Bonita Cornute considers next move after Fox 2 buyout

Bonita Cornute is willing to entertain offers for how to continue to serve her adopted community of St. Louis now that she accepted a buyout from Fox 2, where she reported and anchored the news for more than 35 years. But not just yet.

“I am ready to chill,” she said – and not only at home. “I am going to travel a little. I need the mountains. I need a lake. I need to go sit by some water and some trees, not think about anything. Breathe in God’s good air and figure out what to do next.”

When she gets back to work, she is not sure what that will be. She might do some acting, her first love. She has done some readings with Ron Himes at Black Rep and an “Elegy” monologue with Bert Coleman said she “might try” some more acting if somebody asked.

Of course, media continues to present all sort of opportunities.

“I might try to freelance,” she said. “Do a podcast – I don’t know how, but it’s worth looking into. I never want to lose touch with what goes on with the community.”

She has many ongoing community commitments and the non-profit sector might come calling. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Mathews-Dickey Boys & Girls Club and is an active member of Links, Incorporated Archway (MO) Chapter and Iota Phi Lambda Sorority Alpha Zeta Chapter.

No doubt she would do more with her home church, St. Alphonsus “Rock” Liguori Church, except she already does so much. She handles sacramental preparation for children who go to public school receiving first communion, helps work the sound system during Mass, reads to the congregation one Sunday a month, and serves on the Art and Environment Committee.

She does not have a nuclear family to spend the proverbial more time with.

“I never married,” she said. “I thought work was more important. Silly me.”

Being a local icon has posed challenges as a woman dating men.

“Men are pretty particular,” she said. “If you are with them, they want you with them. They are not interested in sharing you with the public. One guy I dated said he was not interested in being called ‘Mr. Cornute.’” She is dating a guy now.

Born in Seattle and raised in Milwaukee, she has helped members of her own family settle in St. Louis and loves to indulge her nieces and nephews, especially her nieces, but she has no children of her own: “I kept thinking, ‘Work, work, work, you can’t have any kids.’”

It was family influence – from her mother, Dolores Cornute – that put her on the path to broadcast news as a child.

“My mother was a news junkie. Growing up in ‘60s and ‘70s with the Civil Rights Movement and the War in Vietnam, we watched Walter Cronkite, and you had to sit there be quiet. She wanted to know what was happening to Dr. King and how the war was progressing,” she said.

“She reacted passionately about what she saw. Sometimes she would get so mad she would throw things at the TV. She would cry and laugh at the TV, so I was drawn to it. That told me that little box and the information from that little box caused her to react emotionally – that is something; that has power. It influences how people think.”

Recent changes in the medium and news media generally made her grateful for the buyout. Compact, portable, connected cameras and social media have changed the broadcast news business. Stations also now compel reporters to shoot and edit their own stories, which makes it more of a grind.

She also does not mind leaving an industry that is under assault.

“The national conversation about journalists is enough to make you say, ‘What is the purpose? Why do we do it? How do we do it to ensure we are not continuously criticized for doing something that always provided balance?’ Somebody is doing their best to whittle away at that trust,” she said.

“We are expected to hold elected officials and civic leaders accountable, to hold them to a higher level of responsibility, and when they fail someone has to tell the world about it. But the conversation within the national political arena makes me wonder if that reputation or role is at risk or in jeopardy. I hope not.”

She remains a news junkie, and she still cares deeply about journalism – “I hope people push back against allegations of fake news” – but admitted, “I don’t know if I have the energy to be the leader of the battle against it.”

For now, no fighting, more resting.

“After 30 years of deadlines, emcee here, moderate that panel, participate in a community service project – there has always been a deadline for me,” she said. “Right now, I just need to rest.”

But she is not retired.

“I believe I am on the cusp of another opportunity, I just don’t know what the heck that is,” she said. “But I like to believe I am not all washed up or dried up. I know I am not going to sit down.”