Every time you read or listen the news in Memphis, you see an article or a commentary from Otis Sanford. That’s if viewers watch WREG-TV or read the Commercial Appeal.
Every commentary Sanford has done ends with this statement “and that’s my point of view”. He is known through the Mid South as a journalist, author and commentator. He has written on many issues in Memphis. He also has ties to Memphis politics with his book he published recently from Boss Crump to King Willie. The book talks about the racial divide of Memphis politics and issues. From the days of E.H. Crump and his influence on Memphis mayors ,to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, to the former first African American mayor in the city William Herrington.
Sanford began writing in grade school. His love for reading the news and his journalism class in high school launched his career. In college he was a copy boy at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. He ran errands for the reporters and editors. Then he went to the Clarion Ledger for two years as a reporter. In 1977 he got his first job as a general assignment reporter for the Commercial Appeal.
From there he had many jobs including in Pittsburgh and Detroit. When he came back to Memphis, he was considered a top candidate for editor of the Commercial Appeal. He did not get the position, however he remained at the paper as the open editorial columnist. In 2011, he started the Otis Sanford commentaries at WREG-TV in Memphis. He commented on several issues including political, economical, national and other issues affecting the Memphis community.
Sanford is currently a editorial columnist at the Commercial Appeal, a commentator at WREG-TV Memphis and serves as a Hardin Chair of Excellence professor of journalism at the University of Memphis. He also appears on WREG’s Informed Sources.