
Baez’s who presided at the event. “He was always a friend, always
someone you could rely on, always encouraging. He always had a kind
word.”
McCoy read a proclamation by the City of Fayetteville
naming April 17 Gilbert Baez Day. Upon hearing it, Baez’s 15-year-old
son, Jon leaned over and whispered to his dad, “Does this mean we’ll get
a day off of school?”
Baez answered, “No,” but that didn’t dampen the crowd’s
enthusiasm for Baez’s accomplishments.
“Professor Baez teaches our students to learn for a
lifetime and not be content to know the rudiments of the business,” said
Dr. Michael Ray Smith, the chair of Campbell’s Department of Mass
Communication. “He once told me that he visited a TV news operation
regularly and offered to do weather, filming, whatever he could do, and
his perseverance paid off with a try-out job and then a full-time job.
That’s the kind of tenacity that makes a great journalist and that’s
what Gilbert Baez is passing on to the next generation of wordsmiths.”
Baez has won numerous journalism awards, including the
prestigious National Edward R. Murrow Award for a story he wrote and
produced about a deadly fighter jet crash at Pope Air Force Base.
Jonathon Fletcher, one of nearly 150 mass communication
students at Campbell, studied with Baez.
“The great thing about Mr. Baez is that he was able to
impart to us the wisdom he’s gained through his many years in the radio
business,” said Fletcher. “He taught me that with hard work you can do
really well in the media business.”
Founded in 1887, Campbell University is North Carolina’s
second largest private institution of higher education and the second
largest Baptist university in the world. Located in Buies Creek, NC,
just east of the center of the state, Campbell combines academic
excellence and Christian commitment.
Bulletin 0130 |
