alumni profile

Marc Watts (’82): Former reporter found justice for man sentenced to death

By Judy Sone Vue

Ever since Marc Watts graduated from the University of Washington in 1987, he has had an impressive career marked with various achievements. He can count 45 journalism awards to his name, including Emmy and Cable Ace awards. He has worked as a TV news reporter for CNN. Despite having such bragging rights, Watts doesn’t consider any of these his proudest moment. Instead, he says it was a story involving a high school janitor named Clarence Brandley in the small town of Conroe, Texas.

Brandley was an African-American working at Conroe High School. Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a 16-year-old student at the school, went missing on August 23, 1980, and her body was soon discovered by Brandley and another janitor named Henry Peace, who was white.

The two janitors were interrogated. According to the advocacy group, the Justice Project, investigators pinned the murder on Brandley without a thorough investigation. “One of you is going to have to hang for this. Since you’re the nigger, you’re elected,” an unnamed investigator supposedly said. Brandley was sentenced to death in February 1981. 

In 1991, Brandley was still on death row and had not yet been executed. At that time, Watts was working at KHOU television in Houston. “I witnessed testimony from (Brenda Medina), the former girlfriend of the person who really killed the girl. She told me in confidence who really (did it). At first, I thought she was a lunatic,” he said. Eventually, Watts was convinced that Medina was, indeed, telling the truth.

It took some persuading to get her to talk on the record about what she knew. Watts and his crew had to drive 45 minutes north of Houston to her house and she was still reluctant. “I asked her, ‘Would you rather see an innocent man put to death?’ And 45 minutes later, she called my beeper and told me she was ready to come on camera and talk (and) provided eyewitness testimony that really broke the case,” he said. Medina went on to testify that James Dexter Robinson, another janitor at the high school, had been the one who had killed Ferguson. 

The evidence was good enough for the district attorney of Conroe to drop the charges against Clarence Brandley. 

“As reporters, we get a lot of chances to make a difference in people’s lives,” Watts said. “We get in this business called reporting because we have this desire to inform the public.”

He admits that many reporters typically have big egos, another reason why they want to get in front of the camera. He admits he had one too. “I was always the person who always said, ‘Hey be quiet, I’m the one talking,’” he said with a laugh as he recalls being a young reporter. 

Watts’ reporting days are past him. He left CNN in March of 1997 to get into the business aspect of the news industry. He currently works as a broadcast talent agent, training other people who are pursuing careers in news television, and he also provides media coaching for athletes and CEOs, training them how to interact with the media.

Despite the comforts of his careers, he still misses being a reporter. “I missed out on some phenomenal stories,” he said, with a small pang of regret. Three particular stories caught his attention: 9/11, the Barack Obama election and the Elian Gonzalez ordeal. “I miss the fact that I didn’t get to cover any of those three stories. I felt I could have brought that story into TV households across the world,” he said.

Watts is well aware of the dismal state of the news industry today. His advice to graduating college students who still have dreams of working in it? “Learn all the functions of that industry as you can because one day you’re likely going to have the opportunity like me to move into a different arena of the same industry. I went from editorial side to the business to the entrepreneurial side. Those doors that have been opened up for me would have never opened for me (otherwise),” he said. 

He also says it’s critical to learn a specialty. "I say this with 100 percent certainty. Someone from CNN will call me and say hey ‘I’m looking for a technology journalist, or a financial journalist or a medical journalist.' Because the field of journalism is so specialized, it’s not longer good enough just for someone to be just a reporter. It’s no longer just enough to learn the five W’s, it’s not enough to learn the inverted pyramid. You’ve got to learn a specialty,” he said.

Despite the difficulties the news industry is experiencing, Watts is still hopeful. “Every day, millions of people pick up a newspaper and read something and they learn something they didn’t know the day before,” he said.

To Watts, that makes the profession still worth something.