Trailblazing journalist Yvonne Forston returns — as a podcaster
Yvonne Forston Allison may have settled in the Philadelphia area, but her heart remains in Western Pennsylvania.
The Beaver Falls native spent 11 years in Pittsburgh working as a KDKA-TV reporter and host in the 1960s and ’70s. In 1974, Channel 2 launched “The Yvonne Forston Show” and made its star one of the first Black reporters with her own show. Allison hosted that program for four years before moving on to other professional ventures throughout Pennsylvania and ultimately ending up in Rydal, Pa.
Allison is now 80, which is five years older than KDKA. Recently, she decided it was time to revisit her trailblazing career and share the hard-earned wisdom she picked up along the way. She enlisted her children to help reimagine “The Yvonne Forston Show” as “The Yvonne Forston Allison
Show,” a new podcast that launched last week and will continue releasing new episodes via the Buzzsprout audio platform and Allison’s YouTube channel.
“I’ve had an interesting series of things I’ve done,” Allison told the Post-Gazette last month. “In every area, there have been wonderful lessons learned, which is what I think I can offer on this show.”
Allison is a Beaver Falls High School alumnus who graduated in the same class as legendary New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Geneva College before embarking on a media journey that brought her to KDKA in 1968.
KDKA was one of the first U.S. television stations to hire Black reporters. Allison was initially brought in to replace Ann Jordan, the first Black woman to report for Channel 2, on her education beat. It “really blew my mind” when Allison found herself seated near legendary KDKA anchor Bill Burns, who she said rarely paid much attention to rookie reporters.
“I had to prove myself,” Allison said. “So when I broke the story that Pittsburgh schools were going on strike ... I called Bill Burns from the superintendent’s house and gave him the lead on the 11 o’clock news that night. The next day when I went into the newsroom he said, ‘Hey, Yvonne, how ya doing?’ ”
She had been warned prior to joining KDKA that “you are going to come in direct contact with racism” while working in local news. It wasn’t uncommon for Allison to be called “colored” or “Negro” early in her career, but those outdated terms eventually were replaced by descriptors like “African American” and “Black.”
As much as Allison enjoyed reporting and anchoring, hosting a live talk show was “the best thing I did at KDKA,” she said. She chalked up its 1978 cancellation to a
few suspected “isms” and the fact her direct competition “was Phil Donahue in his prime.”
Still, “The Yvonne Forston Show” cemented Allison’s place in Pittsburgh media history and even gave her children a few opportunities to appear on their mother’s groundbreaking show.
“To say that I’m proud is an understatement,” her daughter, Nikki Forston, who was born in Bloomfield, told the Post-Gazette.
Following her 1979 departure from KDKA, Allison went to work for her friend (and former neighbor) Dick Thornburgh. She served in the Pennsylvania governor’s press corps before being appointed to head the commonwealth’s film bureau.
Allison eventually moved her family across the state and became the communications director at Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV. She tried her hand at a few more endeavors — including another hosting gig — before officially retiring in 2018.
There are a few reasons that Allison felt compelled to give podcasting a shot. As someone who has experienced more than her fair share of racism and sexism, she is more than ready to “hit the isms” on “The Yvonne ForstonAllison Show.”
Her disillusionment with modern journalism practices also inspired Allison to find a platform where she could expressthose grievances.
“If you went out and shot a story and brought it back to the editing booth and didn’t have both sides of the story, you weren’t hitting the news that night. Period, end of story,” she said of her KDKA days. “That’s one of the things that I can’t come to grips with today, some of the stuff that gets on [the air] that never should see the light of day.”
“The Yvonne Forston Allison Show” will feature Allison’s son — Andy Forston, 50, of Jenkintown, Pa. — as a sounding board for her advice and general thoughts on today’s media environment. Nikki
Forston, 52, of Rydal, is a former screenwriter, longtime entrepreneur and “Yvonne Forston Allison Show” producer who also will be providing technical support and research assistance. Like her mother, Forston feels 2024’s media landscape is “so fractured that I think people have kind of lost their way.” She hopes the podcast can help cut through some of that noise and give young journalists valuable insight into how her mother went about “cultivating a rewarding career.”
“I think my mom has a lot of value in terms of the experiences she can speak about and her thoughts on not just media, but working in any business situation in general,” Forston said.
Plus, as Forston has witnessed up close: “Millennials love her. I don’t know why, but they love her.”
Maybe that’s because Allison has always prided herself on revisiting the past while searching for solutions to contemporary issues. She’s excited to continue tackling those topics with the gusto of aKDKA legend who has truly seen it all.
“I’m going to give you something you can walk out the door with and you can use today,” she said. “This is what you can take and apply to your situation.”