The KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Academy ended July 2 with the close of the broadcast week of study for the 12 students who participated in the program. It was the most diverse group of students that KCABJ has ever had. Three were students returning to college. Four will enroll in college in the fall. One just graduated from middle school, and two will return to high school in the fall.

Also, two were Muslim, one was white, one was Asian, six were men and one was a nontraditional older student.

The 10 who completed all five days of the first week of the print program were Doniesha L. Beasley, who will be a junior at the University of Missouri; Faiza Alambra, a 2004 graduate of Longview Community College who will be a junior at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; Ronald Goodwin, a graduate of Raytown South High School who will start as a freshman at Lincoln University; Spencer Hardwick, who will be a sophomore at Rockhurst University; Reonda Thompson, who will be a freshman at Penn Valley Community College; Katie Glueck, who will be a freshman at Blue Valley North High School; Angela McCain, who will be a freshman at St. Louis University; Adil Shabbir, who will be a senior at Blue Valley High School, Eric Sanders, who will be a sophomore at Penn Valley Community College; and Chris Johnson, who will be a freshman at Central Missouri State University. KCABJ Vice President/Print Tanyanika Samuels and former KCABJ President Glenn E. Rice piloted the first week of the program. KCABJ Treasurer and Newsletter Editor Lewis Diuguid assisted and was the academy's official photographer. The work included current events quizes, spelling tests, press conferences and outside stories. The students also had lectures from working journalists from The Call and The Kansas City Star on the many aspects of the profession.

The students will be invited to the 13th Annual KCABJ Media Awards program on Nov. 13 at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. The winners of this year's scholarships will be announced.

KCABJ Media Awards

KCABJ members and news corporations in the Kansas City area should have received the 2004 applications for the KCABJ Media Awards. The deadline is July 23.

The contest is open to print and broadcast entries that include enterprise reporting, commentary, photography and artwork about African Americans and other people of color. The categories are included in the applications. Public relations firms, advertising companies and other businesses that put their messages in the media also may enter in the area of media public service and community service. In addition to awards for accurate coverage of African Americans and other people of color, KCABJ will name this year's recipient of its Thumbs Down Award.

It is given to the person in the media or media company that has done the most to set back the image of African Americnas and other people of color. KCABJ President Tracy Allen also will announce her pick for the KCABJ President's Award. It is given to the KCABJ member who has done the most in the last year for the organization.

The winners of the four KCABJ scholarships also will be announced. Only those students who completed the two-week KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Academy at Penn Valley Community College will be eligible. The top four graduates will be considered for the KCABJ/Roy Wilkins Scholarship, The Kansas City Star/Laura R. Hockaday/KCABJ Scholarship, The KCABJ/Nancy Diuguid Scholarship and the KCABJ/Lucile H. Bluford Scholarship. The KCABJ members who worked closely with the students in the two-week program will decide the winners based on their test scores, the quality of their stories, their class participation, their attendance and more.

UNITY Convention AND MORE

By now the deadline has passed for those registering for the UNITY convention in Washington, D.C. It was extended from June 15 to July 1 to give more people time to register. The pre-registration fee was $325 for the Aug. 4-8 convention. It's now $700. More than 5,250 people have registered so far, and an attendance of about 7,000 is expected.

This is the third UNITY convention, which includes the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association. You can find all of those organizations on the Web and more information about this year's UNITY convention at www.unityjournalists.org. The first UNITY convention was in Atlanta in 1994; the second was in Seattle in 1999.

For those who may arrive early, Knight Ridder is having a reception at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 3 at the Renaissance Washington, D.C., Hotel in the Renaissance Ballroom. Check out the Knight Ridder Website for the UNITY convention. It is www.knightridder-unity.com. UNITY will be at the Washington Convention Center. People attending will be in many surrounding hotels.

NABJ members can expect to vote on four proposed amendments to the NABJ Constitution. Balloting will begin June 15 and end Aug. 6. See www.nabj.org for more details.

NABJ Pays Tribute To A Giant

NABJ President Herb Lowe proclaimed June as Vernon Jarrett Month. Lowe asked NABJ affiliate chapters to spend part of their monthly meetings to reflect on the life of Jarrett, who was a president of NABJ, a founding member and a columnist with the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Jarrett also worked as a reporter and photographer for The Call. He credited longtime Call Editor and Publisher Lucile H. Bluford with saving his career.

NABJ is seeking grant applications from member chapters. The grants are for up to $500 for those affiliates that develop recruiting and career development programs that promote community-based journalism partnerships.

All-day sessions for leaders in NABJ chapters will be held at the UNITY convention. The day will feature lectures, panel discussions and workshops on such issues as fund-raising and grooming new journalism leaders. The sessions are free and open to all chapter leaders. For more information check out www.nabj.org.

NABJ is $15,000 from meeting its goal in the Challenge Fund for Journalism. The organization had to raise $50,000 to secure matching operational funds.

Coverage 'Black Out'

Issues of greatest concern to the black community don't get coverage in the mainstream press, The Call of Kansas City reported in its July 2 issue.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who also was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, said the media don't investigate disparities in health care or how the war in Iraq is affecting low-income minorities. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, with the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, said there seemed to be a deliberate attempt of the media to render the Civil Rights Movement irrelevant.

"Today the criminal justice system is not different from what we had in the '60s," Lowery said. "The economic situation is not different from what it was then."

He added at the 2004 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Atlanta that "race issues are not on the priority scale of most media houses."

Laura Washington, with DePaul University, said: "Reporters are now part of the middle and upper class. We don't live in the communities we cover. We live in the suburbs.

"We have lost the public trust because we are not close to the stories we cover." She commended the black press, saying those newspapers continue to do important stories about the black community. She added, however, that as the gap between the rich and poor widen in the overall community, the mainstream media's coverage of poverty diminished.

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