Ken Screven outdoors at his Albany home in 2018.
Ken Screven, the first black man to hold a camera position in television news in the Capital Region when he was hired through CBS6/WRGB in 1977.
Ken Screven outdoors at his Albany home in 2018.
Friends piled up on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2018, for a satisfying hour hosted by former WRGB producer Jomo Miller in honor of Ken Screven Day from the 10th to the 7th at Ship’s Pub on Northern Boulevard in Loudonville, a bar once popular on radio and television. people.
ALBANY – Ken Screven, the first black man hired to work as a journalist for a Capital Region television station and a figure esteemed in television news for more than three decades before spending the years since his retirement exposing racism, prejudice and bigotry in his masculine forms. He died Wednesday afternoon in a hospital after long fights with physical problems. He was 71 years old.
Known for his deep, deep voice, thunderous laughter, cheerfully petty sense of humor, and willingness to interact fiercely with political enemies that has only been overshadowed by his wonderful capacity for friendship and empathy, Screven has had an effect on large swaths. of the population. Most knew him from his presence in their living rooms as a reporter for CBS6/WRGB, where he worked as an award-winning journalist from 1977 until his retirement in 2011. Others were proud to have him as a prominent member of the LGBTQ community, a fact he never tried to hide despite the visibility of his career. And even more he met Screven from a busy social life, in bars before he got sober in the early 1990s, then in restaurants, at cultural events and, when he physically couldn’t get around, from his posts on Facebook and elsewhere. Online.
“Ken lived out loud and made us all better because of that,” said Benita Zahn, whose career in local TV news coincided with Screven’s from her 1979 WNYT debut until her retirement.
Calling Screven “intelligent, irreverent (and) kind,” Zahn said, “I enjoyed it immediately, and we embraced each other in one and both ways: as journalists, as community members of the capital region, as human beings. “
“He was an elegant actor and he fulfilled his task as a journalist, but you knew how much he cared about the network and the things that were going on and affecting so many other people in complicated ways,” said former Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings. The two met when Jennings was an administrator at Albany High School, before being covered through Screven as a member of Albany’s joint council and five-term mayor.
In what she called Screven a pioneer, current Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan cited her HIV/AIDS policy and a three-part series for CBS6, issued in 1996 after a decade of lobbying through Screven, which traced her family’s lineage back to a large grandpa’s grave in a separate cemetery in Screven County. in Georgia. Titled “The Mystery of Screven County” and available on YouTube, the series won the best documentary award from the Associated Press Association of New York State Broadcasters.
“He agreed to be in paintings at a time when it wasn’t widely accepted,” said Libby Post, a veteran lobbyist and LGBTQ activist. in paintings”.
Throughout his career, Screven has reported on five New York governors, four Albany mayors, countless other Capital Region mayors, and dozens of significant criminal cases and trials. Among them, Delmar University student Christopher Porco, convicted of an axe attack in 2004 that mutilated his mother and left his father dead.
Attention to the case was so intense that before the trial was transferred to Orange County, the Albany County District Attorney’s office set up what purported to be a secret off-site workplace dedicated to the case.
“All the local and national media were looking for more data or advice,” Rachel McEneny, then a DA spokeswoman, recalled Wednesday. McEneny said, “Ken figured out his way to the secret office. . . and walked for safety and entered the area where our lawyers worked. “
Born on September 18, 1950 and raised and knowledgeable in his local Queens, Screven worked in radio news in the Capital Region before moving on to television.
“I wasn’t surprised that it came out on radio and TV. Maybe he just communicated and had a knack for being popular,” said Screven’s older brother, Earl. When Ken Screven arrived at high school in Queens a year after his brother, “he has become the maximum popular user in total school,” Screven said.
As an example of the barriers and prejudices Ken Screven faced as a black man on local news, he told a story about his arrival for an interview early in his career, either with a prospective employer or with a subject of history who only knew him through radio. And He was said, “You don’t look black. “
In telling the story, Screven would stop. Although he was known from the sound of his voice, he understood the strength of silence. After letting the effect of “You Don’t Sound Black” absorb, Screven would make a facial expression — nod, raise his eyebrows above the glasses, too — and then add one of his favorite sarcastic euphemisms: “Charming. “
He hasn’t faced potential employers or history issues about his career. But after his retirement, free from the moral legal responsibility of a public neutrality journalist, Screven spoke with wonderful volume, strength, and frequency, especially after Donald Trump ran for president of the United States. United and, to Screven’s indignation, he won.
