2024 FJSA Hall of Honor Announced
UPDATE: Event details for April 19 reception are here!
The Former Journalism Students Association of Texas A&M is proud to announce its 2024 Hall of Honor inductees: Cathie Anderson '86 and the late Al Reinert '70.
The Hall of Honor recognizes Aggie journalists for outstanding careers in the media, as well as those whose journalism education at Texas A&M led them to great heights in other fields. This year’s inductees were nominated by FJSA members, and selected by Hall of Honor recipients from previous years, plus the FJSA Board of Directors.
The awardees will be celebrated at Texas A&M at a reception on Friday April 19, 2024.
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Cathie Anderson '86
Cathie Anderson is a trailblazer. She was the first Black editor-in-chief of The Battalion, selected for that top job for fall 1986. For more than 30 years, she has been an editor and reporter for newspapers in some of the most dynamic cities in the United States, including the Sacramento Bee, Dallas Morning News, Detroit News and Austin-American Statesman.
At the Sacramento Bee, Cathie’s professional home for more than two decades, her roles have included health care reporter, business columnist, business editor and features editor. Currently, Cathie is the socio-economic mobility reporter for the newspaper, part of a special team dedicated to reporting on disenfranchised communities and elevating stories of community importance.
A skilled editor and storyteller, Cathie has won accolades for her leadership of the Bee’s business section and for her reporting on health care. And she has been on the forefront of engagement with readers, meeting them where they are, both to tell their stories and to connect with them.
Al Reinert '70 (Posthumous award)
Al Reinert’s passion and enthusiasm for space led him to become one of the great chroniclers of America’s space program. His 1989 documentary “For All Mankind,” which put original footage of the Apollo space program on the big screen in a way never seen before, won at Sundance and was nominated for an Academy Award. Al would again be nominated for an Academy Award as co-writer of the 1995 blockbuster “Apollo 13.”
As a filmmaker, his subjects also included Michael Morton, a man who had been wrongly imprisoned for a quarter-century, and the naturalist John James Audubon. But his journey took him beyond film. He began his career as a reporter at the Houston Chronicle, and was briefly the press secretary for then-U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson.
Al became one of the early writers at Texas Monthly, writing memorable stories about everything from the famous Chicken Ranch in La Grange, to what it means being an Aggie, where he wrote, “Nobody can fake being an Aggie. It has to come naturally to you, which is just another way of saying that Aggies are born, not made.” He concluded, “I’m an Aggie. To be an Aggie is not to wonder why.”
