Registration Hits Nearly 2,000 for Annual Convention

Attendees at the National Association of Black Journalists convention heard appeals Saturday to make their marks by covering the 2010 census, pushing for more permanent attention to the Chauncey Bailey Project, standing up for good journalism and recognizing the importance of sports in the nation’s racial history.¬†

The remarks came from winners of the NABJ’s annual special awards, delivered at the organization’s Salute to Excellence Awards Gala at its Tampa, Fla., convention. The gathering drew 1,924 registrants, Executive Director Karen Wynn Freeman told Journal-isms, a significant number in a recessionary year that saw the American Society of News Editors, like some other groups, cancel its annual meeting. Seven hundred attended the banquet, NABJ said.

One honoree was the Bailey project, an investigative reporting effort supported by a coalition of news organizations to carry on the work of Bailey, the Oakland Post editor slain two years ago Thursday.

In accepting the Community Service Award, Martin G. Reynolds, editor of the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune and, like the Maynard Institute, a partner in the project, said the Newseum, the Freedom Forum’s museum of news in Washington, features an exhibit on the Arizona Project, a five-month investigation launched by Investigative Reporters and Editors in 1976. Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles was killed by a car bomb in 1976 after Bolles had written a series of stories on political corruption and organized crime.

"There should be a similar memorial dedicated to the Bailey Project," Reynolds said of the nearly two-year-old effort. "When a journalist is silenced, it’s important for the world to know that the community stood up and said, that’s not acceptable." He urged attendees to contact the Newseum advocating such a memorial.

Michele Norris, co-host of "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio, accepted Journalist of the Year honors from her friend Gwen Ifill of PBS, whom she met in 1986 at an NABJ convention in Dallas. Norris was cited for a series in which she and NPR "Morning Edition" host Steve Inskeep traveled to York, Pa., for conversations with residents about race in the context of the 2008 presidential campaign and in their daily lives.

"When they say the best days of journalism are behind us, please prove them wrong," Norris implored.

"News on the go" is like "snacking on Cheetos," she said. "You need protein in your media diet."

Michael Wilbon, Washington Post columnist and co-host of ESPN’s "Pardon the Interruption," accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award, one of the few sports journalists to have received such an honor from NABJ.

"I’m damned proud to be a sportswriter," Wilbon said. "Sportswriters don’t always get a seat at the big table at this convention."

He accepted on behalf of a number of African American sportswriters, then said, ‘We’re the ones who remind the world that eight years before we’d heard of Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson sacrificed the final third of his life to integrate baseball and change the world’ in 1947. Jesse Owens made track and field history before World War II, he said, and heavyweight champion Jack Johnson beat Great White Hopes before World War I, triggering race riots in 1910.

Wilbon said his cousin, Carole Simpson, the former ABC News anchor, had long asked him, "Why do you want to write about people who chase balls?”

Responding, he told the audience it was about telling stories. "Storytelling is not going out of style. It’ll just be delivered differently."

In accepting the Ida B. Wells Award, named for the anti-lynching crusader and editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bobbi Bowman, diversity director for the American Society of News Editors, urged journalists to pay attention to the 2010 census.

That census will indicate "the United States will have a majority-minority nation in our lifetime," she said.

Bowman, who also writes a column for the Maynard Institute, urged journalists to learn Spanish, because immigrants have "amazing stories to tell." The census is not simply numbers, but "about power and money: who is going to get the power and money."  Journalists should also read the story of Wells. "She will inspire you. She was an absolutely great journalist."

Like others, Bowman added that NABJ had helped sustain her throughout her 40-year career. "This was the place I could go to to be reminded that I was not the one in the newsroom who was crazy," she said.

The Wells Award is given annually by NABJ and the National Conference of Editorial Writers to a media executive who has demonstrated a commitment to diversifying newsrooms and improving the coverage of people and communities of color.

In NABJ’s annual Salute to Excellence Awards contest, the Washington Post received six awards, "including honors to Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland also received three awards. In magazine, ESSENCE won four awards; EBONY won three; and Bloomberg Markets Magazine took home two awards," NABJ said.

"In radio, National Public Radio won three awards. In television, both Tampa’s WTVT-TV and Bay News 9 were recognized, while Silver Spring, Md.-based TV One won for a Johnathan Rodgers/ Roland Martin interview with Michelle Obama in 2008. In new media, Newsweek.com won two awards and the Oakland-based The Chauncey Bailey Project won for best New Media Online Project: News."

