Four Distinguished Communicators Join LSU Manship School’s 2024 Hall of Fame

Martin Johnson (in memoriam), LSU ‘91

Martin Johnson, Ph.D., started his career in journalism by serving as editor-in-chief of the Reveille and earning a bachelor’s degree from the Manship School in 1991. He went on to earn a master’s and doctorate in political science from Rice University before becoming department chair and professor at University of California, Riverside, and eventually returning to the Manship School as the Kevin P. Reilly, Sr. Chair in Political Communication. He was named the School's third dean in July 2018 and served until his passing in September 2020.

Johnson studied media, politics, public opinion, political psychology and public policy. His book, Changing Minds or Changing Channels: Partisan News in an Age of Choice, was co-winner of the 2014 Goldsmith Book Prize awarded by the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. In 2022, the American Political Science Association named the book the most influential work in Political Communication in the last decade, honoring the work with the Doris Graber Outstanding Book Award.

Johnson’s long involvement with the Manship School began in his early childhood. He grew up less than a mile away from LSU, and his parents were both teachers with LSU degrees. He said he always knew he wanted to attend LSU, and those plans came to fruition when he received the Chancellor’s Alumni Scholarship, now known as the President’s Alumni Scholarship, for his academic performance at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. He continued his success during his college years as the editor-in-chief of the Reveille, an announcer for KLSU and the editor of the student magazine.

After graduating from the Manship School, Johnson attended graduate school at Rice University. Shortly after, Johnson was offered an assistant professorship in the political science program at the University of California, Riverside. Eventually, Johnson found his way back to Louisiana and the Manship School after being offered the Kevin P. Reilly Sr. Chair in Political Communication and was appointed dean in 2018.  In that role, he loved mentoring students—both undergraduate and graduate—and finding ways to help his faculty colleagues get the resources they need to do their best work in the classroom and as researchers and practitioners. His research, journalism and teaching passions merged in his work with Jay Shelledy to create the Manship State House Bureau, which, he often said, was the best thing he had done in his career. Providing experiential learning for Manship students and a journalistic resource for Louisiana exemplifies the goals and values that motivated Johnson as a teacher, researcher, community member and citizen.

Gil LeBreton, LSU ‘75

Gil LeBreton’s sportswriting career spanned more than five decades, beginning with the Times-Picayune in his hometown of New Orleans and continuing for 37 years as an award-winning sports columnist with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

His first role with the Star-Telegram was covering the Dallas Cowboys as the paper’s daily beat writer. In his earlier years, LeBreton had also been the beat reporter covering LSU and the New Orleans Saints on the staffs of the Times-Picayune and Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. His other newspaper stops included Kansas City and Baltimore, as well as serving as publicity director for the 1975 World Football League's Birmingham team. He remains the only writer to win state Sportswriter of the Year awards in both Louisiana and Texas.

After serving with the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1971-72, LeBreton returned home to Louisiana and graduated with a degree in journalism from LSU. He spent three years as a student assistant in the school's Sports Information Office, learning (as many did) under the wise hand of Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame member the late Paul Manasseh.

Over the years, LeBreton covered 26 Super Bowls, 16 Olympic Games, 16 NCAA Basketball Final Fours, soccer's World Cup, the Masters, the Tour de France, the NBA Finals, hockey's Stanley Cup Finals and the Wimbledon tennis championships. He covered sporting events in France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Greece, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina and Canada, as well as in 41 of the 50 states. LeBreton’s one-on-one interviews, over the years, included the great Muhammad Ali, Tom Landry, Nolan Ryan, John Wooden, Jack Nicklaus, Lance Armstrong, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Mike Tyson, Bruce Jenner, O.J. Simpson, Pete Rozelle and former President George W. Bush.

LeBreton’s writing and reporting from the Olympic Games became a fixture in the Fort Worth newspaper and won numerous state and national awards. His stories for the Picayune on Louisiana Olympic hopefuls before the 1976 Montreal Games (the first Olympics that LeBreton covered) were honored as the Louisiana Sportswriters Association’s top series, the same year that his column on the one-year anniversary of the World Football League’s demise was named LSWA's story of the year.

Upon his retirement from the Fort Worth paper and seeing that many of his fellow journalists in the Dallas-Fort Worth area had fallen victim to the newspaper business’s changing tides, LeBreton launched PressBoxDFW.com to give fellow writers a chance to return to the press box. More than 20 sportswriters saw their bylines appear on PressBox DFW.