“I’m horrified by Trump fans, for what he’s done to America,” Screven told The Times Union in a 2018 interview. He said: “No matter how little voice I have, screaming, screaming, about it. This is wrong; whoever fights for him is wrong, because everything is founded on hatred. “
Michael Huber, a former Times Union blogger, recruited a Screven after his retirement to make a contribution to the network’s blogs on the newspaper’s website, and the two have become close friends.
“Ken stopped him when he was a journalist. We can believe what he experienced as a great black gay man in a public role,” said Huber, now head of communications and marketing at the New York State Institute of Writers, founded at the University at Albany.
Via text message, Huber said, “When Ken started blogging with TU, his gloves fell off. He fought hard. Zero tolerance for the haters and the fanatics. To use one of his favorite words, he is ‘fierce. ‘”Our network has lost a vital voice, a unique voice. “
Screve your urgency, compassion and advocacy for In Our Own Voices, an Albany-based organization that serves LGBTQ communities of color. He co-founded the group Life After 50 of In Our Own Voices.
“In our meetings, he would be the one listening to everyone,” said Tandra LaGrone, executive director of In Our Own Voices.
Being an older adult himself, one of Screven’s goals is to advocate for older members of the LGBTQ community, especially other people of color, and he tried to fight the social isolation some members revel in as they age, LaGrone said.
Screven’s notoriety helped secure tens of thousands of dollars in global network development grants that were used to acquire tablets and other technologies to help LGBTQ seniors stay connected, according to LaGrone.
“Thanks to him and his voice, we have been able to increase the budget for this program in particular,” he said. “Definitely thanks to him. Ken is contagious about what matters to him. “
He also thought of him as a worried friend.
“He’s an amazing listener, and a verbal exchange with Ken was a genuine open exchange,” Jon South, an old friend, said via email.
South said: “The funniest and sweetest thing about him was that he told you the occasionally brutal truth, and there was a silent pause when you knew it was going to happen. If I had five cents for every time I said, “Oh, honey, fire this guy,” I’d be rich. I will love him to the moon and back.
Tess Collins, who has been the dean of Albany bars and nightlife since her debut at the former Justin’s on Lark Street in 1989, met Screven a few years earlier, when she was 20 and working at the old Beverwyck, also in Lark.
When a mutual friend died of AIDS, “Ken was very smart to me. It actually helped me get through this,” said Collins, who later owned Lark Tavern for six years and has reigned since 2010 at McGeary’s Pub in downtown Albany, where Screven had long lunches rich in conversations with teams of friends.
Shahila Abbasi, mcGeary’s former chef, recalled in an online comment, “I knew when I was (there) because I heard his contagious laughter (from the kitchen). “
In recent years, Collins said, “It was like having a close cousin. You didn’t want to communicate about things. . . because you knew each other very well. We went through very difficult times, we helped each other. “. “
Collins added: “He in each and every era of my life. My center is broken. “
Screven’s physical disorders accelerated after his retirement. He was confined to his home, not leaving his beloved apartment on State Street, near Lark, for 8 months. in the hospital and 11 months in a Dutchess County nursing home.
After returning to Albany, Screven lost over 140 pounds in 3 years and returned, dining with friends and members of rehab teams and attending shows.
Calling Screven a “greater theatre of the Capital Region,” veteran local actor and director Patrick White recalled Screven in an online commentary and said, “I loved his presence and was incredibly grateful for his friendship and love, which we celebrated with laaaargos lunches. “full of stories at McGeary’s. “
Screven’s physical condition deteriorated further last year after a fall at home forced him to be hospitalized starting in October and then travel between the hospital and a Fulton County nursing home he despised. in online donations for medical expenses and to purchase devices so that they can be transferred to Shaker Place Rehabilitation.
However, he remained hospitalized and had to leave his State Street apartment in late April, according to Earl Screven. On dialysis 3 times a week and with other medical problems, Screven was admitted to the intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center Hospital on Tuesday. He died Wednesday afternoon of kidney failure, Post said.
The survivors come with Earl Screven, his wife, Rosetta, and their 18 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Earl Screven said the main points of the service were finalized wednesday night, but will most likely be the last Saturday in May.