Channel 2 Action News anchor turns author

Berndt Petersen
·2 min read

John Pruitt is a big believer in finishing what you start.

“I’m telling people I actually developed the idea my first week on the job at WSB,” Pruitt said.

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Longtime WSB-TV anchor John Pruitt is now a published author.

Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen was in Peachtree City as Pruitt was signing his book today.

Pruitt remembers it like it was yesterday.

“July of 1964. I was hired as a very naïve, young, college graduate,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt went on to record history.

Days after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Pruitt covered a segregationist rally outside of Atlanta where four African American students were severely beaten.

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He then reported on the murder of a Black U.S. Army veteran who was shotgunned to death by the Klan near Athens.

Those events, as terrible as they were, were an inspiration.

“The first chapter is called ‘The Bridge,’” Pruitt said. It’s all woven together in a novel, fiction based on actual events. It’s called ‘Tell It True.’ As news people, we always tell it true. Right?”

At a book signing Tuesday at the Peachtree City Library, residents remembered Pruitt’s decades as Atlanta’s most trusted newsman.

Nearly 60 years after reporting that first story, the novel that it inspired is ready. “I’ve always loved to write. I like to think of this as being a new venture, even at my somewhat advanced age.”

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Pruitt will have book signings all over the metro area in the coming weeks, including at the Carter Center and the Atlanta History Center.

For more information and to purchase “Tell It True,” click here.

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