Veteran TV journalist Leon Bibb has more stories to tell – and that’s good news for Northeast Ohio viewers.
The long-time newsman has spent most of his career working within sight of the Lake Erie shoreline, first at The Plain Dealer, then at WKYC-Channel 3 for 16 years, followed by 22 years at WEWS-Channel 5. After a brief retirement, Bibb was lured back into the newsroom by WKYC, which gave him an offer too good to resist: working part-time reporting the stories that are important to him.
Bibb’s folksy manner and measured diction are a natural fit for his feature stories, but they’re also effective for more serious subjects, providing a familiar cadence to thought-provoking topics. He has a near-cult following in NEO, borne from his conversational demeanor and sharp insights. In person, Bibb is friendly, a gifted storyteller, relaxed and reflective. He appears much younger than his 74 years.
We spent a couple of hours with Bibb in a spacious conference room at WKYC. With an expansive view of Lake Erie and downtown as a backdrop, he talked about memorable interviews, race, fake news and why he shares a last name with two white Alabama governors.
Why did you come back?
It’s the business that I love. I could have retired years ago, but I just decided that’s not who I am. When I fly over Ohio or over the United States or wherever, and I look down and I see all those lights of the city – street lights, house lights, automobile lights at nighttime – I realize under every one of those lights there is a story – 10 stories, maybe 100 stories, maybe 1,000 stories. Everybody has a story to tell, so I’m just looking for stories to tell and to keep my middle age or older mug on TV.
What’s your best pitch for having an encore career?
I think you have to do what you love, do what turns you on, what gets you going. Now that I’m retired, I’m basically financially secure and that helps a great deal. I worked hard to get there, I saved my money and saved my money… I really don’t have to work, so I work for the giggles. I think you have to find your passion, so I’m doing this. (And) I’m slowly, slowly writing a novel and slowly writing my memoirs.
What’s your novel about?
My novel is about love, and romance, and jazz music, and television, and a man who meets a woman and they help each other through life and they’re both mature people. They meet in an unusual place and in an unusual time. The idea came to me years ago, and I need to push myself harder. I need to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning and write until 4:30 in the morning. It’s hard to do that.
In Northeast Ohio, what are some of your favorite places?
Well, I love Playhouse Square and any place where there’s jazz being played. I love classical music. I like to get out to Blossom. (Visitors) want to go to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Karamu (House) theater. I’m a Metroparks guy. I usually go out to Bedford and just sit and think or I’ll go over to North Chagrin Reservation and drive through there.
You’ve interviewed a lot of interesting, controversial people. Who sticks with you?
When I met the president, Obama, in 2011, I interviewed him; I got a one-on-one interview. (The White House) called me because they said they had heard about me, so I went to the White House several days later and when I walked into the room where we were to interview the president, he was already seated. When we sat down, the president said, “So you’re from Cleveland?” I said, “Yes, Mr. President,” and he said, “Are you guys over LeBron going to Miami?” I said, “Mr. President, we’re working hard on it, but we’re struggling.” He looked at me and smiled, and I looked at him and smiled, and he knew who I was and we spoke without words, we just looked at each other like you and I are looking at each other and smiled for 10 or 12 seconds, and we got started. It was a kick for me.
Anyone else who made a lasting impression?
I interviewed Larry Flynt, the pornographer (publisher of “Hustler” magazine). I was reporting on him in Tennessee because he was trying to get James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, another trial. I was doing television in Columbus in 1978 and he says, would you like to interview Ray about the Martin Luther King assassination? Larry Lived in Columbus, the magazine came out of Columbus…he was always around. He was notorious. The quote that he gave me, I’ll always remember it, Larry said, “Leon, you’re a good reporter and I’m a good pornographer.” He knew who he was, and he didn’t make any apologies for it.
I flew down to Tennessee with Larry and profiled him and James Earl Ray and the relationship those two men had. I saw him a few years ago, he was up in Cleveland, came to Channel 5 when I was over there, and I came out the door. We had done the interview in 1978, and I came into the parking lot and he was getting into his limousine; I came over to him and I said, “Larry, you may not remember me.” He said, “Oh, I remember you. Leon, Leon Bibb. You, me and James Earl Ray.”
Are you passionate about any particular causes?
Civil rights and relationships among people … how we can better live together. I work with groups that do that all the time. Literacy, children, the importance of reading, the importance of staying in school, trying to wipe out poverty. I’m on the advisory board for The Salvation Army. Bruce Akers, the former mayor of Pepper Pike, heard me give a speech once and I said something to the effect of “if Jesus Christ came back in human form today, where would he be?”
