Griffin Media leaves former station to Langston University as News 9 moves downtown

Langston University just received its largest corporate gift ever. News 9, a subsidiary of Oklahoma-owned Griffin Media, has started its station relocation and will leave its former facility, as well as the equipment inside, to Langston University. 

News 9 is leaving its current location at 7401 North Kelley Ave. after 70 years for a newly renovated downtown building amongst some of the city’s most notable locations like the Myriad Botanical Gardens, Paycom Center and more. 

The university posted a video online on Oct. 21, announcing the Griffin conglomerate would be donating its former building and equipment to the school to serve as the new home of their journalism program and Langston University Oklahoma City campus. 

“For about three years, we’ve been looking to kind of figure out what we’re going to do with this building,” Chairman and CEO of Griffin Media, David Griffin said in the video. 

Griffin said the media company wanted to plant its flag in downtown Oklahoma City, but still longed for the community that they would be leaving behind.

“In the discussions we had that leaves a problem. If we abandon this building, there’s going to be a hole in this community. We just didn’t want to leave this community alone…and, then it just dawned on me, Langston’s got a journalism program.” 

The community in question is Oklahoma City’s east side, a predominately Black region, historically. The Kelley Avenue news station will now become a home for the state’s only historically Black college or university (HBCU). 

“It went from just a building to a building and land to all of the equipment; existing equipment and what they are doing current newscasts from, to every table and chair, computers, fiber optic cabling. This changes everything,” Langston University President Kent Smith, Jr., Ph.D. said in the university’s video. 

Smith said the donation will impact the entire university, allowing Langston to now think of their Oklahoma City community and campus in an entirely new way. The president said while the university was struggling to keep up with other journalism schools before, the donation could put Langston’s program among the top programs in the country. 

“I believe when we look back at this, collectively, this will be a hallmark moment for our state, for Langston University and for journalism as a profession,” Smith said. 

News 9 will begin broadcasting from their new downtown location at the corner of Sheridan and Robinson avenues in November, and Langston will begin moving into the Kelley Avenue location in January 2023.