A descendant of storytellers and story lovers, Donna Bryson first discovered her affinity for journalism in high school, where she edited her school magazine, the Serrandipity after school namesake, 18th century missionary Junipero Serra. Her adviser, Laura Hiltz, encouraged her to pursue journalism in college. Donna was admitted to her first choice of universities, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
Donna simultaneously earned bachelor’s and master’s journalism degrees, with highest distinction, from Northwestern University in 1986. During college, she interned at The Boston Globe and The Associated Press bureau in Columbus, Ohio. “Northwestern’s program was very hands-on with a lot of internships. In Columbus, I learned to do a little bit of everything, including covering tornadoes. Every day was different,” Donna says.
After she graduated, AP offered her a job in its Kansas City bureau. A year later, she opened a one-woman AP satellite office in Springfield, Missouri, where, among her assignments, she covered the scandal that brought down the evangelical empire of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker.
In 1989 Donna was promoted to world desk editor and did stints as a UN correspondent for The Associated Press in New York before moving abroad with AP in 1993. She was in Johannesburg when apartheid ended and the first democratic elections were held in South Africa. Donna attended the initial hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and recalls “it was a powerful step for a country to take. It set an example for others.”
She also had a “sit-down” with Nelson Mandela after he was elected president. She says, “He was genuinely interested in people. He wasn’t at all antagonistic to the press as some leaders are.” While in Johannesburg, she also covered stories in Angola, Botswana, what is now Congo, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe as well as in Rwanda near the end of the genocide there.
“Donna represents the very best of journalism: unwavering integrity, deep compassion, and the ability to bring out the best in others. Her impact ripples through the stories she’s shaped and the journalists she’s mentored, creating a legacy that continues to influence our profession,” says Paisley Dodds, former AP London Bureau Chief.
Donna was based in Johannesburg from 1993 to 1996; New Delhi from 1996 to 1999; Cairo from 1999 to 2005; and London from 2005 to 2008. She returned to South Africa for AP from 2008 to 2012 as chief of bureau.
That second South Africa assignment led to the writing of her first book, the award-winning It’s a Black-White Thing. The book explores the struggle to get past racism after apartheid among young South Africans at the University of Free State. It won first place in the 2015 NFPW and CPW communications contests and was short-listed for the national City Press Tafelberg Nonfiction Award in South Africa. She visited South Africa to promote the book in 2014 and made trips in 2022 and 2025 to reconnect with friends there.
Donna, her husband, Fred Glick, and daughter, Thandi moved back to the States in 2012 and settled in Denver, Fred’s hometown. Donna began freelancing, and her list of publications is impressive, from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, the Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Stars and Stripes, and US News & World Report.
“Colorado Press Women is incredibly proud to have Donna Bryson as a member. I met her shortly after she relocated to Denver from South Africa and had entered her first book in the NFPW contest. She knew no one and was getting a few part-time assignments from the local Associated Press bureau. Now it seems the whole city knows who Donna is, and that’s due to sheer talent and friendliness because she never brags about the incredible journalism career she’s had,” says Sandy Nance, CPW co-president.
A freelance assignment for Stars and Stripes explored how the Western Slope town of Montrose, population 20,000, developed the Welcome Home Alliance for Veterans to create a “no barriers” community where all veterans, from any war, could thrive. Donna decided the program deserved more exposure than one story could provide, so she researched, wrote and in 2018 published Home of the Brave: A Small Town, Its Veterans and the Community They Built Together. The book, which won a second-place award in the NFPW Communications Contest, relates in detail how Melanie Kline, a small-business owner in Montrose, was inspired after seeing a TV news story about teaching wounded veterans to white-water kayak. Kline led a communitywide effort in Montrose to provide veterans with mental health support, job and housing advice and a gathering place called Warrior Resource Center.
Donna says that both her books explore the same core issue and spring from the same source: “They are both about building communities, and both are inspired by the news.”
“Donna is a lucid writer, well-organized, and passionate about her craft and subjects. Her two books, It’s a Black White Thing and Home of the Brave, reflect her talent for empathetic listening and chronicling. She has been a warm and encouraging mentor to younger journalists,” says John Daniszewski, President, The Overseas Press Club Foundation; AP Vice President for Standards, 2016-25; Chair, The Pulitzer Prizes, 2021-22.
In 2018, Donna joined Denverite as housing and hunger reporter and was recognized by The Society of Professional Journalists as 2019 Journalist of the Year for her work there. She was recruited by Reuters in 2021, and became a national affairs editor, helping guide coverage of breaking news in the United States.
In 2023, Donna played a key role in the award-winning Reuters Slavery Project, serving as a researcher, editor and writer. The project involved over a dozen journalists working together for more than a year while they continued with their routine Reuters assignments. The heart of the seven-part series was a story about more than 100 U.S. leaders – lawmakers, presidents, governors and justices – who have slaveholding ancestors. It also featured “All We Are Is Memory,” Donna’s story about how we teach hard history that touched on her family’s story.
