Award-Winning Reporter Adds a Heart Healthy Lifestyle to His Beat
Bruce Johnson has been a reporter and anchor for WUSA-TV9, the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC, for more than 30 years with an emphasis on politics and urban affairs. He can be seen on TV covering breaking city and national events or anchoring the evening news.
On assignment in Haiti
Special assignments have taken Bruce to many foreign capitals, including Moscow, Paris, Stockholm, Budapest, Tokyo, Dakar, Bangkok, and most recently, earthquake ravaged Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Bruce's distinguished career has seen him earn 19 Emmy awards and hundreds of community or civic service honors. In 2003 he was voted into the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame.
In 1992, while on assignment in a tough DC neighborhood, Bruce suffered a sudden and massive heart attack. He was rushed to a nearby emergency room and then flown to a second hospital where emergency angioplasty successfully unclogged an artery.
Bruce became convinced that he should use his near death experience and celebrity to examine the toll heart attacks were taking on people, their family and friends, and just as importantly, what people might do to avoid such fates and become more heart healthy. Their efforts produced a three-part TV series that won national recognition from the American Heart Association.
Bruce was determined to continue his journalism career but the heart attack (MI) convinced him to make serious lifestyle changes. His diet became heart healthy. Some years after his coronary, his doctor prescribed a statin and a daily baby aspirin. He became a runner for the cardio benefit. Some years after his coronary and after extensive training with his doctor's approval Bruce entered and completed the 26.2 mile Marine Corps Marathon. Several other races were to follow.
Running the Marine Corps Marathon
He continues to be an avid athlete today. The marathon runs have been replaced by biking, yoga and others forms of exercise. A heart healthy diet is also a daily goal.
In 2008, a friend who had lost her husband to a heart attack convinced Bruce, over dinner, to write about his ordeal to help encourage others to become more heart healthy. However, this veteran reporter went further and decided to find a variety of men and women of different ages who had also survived a heart attack or cardiovascular disease. The result is his first book, Heart to Heart, a moving and exclusive first hand account of 12 survivors who struggled to discover meaning and better lives after their attacks.
Bruce learned that while a lot has been written about the medical side of heart attacks and cardiovascular disease, there wasn't much about the emotional and human side. He wanted to tell the patients' captivating stories while also revealing the power that comes from one heart patient sharing his or her story of successful recovery with another.
Even if you are not considered at risk and there is no history of cardiovascular disease in your family, Bruce believes everyone should strive for good heart health: "There is no down side to making the kind of lifestyle changes that we advocate in Heart to Heart."
In 2008, a friend who had lost her husband to a heart attack convinced Bruce, over dinner, to write about his ordeal to help encourage others to become more heart healthy. However, this veteran reporter went further and decided to find a variety of men and women of different ages who had also survived a heart attack or cardiovascular disease. The result is his first book, 
