2025 Moderator: Chuck Stokes

Chuck Stokes is the editorial/public affairs director for WXYZ-TV/Channel 7 in Detroit, Michigan.  Additionally, he serves as moderator and producer of Spotlight on the News, Michigan’s longest-running weekly news and public affairs show created in 1965.

Before he became Channel 7’s editorial/public affairs director, Stokes worked as the station's executive producer of special projects in news.  And prior to joining WXYZ-TV, Stokes was employed at WTVF-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, as a producer and on-air reporter.  He has also been a sports writer for the Washington Post.

He has accumulated a long list of personal awards and achievements including 12 Emmys for editorial reporting and two Emmys for documentary reporting.  In 2001, Stokes received the "The Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.  He is a past president of both the National Conference of Editorial Writers and its Foundation.  In 2011, Stokes was inducted into the Michigan Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame and in 2012 he received the “Life Membership Award” from the Association of Opinion Journalists (formerly called the National Conference of Editorial Writers).  He is also a member of and an interview/discussion program award winner by the National Association of Black Journalists, past president of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Foundation and the Historical Society of Michigan of which he has been honored with its History Hero Award. He is also a recipient of the Detroit Urban League’s Distinguished Warrior Award. In addition, he sits on the board of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications.  

Stokes frequently appears as a panelist on Off the Record with Tim Skubick, a statewide PBS program produced by WKAR-TV in East Lansing at Michigan State University.  He is a Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta and holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.   A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Stokes is married to video producer Trudy Gallant-Stokes, has two daughters, two sons-in-laws, and a grandson. 

Chuck Stokes