Abram “Abe” McGull, LSU ‘83

Abram “Abe” McGull has distinguished himself as a public affairs officer in the United States Navy, a news photographer at WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and as an elected official in Missouri.

McGull is the founder of the McGull Law Firm that focuses upon personal injury claims and criminal defense. Prior to establishing his private practice in law, McGull was an Assistant United States Attorney with the United States Department of Justice and a Commander in the United States Navy for 21 years. He retired from both positions and recently opened his law office in Springfield, Missouri. During his tenure with the Department of Justice, McGull served as a resident legal advisor in Iraq and Qatar. His service with the Department of Justice earned him the State Department Meritorious Honor Award for his creative and strategic diplomacy in northern Iraq.

McGull’s 21-year military service utilized his outstanding communication skills that were forged at the Manship School of Mass Communication. During his combat tours in Iraq, McGull served as the Media Operations Chief, where he fielded hundreds of media queries, managed civilian, military and local nationals’ public affairs specialists to keep international and U.S. media informed of combat activities in Iraq. His stellar performance earned him the highly coveted Bronze Star and Joint Service Commendation medals for his outstanding duty and performance as the chief of media operations in Baghdad, Iraq, and other service-related missions during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

In civilian life, McGull used his communication skills to become the first Black mayor of Pleasant Valley, Missouri. He later ran for public office in Springfield, Missouri, and was elected twice to the city council, where he currently serves. He is a board member of Guaranty Bank and past president of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

McGull earned his law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and his undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism and mass communication from the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication and Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, respectively.

Wendy McMahon, LSU ‘96 

A highly accomplished media executive with a record of driving audience growth and business success across all broadcast, digital and streaming platforms, Wendy McMahon is president and chief executive officer of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures (CMV). She assumed this newly created and expanded role that includes singular oversight of CBS News and Stations, as well as leadership of CBS' domestic syndication business, in August 2023.

McMahon leads all of CBS News' broadcast and streaming operations, 27 local television stations, 14 local news streaming channels and CMV's top-rated first-run syndication programming, as well as its content licensing to television stations and the division's national advertising sales business. Prior to assuming this role, she served as president and co-head of CBS News and Stations, since May 2021, and shared responsibility for bringing together for the first time the people and resources of CBS News, CBS News Digital and CBS Television Stations to create the nation’s leading local-to-global news organization.

Under McMahon's leadership, CBS has reimagined its approach to operating the Company's television stations in 17 major U.S. markets, the stations' websites and mobile platforms, local news streaming channels, and Newspath, the CBS Television Network's affiliate news service.

Embracing what she calls "The Three C's: Content, Culture and Community," McMahon has championed initiatives that have increased the local news hours produced by CBS Stations from 26,000 in 2021 to more than 35,000 in 2023—with an emphasis on solutions-oriented community journalism that aligns with the stations' mission of making the markets they serve better places to live. The station group's expansion efforts also include the creation of the CBS Local News Innovation Lab in Dallas-Fort Worth, where a curated team of journalists produce next-generation storytelling and investigations that leverage data and technology to deepen viewer engagement; the "Newsroom of the Future" at CBS News Detroit; and the first-ever morning news franchise at KCAL in Los Angeles.

Under McMahon, CBS News and Stations has prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, hired and promoted several women and/or people of color to serve in key roles, and dramatically improved the workplace environment for all of its team members. In the past year, McMahon has been recognized for her leadership by being named as one of Variety's Women's Impact Report honorees and a Wonder Woman of Los Angeles by Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable.

Prior to returning to CBS in 2021, McMahon was president of the ABC Owned Television Stations, with direct responsibility for the Walt Disney Company's eight broadcast stations, local newsrooms and streaming assets. Before that, she was the senior vice president of ABC Owned Television Stations' Digital, where she crafted a multiplatform future for the group and was responsible for leading digital content, products and technology, and audience development strategies and initiatives.

Previously, McMahon served as vice president of marketing at KABC in Los Angeles and as a creative services director at CBS-owned stations WBZ in Boston and WCCO in Minneapolis-St. Paul. She began her career as a promotion manager for WTOC in Savannah, Georgia.

In 2019, McMahon was named the Young Alumna of the Year by her alma mater, LSU, and the Digital Leader of the Year by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). McMahon graduated summa cum laude from LSU with a bachelor's degree in mass communication – broadcast journalism.