And I said he probably wouldn’t be sitting up in the halls of government, he probably wouldn’t be riding around the country in a long limousine. He probably would be at the curbside giving comfort to those who need comfort – the homeless, the poor and the sick. He probably would be doing that just as he did 2,000 years ago. Bruce Akers, a long-time member of The Salvation Army, he heard that and he came up to me a day later and said, would you like to be on the advisory board for The Salvation Army? That was 22 years ago and I’ve been a member since. I really believe that’s our role.
What role does your faith play in how you spend your time?
I grew up in a religious household. My mother and father were very much involved in the church. It’s vital to me. All that I am is what God has given to me. When you look at my life and what I’ve done, the hand of God has been on me and is still on me.
Have you ever seen a time when people were so distrusting of news?
It does seem that people are angry at the reporting of the news because there are voices that are saying we are the enemy of the people. We are not the enemy of the people. The press is the only profession that’s mentioned in the Constitution, and we have a role to play. And I think especially during these days, that role is very significant because there are other voices out there that are not truthful with what really is going on and we have to show that, we have to be the fact checkers.
What do you say to people searching for news sources they can trust?
I try to get them to check the facts. Do your own research. Read more than one newspaper. Certainly, read a newspaper. Look at different sources. Be observant.
The whole blackface issue going on in Virginia, does that surprise you?
It’s still out there and there are people who still don’t get it. Even in my yearbook, there was somebody in blackface in my Bowling Green State University yearbook on an organizational page. I guess I’m not surprised because so many things have come out in the last two years where people feel that they’re free to say almost anything, do almost anything and they don’t realize the history of blackface, that it is a way to dehumanize somebody and to take away the humanity of a group of people. It’s certainly prompting discussion.
I look at television commercials and we see the large numbers of black people and Hispanics and Latinos in commercials, gay people, women. When I was a kid, you never saw that. You might have seen a woman. People who looked like me, I rarely saw on television.
We have a president who says”make America great again.” What are you talking about, Mr. President? 1955? I was there. Mr. President, we’re not going back to 1955. Make it great again? America was great. It gets greater and greater and greater and greater. It’s great now and it will be great in the years to come if we stay the way we’re supposed to do. But I’m not going back to the past, what he’s talking about. I’m not going back there.
Have you had conversations with your grandkids about race?
I talk to my grandkids (about) if you’re stopped by the cops how to stay alive, as much as you can. When I’m stopped in town or out of town, there’s a certain procedure I go through if I run a stop light or a stop sign. I pull off to the side. I turn on the dome light if it’s nighttime. I roll the window down and I put both hands on the steering wheel and wait, turn the engine off, and wait. And (when a police officer) says, “Oh, could I see your license and registration?” I say, “It’s in my wallet and my wallet is in my left, front pocket. May I reach for it?” You can be right and get killed. So I’m just trying to keep him calm so I can live. And I’ve told my grandkids that, and my grandson especially. And we have to talk to them about how to carry yourself in public. Don’t think you can do everything other people can do.
Your point is that we need to talk about race more.
Race is part of my DNA in more ways than one. It’s part of my social fabric. My grandparents talked about it. My grandfather, Lee Bibb, was half white and half black in Alabama and his mother was a slave, so my great-grandmother was a slave. At (his) funeral, in Alabama in 1955, I was just a little tyke but I remember it very well, I’ve written about it. At the funeral, at the black Baptist church in a small town, white people showed up – and this was during segregation times. And I asked my daddy, who are they? He says, they’re our relatives. And I said, well, do they know that? And he says, yeah, they know that. Do they know we know it? They know we know it, but you don’t talk about these subjects across cultural lines. And the old white man who was part of that group said, we all know who Lee Bibb was. He was some of us and he was some of y’all.
My great-grandmother came off that (Bibb) plantation, which was owned by the Bibb family that sent two governors and one United States senator to Congress and the statehouse, so my bloodline runs into the Confederacy and into the United States Senate. When slavery ended, she took the name Bibb because she was off the Bibb Plantation. She had no last name.
When you’re a child and you hear these stories, they’re all around you. At any gathering, at my own dinner table – two of us at the dinner table, the subject of race will come up. Well, what did Trump say today? What did he say about people coming across the border? What did he say about white supremacy?
(When it comes to race) we’re working at it. It’s a slow, slow process, but we’re working on it. But we will get there, one day, probably not in my lifetime. But we’ll get there. Because that’s what we’re all about.
Did You Know?
Leon and his wife, Marguerite, have been married for 52 years.
They have two daughters and four grandchildren, ranging in age from 19 to 5 years old.
A graduate of Glenville High School, he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Bowling Green State University and was on the board of trustees for the university.
He received his graduate school acceptance letter while in Vietnam.
He performs in local theater productions.
Marie Elium is glad Leon Bibb has more to say.