The convention closes on Sunday with its traditional Gospel Brunch.

• Lack of media booths at NABJ job fair (video) (NABJ student project)
• Online coverage by NABJ student project

Kathy Times Wins for NABJ President

August 7, 2009

Kathy Times hugs a potential voter at the Tampa, Fla., convention center as she successfully campaigns for the presidency of the National Association of Black Journalists. (Credit: Jarrad Henderson/NABJ student project)

CNN’s Roland Martin Rejoins Board as Secretary

Kathy Times, an anchor and investigative reporter at WDBD-TV in Jackson, Miss., who made retraining journalists a key part of her platform, Friday was elected president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Times, the organization’s vice president for broadcast, defeated Angelo B. Henderson, a Detroit radio talk-show host whose background includes a Pulitzer Prize for his work at the Wall Street Journal, as well as a stint at Real Times, owner of a chain of black newspapers. The vote was 325 to 248 in one of three losses for Detroit candidates.

Roland S. Martin, the CNN contributor and commentator for Creators Syndicate, TV One, radio’s syndicated "Tom Joyner Morning Show" and essence.com, was elected secretary, 327 to 198 for Sherlon Christie, sports reporter for the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, N.J. Jacqualine Williams, a freelancer based in West Allis, Wis., received 35 votes.

Martin was the student representative on the board while at Texas A&M University in the early 1990s.

Bob Butler, a reporter for KCBS Radio in San Francisco and for the Chauncey Bailey Project, defeated Andrew Humphrey, a meteorologist and reporter at WDIV-TV in Detroit, 282 to 228, for vice president/broadcast. Butler, a current board member, represents the westernmost states. Other votes were cast for Dedrick Russell, a reporter at WBTV-TV in Charlotte, N.C., with 50 votes, and Tracie Hunter, president/CEO of the TMH Media Group, LLC in Cincinnati, who withdrew but received seven votes.

Deirdre M. Childress, Home&Design/weekend editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, defeated Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley for vice president/print, 298 to 259. Childress is the organization’s secretary.

In other contested races, Keith Reed, editor of Catalyst Ohio, an education publication, defeated Hilary Golston, reporter/Web producer for WFRV-TV in Green Bay, Wis., to represent the Midwest’s Region IV on the board of directors, 40 to 29, and Charles Robinson III, correspondent/associate producer at Maryland Public Television, bested Benet Wilson of Aviation Week, 56 to 28 for the Mid-Atlantic Region III seat.

Georgia Dawkins of Florida A&M University won the election for student representative, with 59 votes to 40 for Lee Sandra Alexandre of Howard University and 12 votes for Daniella Dorcelus of the University of Florida at Gainesville.

"I am seldom speechless and hot," Times said during a news conference after the results were announced at the Tampa, Fla., convention center, where NABJ is holding its annual convention. "Thanks for saving my marriage," her husband, James Covington, said to the group.

With the president and vice president slots won by three current board members, the balloting ratified NABJ’s current direction, retraining journalists for a multimedia world amid job cuts in the traditional media. The convention theme is "Refresh, reinvent, reclaim."

Henderson, who had served on the board in the 1990s, placed greater emphasis on entrepreneurship. On one piece of campaign material, his first pledge was "Develop NABJ into an organization of Black journalists and Black media company owners." He called Times to congratulate her, but unlike other candidates, did not attend the news conference.

After the results were announced, Times said she had mapped out six-month and yearlong plans because she had learned from incumbent Barbara Ciara that "you don’t have much time so you have to hit the ground running."

On Thursday, NABJ released a "discouraging" census of top managers making news decisions at local television stations. It found 65 people of color among 548 employed by outlets owned by ABC, CBS, Fox, Hearst Argyle, Media General, NBC and Tribune.

That study was largely the work of Butler. The next one will largely be Times’. She said the organization would soon be releasing its study of managers at the networks themselves, a follow-up to one that she conducted last year.

"NABJ is going to work very hard for you every day and make sure you have opportunities outside" of current places of employment, she said to an overflow news conference crowd. On the media industry, she said, "I’m going to continue to hold them accountable on diversity and employing African Americans."