In the 1930s, her great-grandfather, General Bryson, was pulled from the store he owned in Harmony Grove (now Commerce), Georgia, and tarred and feathered by a group of white men. Donna’s father, who died last year, was not quite ten when he glimpsed a mob from the truck in which he was riding outside Monroe, Georgia. Two Black couples, including a pregnant woman, were lynched that day, and no one was ever charged with the crime.
In “All We Are is Memory” Donna wrote that “the educational opportunities that helped take me to Northwestern were a far cry from those my now 86-year-old father was afforded growing up in the segregated South. At that time, high school for Black students ended at the 11th grade in Commerce, so my father left Georgia to continue his education. He completed 12th grade at a boarding school for Black students at what is now Voorhees University, a historically Black institution in South Carolina. He then earned his bachelor’s in chemistry at what is now West Virginia State University.” Her father, an Army veteran, worked for the Department of Defense. Her mother was a nurse.
The story won first place in the feature category in NFPW’s 2024 Communication Contest. The project was a winner in the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2024 Salute to Excellence Awards in the Digital Media – Online Project: News category and the Online Journalism Awards in the Topical Reporting — Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Identity category. The project inspired Brazilian journalists to attempt something similar.
“The project was a career highlight. It was a way to get to know and work with Reuters’ staff beyond my own team,” Donna says.
Over the 2021-2022 academic year, Donna and photographer Kevin Mohatt followed two Black cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, resulting in the 2024 Reuters’ story, “Two Black cadets and the struggle for diversity at an elite US military institution.”
“The world of journalism needs more people like Donna Bryson who bring an honesty and spirit to reporting that is infectious to all with whom she works,” says Corinne Perkins, Editor, North America Pictures for Reuters.
Donna’s empathy for those she covers includes studying the art, language and culture of the people on her beats. Her vocabulary includes words in Arabic, Hindi and Zulu, and she has been a student of French since high school. Since moving to Denver, she has been studying Spanish.
In addition to reporting and editing for Reuters, Donna writes an NFPW award-winning online blog, which can be found at donnabryson.com. Her blog essays vary from stories about her family to racism, political issues and thoughtful commentaries on books that she’s read, and art and music she enjoys.
Donna’s home is a converted steam plant built in Denver for a World War II-era Army depot, designed by the well-known architect Temple Hoyne Buell. The space is a perfect showcase for art the family has collected around the world as they traveled for work and for pleasure. NFPW members who take advantage of the Denver pre-tour will be hosted by Donna and Fred in their unique, art-filled home.
Fred is a commercial real estate developer and urban planner working primarily on adaptive reuse projects in Denver’s urban core. He is the vice-chair of the Denver Planning Board and a member of the Lower Downtown Design Review. Fred has served on the board of the Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, and he and Donna helped keep the organization afloat during the pandemic to support artists and bring art to the community. Daughter Thandi, now 21, is an instructor at an outdoor education camp in Texas.
Donna’s practice of collecting art began when she was working in Kansas City for the AP where she purchased a charcoal sketch by Harlem Renaissance artist William Carter. In South Africa, she found that art helped her gain a deeper understanding of the society she was covering. The first art that she and Fred collected together was a significant series depicting life in a Black township by David Koloane, named as one of the most important artists to come out of apartheid-era South Africa.
“Every place we’ve lived we collected art. I see it as a tribute to the artists as well as an autobiography of their lives and ours. As I look around at the art in my home, I am reminded of my career,” Donna says. Currently she and Fred are focusing on supporting local artists, and recently acquired the striking Tire Fire, a 15-foot-high sculpture by Denver artist Anthony Garcia Sr. made of irregularly stacked, painted car tires.
Donna joined Colorado Press Women in 2014, saying “I was drawn by CPW’s seriousness about media training, supporting young journalists and First Amendment issues.” In addition to speaking to CPW about each of her books at authors’ luncheons, Donna served as CPW’s representative to the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and was a member of the coalition’s Board of Directors. She is an active member of the CPW Writers’ Group, which meets monthly to critique the work of members who are writing novels, nonfiction and blogs.
Her strong belief in mentoring led her to organize special sessions to be held at the 2025 NFPW Conference where seasoned professionals will be available to review portfolios and practice interview skills with students, aspiring journalists and public relations professionals or those seeking a career change. Donna will serve as moderator for the opening panel and roundtable facilitator at the conference as well as hosting the reception at her home.
Her volunteer work has included serving as a judge for the NFPW student writing contest and East High School’s Arps Essay Contest. She has been an elementary school mentor for Denver Public Schools and co-taught a Social Justice Storytelling Workshop at Colorado State University
Upon settling in Denver, Donna joined WorldDenver, a nonprofit whose mission is to foster understanding of world affairs and cultures. It brings about 600 international visitors to Denver each year in a partnership with the U.S. State Department. It also hosts speaking events and sends groups to other countries. Through WorldDenver, Donna and her family have hosted several foreign visitors.
Soft-spoken and humble, Donna is the consummate journalist who truly cares about every person she covers and every story she writes or edits. Colorado Press Women is proud to nominate the accomplished, kind-hearted Donna Bryson as the 2025 National Federation of Press Women Communicator of Achievement. Our affiliate strongly agrees with John Daniszewski, who says, “I do not think there could be a better choice for this award.”
