The life and times of inspirational and pioneering Allison Payne, former WGN news anchor

Allison Payne had not visited Chicago-area homes for more than a decade, but she was such a striking, substantive and memorable television presence that her Sept. 1 death in Detroit at 57 came as a jolt and created a flood of fond memories.

They came from notable people in the world of sports and politics, but most came from former colleagues, people she had mentored and that vast and faceless crowd of so-called ordinary people who watched her deliver the news nightly on WGN-Ch. 9.

A special Facebook page has been created, Remembering Allison Payne, featuring some video tributes, and Twitter is alive with condolences. The news of her death, details of which were not made public, deeply affected such former co-workers as Robert Jordan.

“Allison was smart and eager to learn and quickly grew into her position as lead anchor at a television ‘superstation,’ which could then be seen by viewers from Alaska to South America,” said Jordan, who retired in 2016 after four decades in the TV news business, most of them with WGN. “I would call her a Supernova, a brilliantly bright star that cast a shimmering aura upon those who knew her. But, lamentably, just like such as star, that suddenly increases its light output tremendously and then tragically fades to obscurity, Allison, sadly, could not sustain her glory and died alone.”

Payne was a pioneering and inspirational broadcaster, spending two decades as a prominent face of Ch. 9 news. She was one of only a few Black broadcasters (Jordan too) and she did not take that stature lightly, telling the Tribune in 1999, “We are what the audience see, and it isn’t that we’re just there reading. We are expressing our opinion and we are helping to shape and mold that newscast and that message that goes out.”

She put her money where her prominence was that same year, starting the Kathryn Payne Scholarship Fund at the University of Detroit in honor of her mother, a mathematician who died when Allison was 11. The fund was intended to help young African American students majoring in mathematics. She would decades later start a foundation to help other aspiring journalists.

She was born in Richmond, Virginia, and grew up in Detroit, the daughter of Kathryn and Dana, an educator who died in 2019. She graduated from the University of Detroit and Bowling Green State University and began her television career as a reporter at a small station in Ohio, later becoming a news anchor at a station in Michigan.

It was there that she caught the attention of Ch. 9 news director Paul Davis and was lured to Chicago to co-anchor, first alongside Rick Rosenthal and later with Steve Sanders and Mark Suppelsa, on the station’s 9 p.m. Monday-Friday newscast.

She was only 25 but polished beyond those years and interested in covering stories that would take her away from the anchor desk, including traveling to Kenya for a memorable story on former President Barack Obama’s roots there.

“Though she was at the TV station, and I was at the newspaper, synergy wasn’t a bad word for those two Tribune-owned properties,” said longtime Tribune political writer Rick Pearson. “We co-hosted a televised gubernatorial debate and from that a deep friendship grew. She taught me about television news, she introduced me to concerns of the Black community, she shared things that she thought I should know and report. She respected me, and I respected and admired her.”

She would win nine local Emmy Awards.

Payne is remembered for her thoughtfulness toward friends and colleagues, and for always finding time to offer advice and counsel to young students looking to enter journalism.

“She was such a generous and kindhearted soul who was quick to offer, as a trinket of her affection, a lovely gift or a sentimental offering,” said Jordan, who now runs an independent production company, Video Family Biographies, has written a provocative book titled “Murder in the News: An Inside Look at How Television Covers Crime” (Prometheus Books) and is the father of WLS-Ch. 7′s Karen Jordan. “She was swift with flowers or candy, and a personal, handwritten note, to those who had offered her support or who had sat down for an interview.”

In 2008, Payne suffered a series of mini-strokes and resulting depression that kept her off the air for much of that year. Around this time, Payne also acknowledged a 20-year struggle with alcohol addiction. She returned to WGN the next year, but was on the 5:30 p.m. news broadcast and never returned to prime time. In 2011, WGN bought out her contract and she was off the air, but for one last story, a moving report on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Payne was determined then to stay in the Chicago area and on her website wrote, “I am not ruling out a return to the anchor desk, but for now I need new intellectual challenges. I’m open to applying my communication skills to the business world as well.”

Eventually she returned to Detroit, where she started a production company, worked briefly on some political campaigns in an advisory position and explored becoming a journalism professor.

“Allison was a very special person,” said Pearson. “I consider her a trailblazer at a very diversity-starved era in the media. Despite some difficult times, we kept in touch. It was only weeks ago that she called to wish me a happy birthday. She told me her plans for new adventures and her desire to promote a greater awareness of Black history in our modern culture.”

Said Jordan, “At a time when so many television and media luminaries are crass and selfish — only thinking of themselves and how important they can be — Allison was a breath of fresh air: considerate, altruistic and good.”

rkogan@chicagotribune.com