Celebrated Atlanta news anchor Jovita Moore sadly passed away on Thursday night (Oct. 28) months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Her station, WSB-TV, shared the tragic news on Friday morning (Oct. 29).
“After a nearly seven-month battle with an extremely aggressive form of brain cancer, our colleague and friend Jovita Moore has passed away,” WSB-TV anchor Justin Farmer said on air. “She passed last night as she wanted with her family by her side.”
According to WSB-TV, Moore had surgery for a brain tumor back in April. Three months later, it was announced that doctors diagnosed her with Glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer that was not initially detected. There is reportedly no cure for Glioblastoma and treatment only slows the cancer down.
Moore joined WSB-TV in 1998 as an evening anchor on the 11 p.m. newscast. She began her career in 1990 with KFSM in Fayetteville and Fort Smith, Arkansas; before moving on to WMC-TV in Memphis, Tennessee.
In 2017, Moore was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Southeast Chapter’s Silver Circle, one of the organization’s most prestigious career awards. She was also a member of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists, and won several Emmy Awards for journalism throughout her career.
On Twitter, fellow journalists and fans of Moore’s work reacted to her passing.
“You don’t come across too many people in this business who have the accolades, the status, the success but not the ego. Jovita Moore was one of them,” Executive News Producer Alex Spearman tweeted. “She was a light and an inspiration and I am grateful for the advice she gave me in the few times we met. May she rest in power.”
“Absolutely speechless about the passing of Jovita Moore,” reporter Jewel Wicker wrote. “I didn’t know her personally, but she’s long been an inspiration to me as a young Black woman trying to navigate the journalism industry here. My heart goes out to her family and all of my colleagues who were close to her.”
Moore is survived by her mother and her three children, “who she called the most important accomplishments of her life,” WSB-TV writes. See reactions to the news on Twitter below.