During the campaign, Times unveiled "NABJ 360," described as an interactive Web portal that "includes 24-Hour access to products and services such as: Skills assessment, an Academy for online classes, a Business and Social Network, an NABJ 360 Business Center and a JOBS Network. Members will be able to build their own web sites. NABJ 360 is delivered on the web, desktop, and cellular phone. It is revenue ready with advertisement campaigns and investment opportunities."

A graduate of Florida A&M University, Times was asked by a FAMU student what that experience meant. "I was the editor of the Famuan," she said, speaking of the student newspaper and adding that she learned leadership skills in that job.

As with some other schools, any factual error would result in a failing grade, she continued. "Their motto is excellence with caring. That sums up what NABJ’s leadership should be."

Jarrett Urges Black Journalists to Be Role Models

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, told black journalists on Friday that "it’s up to you" to be "leaders in the community, looking to the next generation to lift them up."

She said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Tampa, Fla., that NABJ members must consider the "responsibilities we all have in addition to the professional responsibilities. We need people to participate in their communities."

Jarrett told Journal-isms she was referring to such activities as mentoring.

"You guys are all role models . . . professionals have an obligation . . . to give them hope for the future," she said in a separate session with members of the Trotter Group of African American columnists.

Jarrett’s remarks seemed to be an extension of the Obama philosophy as outlined in a speech before the NAACP last month, commemorating the group’s 100th anniversary.

The president said then, "For our kids to excel . . . it means we need to be there for our neighbor’s sons and daughters. We need to go back to the time, back to the day when we parents saw somebody, saw some kid fooling around and ‚Äî it wasn’t your child, but they’ll whup you anyway. Or at least they’ll tell your parents ‚Äî the parents will. You know. "That’s the meaning of community. That’s how we can reclaim the strength and the determination and the hopefulness that helped us come so far; helped us make a way out of no way."

At a news conference at the Tampa convention center, Jarrett was given a copy of NABJ’s report this week on the low number of top news managers of color at local television stations.

She told a questioner that she had not read it, but said "it is a concern just hearing you describe it." Jarrett added that she would forward it to the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski.

Jarrett also told the journalists, "We count on you to help on getting the message out." In discussing Obama’s health-insurance proposals, she said the journalists should "report back and hold people accountable who give out misinformation." For every town hall meeting conducted by Obama surrogates that is disrupted, "I assure you there are a million town halls that are not. You haven’t seen disruptions at the town halls he’s been in," she said, speaking of Obama.

The presidential adviser and longtime Obama confidant was asked the lesson of the controversy surrounding Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s arrest in Cambridge, Mass. A disorderly conduct charge was later dropped by a police officer investigating an apparent burglary in Gates’ home. Obama said the police acted "stupidly" and then said he had not "calibrated" his words well.

Jarrett pointed to the so-called beer summit at the White House between Gates and Sgt. James Crowley, at which Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were present.

She said the lesson was that "figuring out how to share those experiences in a way that leads to a more civil society is what we’re all about."

• Coverage by NABJ student project
• Associated Press: White House uses Web to fight misleading health care effort
• Mary C. Curtis, Politics Daily: EPA Chief Lisa Jackson on Making the Environment a Priority
• Robert Draper, New York Times Magazine: The Ultimate Obama Insider
• Michael Lee blog, Washington Post: Thoughts On Brendan, LeBron and Rashard
• Branson Wright, Cleveland Plain Dealer: LeBron talks about Shaq, dunk, lack of handshake

3 Advertisers Dump Fox’s Glenn Beck

"Three companies who had run ads during Glenn Beck’s Fox News show have distanced themselves from Beck, including LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance," Chris Ariens reported Thursday for MediaBistro. "We’re told a P&G spot inadvertently aired during a weekend Beck broadcast, but that the company never had a regular buy for the show.

"The group ColorofChange.org called on their members to pressure advertisers to pull ads from Beck’s show after he called Pres. Obama a ‘racist’ who ‘has a deep-seated hatred for white people.’"

"A Fox News spokesperson told TVNewser that the advertisers simply moved their spots from Beck to other programs on the network, ‘so there has been no revenue lost.’"

• David Bauder, Associated Press: Lou Dobbs challenges his own CNN network
• Lloyd Grove, Daily Beast: What Happened to the Real Lou?
• Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Birther’ control: Praise the righteous right
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Barack Obama ‚Äî born in the U.S.A.
• Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News: Why does GOP let birthplace lunacy fester?
• Gary Young, the Guardian, England: To engage the birther fantasists is futile; to dismiss them, reckless
• David Zurawick blog: Glenn Beck: Let’s hope ad loss makes a difference

Hartford Columnist Simpson Leaving for H.S. Program

Stan Simpson, columnist for the Hartford (Conn.) Courant who marked his 20th year at the paper on Friday, is leaving Aug. 17 to become director of journalism and media at a Hartford high school, he told colleagues on Thursday.

