Don’t worry. Courtis Fuller, one of the city’s highest profile Black journalists, definitely is not retiring from participating in dozens of community events after anchoring his last WLWT-TV newscast Sunday night.
Fuller, who came to Channel 5 in the late 1980s, will devote most of his time at the station on Let’s Talk Cincy, the Emmy Award-winning community affairs program he has hosted since its 2019 debut.
The Pittsburgh native — and surprise honoree at the 2015 Dr. Martin Luther King Legacy Breakfast for his commitment to local Martin Luther King Day events — tells me he doesn’t plan to cut back on his volunteer civic and community service.
“I will remain involved in the community. In fact I have more than a dozen events on my calendar over the next few months. And as of now, I hope to continue my involvement in the MLK Day events,” says Fuller, who has spent most of his 45-year career in Cincinnati broadcasting.
Fuller missed about four months of work last year for treatment of a large malignant brain tumor in the base of his skull. He returned to the newsroom in April. Two months later, station management honored Fuller by inducting him into the inaugural class for the WLWT-TV Hall of Fame established as part of its 75th anniversary.
“My health is good,” he says. Leaving the anchor desk and cutting back on his workload “is something I’ve been considering for several months,” he says.
“This new role gives me more of a work/life balance, and still allows me to share the stories about all the good folks and organizations in our area. It has been a blessing to anchor the news for many decades at WLWT-TV,” he said in the station announcement Friday.
However, his tenure on the Channel 5 anchor desk has not been continuous. Fuller quit WLWT-TV in 2001 to run for mayor as a member of the Charter Party, winning the primary but losing the general election to incumbent Charlie Luken, another former Channel 5 anchor. He hosted a radio talk show on old WCIN-AM before returning to WLWT-TV in 2003.
News director Jeff Benscoter said “everyone in the WLWT newsroom is excited that Courtis has decided to stay on the WLWT News 5 Team and continue to have a major impact on our community. Courtis’ new role allows him to clearly focus on his passion for our community, and his goal of highlighting issues and solutions across Cincinnati,” he said in a media release.
“While we will miss his presence on the weekend behind the anchor desk, we can’t wait to see what the future holds for his continued contributions on Let’s Talk Cincy, a program that touches so many lives through his impactful storytelling,” said Branden Frantz, WLWT-TV president and general manager.
“Courtis is literally a living legend in Cincinnati and in the broadcast industry,” Frantz said in the release.
Under Frantz, Fuller was inducted last year into the WLWT Hall of Fame along with the legendary Ruth Lyons, host of the station’s wildly popular 50-50 Club in the 1950s and ‘60s; Bob Braun, who succeeded Lyons in 1967 and hosted the live noon weekday show until it was canceled in 1984; Jerry Springer, the former mayor and councilman who anchored Channel 5's news (1984-91) and launched his daytime talk show at the station in 1991; executive Walter E. Bartlett, the former Channel 5 general manager and president of parent company Multimedia Inc.; and salesman Jerry Imsicke, a 42-year employee who had worked with all of the other five.
“It is and has been a great honor to work at WLWT, a station that has such a rich history. What an honor it was to be inducted into the WLWT Hall of Fame with legends like Ruth Lyons, Jerry Springer, Bob Braun, Walter Bartlett and Jerry Imsicke,” Fuller says.
