FORMER ATLANTA ANCHOR TURNS AUTHOR FOR HISTORICAL FICTION FROM HIS PAST

John Pruitt, who retired as anchor after decades at Atlanta’s WSB and 11Alive (WXIA) is turning his attention to writing.

He penned a historic fiction based a 1964 murder of a decorated World War II Black veteran, who was killed by the Ku Klux Klan in Athens, Georgia. It was just days before the federal Civil Rights Act would be signed into law.

“Tell It True” from Mercer University Press, is being released on Tuesday.

“I wanted to recreate that era,” Pruitt told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. My first week on the job I’m watching four young Black people almost getting beaten to death by a rabid mob of white segregationists.”

In the book, the primary character in “Tell It True” is a cameraman much named Gil Matthews, who works at WDX-TV, standing in for WSB.