Simpson wrote that he was "enamored of the challenge of playing a key leadership role in transforming a fledgling urban journalism & media academy, located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Connecticut, into the preeminent school of its kind in America."

Weaver High School has been reconfigured into three academies, Journalism, Culinary Arts and Humanities.

Simpson, a member of the Trotter Group of African American columnists, said he would continue to host his Sunday morning TV show on Hartford’s Fox-affiliated WTIC-TV.

Freed Journalist Admits Touching N. Korean Soil

Laura Ling says she and fellow U.S. journalist Euna Lee "briefly touched North Korean soil before they were captured and detained for months in that communist country," according to Ling’s sister, Lisa Ling, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

The United States at first insisted the two journalists had been held on "baseless" charges, then switched to a plea for amnesty, which was ultimately granted.

"’She said that it was maybe 30 seconds and then everything got chaotic. It’s a very powerful story, and she does want to share it,’ Lisa Ling told CNN Thursday, speaking of her sister.

"A day after the reporters returned from Pyongyang on a private plane, Lisa Ling said her sister is still weak, exhausted and emotional. Lisa Ling described how her sister clings to her family after months of isolation. She said she even went to a doctor’s appointment with her sister, just to keep her company."

Miami Station Fires Anchor After Bias Complaint

Miami’s "WPLG-ABC 10 has fired anchor Charles Perez, days after he filed a discrimination complaint against the Post-Newsweek station," Steve Rothaus reported in the Miami Herald.

‚Äú’His employment has been terminated,’ Perez‚Äôs business attorney Melanie E. Damian told The Miami Herald Thursday afternoon. ‘We filed a charge of discrimination last week. We will now amend that to include his termination as part of his claims.’

"Perez also confirmed that he is no longer employed by WPLG, but said he couldn’t discuss the case until after he speaks with his agent.

"’WPLG is disappointed that the actions of Charles Perez left us no real choice other than to terminate his employment contract,’ WPLG Vice President and General Manager Dave Boylan said in a statement to The Herald. ‘WPLG emphatically denies Perez’s claim of discrimination. The document he is circulating is filled with misstatements and untruths.’

"Late last week, Perez filed a discrimination complaint with Miami-Dade’s Equal Opportunity Board.

"Perez, 46, says in the complaint that station bosses demoted him to weekend anchor/reporter ‘because of their discomfort over the increasingly high profile of my sexual orientation.’

"On April 3, Perez went to court seeking a restraining order against his former partner, Dennis Ricardo Pe?±a, whom he accused of leaking a private e-mail concerning Perez‚Äôs ‚Äògender identity issues.‚Äô

"Later that month, Perez claims he ‘began to disappear’ from station promotional spots. He lost the weeknight anchor seat July 22.

"Station executives recently told Miami Herald columnist Joan Fleischman their decision was driven by economics."

KGTV-TV anchor Angele Ringo becomes Army Sgt. 1st Class Angele Ringo.

San Diego Anchor Leaves for Second Tour in Iraq

"At 10News we often report on local military personnel deploying to Iraq," KGTV-TV in San Diego reported on Friday. "This time it hits a little closer to home: our friend and colleague Angele Ringo will leave Friday to prepare for her second tour of duty in Iraq."

"Many in San Diego know Angele Ringo as a 10News anchor/reporter but not as many know her in her other role as Army Sergeant First Class Angele Ringo.

"’I am a military person,’ Ringo said. ‘My grandfather was in the Army, my dad was in the Navy. My brother was in the Navy.’

"After 10 years in the Army, Angele decided to go back. She joined the Army Reserve and spent 13 months in Baghdad in 2005 and 2006. She learned a lot about Iraq and herself.

"’I don’t think you go to a warzone without taking something away . . . learning a little bit about why you do it and what’s happening in the place that you’re deployed to," she said.

"Angele the soldier works in public affairs. She said there isn’t much of a difference going from being a journalist covering the news to being part of one of the biggest news events in the world. ‘Telling a soldier’s story is telling a soldier’s story,’ she said, ‘whether I’m in uniform or not.’"