Award-Winning Black Journalist Reaches Out To Black Community

WASHINGTON, DC— Award-winning broadcast journalist Bruce Johnson wants to get the word out to African Americans about the benefits of a heart healthy lifestyle and the road to recovery after a heart attack. Nearly two decades after his own heart attack at the age of 42, Johnson has written Heart to Heart(200 pp, published by iUniverse, a book that details the dramatic stories of twelve heart attack survivors, including Johnson and three other African Americans: Barbara Robinson, Reverend James Love, and Larry Harris.

" Heart to Heart is about the power of one heart attack survivor sharing his or her story with another survivor," says Johnson. Survivors talk candidly about life's stresses, including socio-economic pressures, such as unemployment and divorce. Much has been written about the medical side of cardiovascular disease. Heart to Heart is the first book written about the human and emotional side.

Johnson, a native of Louisville, KY, mined his family’s secrets and took an inventory of his own life, which included some reckless behavior that may have contributed to his heart attack. His cardiovascular event occurred while on a street assignment for WUSA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC. The actions of Johnson’s photographer got him to a hospital in time for a team of medical professionals to perform an emergency angioplasty that saved his life.

As part of his transformation, the author modified his soul food diet and learned to exercise intelligently. He became a runner and, at the age of 50, eventually completed the 26.2 mile-long Marine Corps Marathon ahead of half of the men in his age category.

According to the American Heart Association: Research studies reveal that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for African American males and females age 20 and older. Statistics show that African Americans have a higher risk for cardiovascular disease than Caucasians. Unfortunately, many African Americans don’t know the risks for heart disease and stroke. Those who do know or experience actual warning signs often wait until it is too late to seek emergency care.

“The good news is that while Heart to Heart reads like a novel, it contains a wealth of information and firsthand accounts of how African Americans can reverse heart disease or avoid, reduce or eliminate whatever risks they have for heart attacks and cardiovascular events,” says Johnson.

The author encourages everyone to visit his Heart to Heart Web site, www.brucejohnsonhearttoheart.com, for more information and resources about heart healthy lifestyles, cardiovascular disease, and heart attacks, and to join him in an ongoing conversation about these and related topics on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/2fl2hhq and Twitter at www.twitter.com/cbrucejohnson.

About the Author

As a reporter and anchor for CBS affiliate WUSA-TV in Washington, DC, for more than 30 years, Johnson has earned a reputation as an urban affairs and investigative journalist. He has been dispatched on special assignment to many world capitals, including Moscow, Port-au-Prince, Bangkok, Dakar, Paris, Tokyo, Budapest and Stockholm. He has won 19 Emmys and hundreds of civic honors. In 2003, he was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame.

Heart to Heart received the Publisher’s Rising Star Award.

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