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May 2003 KCABJ Newsletter



President's Message

Anita Parran
Anita K. Parran


This month has been lively, and our members have gone beyond the call of duty. On April 30, KCABJ Secretary Kia Breaux, KCABJ member Ron Mott and KCABJ Treasurer Lewis Diuguid appeared on ''Up to Date'' with KCUR-FM host Steve Kraske. They were joined by Steve Gonzales and Mary Sanchez with The Kansas City Star. The topic was minority journalists in the Kansas City broadcast and print media.

This discussion was based on ''Technical Difficulties: African Americans and the Media in Kansas City.'' That was the chapter in the Urban League's book, ''The State of Black Kansas City 2002.'' KCABJ Vice Presdient/Broadcast Joi Preciphs wrote it last year.

The ''Up to Date'' program featuring our folks not only was provocative, informative and enlightening, it was also well-received by the KCUR listening audience, according to the program's producer, Stephen Steigman. Our reps had an opportunity to share and invite the community to the race relations forum that was scheduled the following Saturday.

Collaborating with The Kansas City Star's Newsroom Diversity Committee, KCABJ once again presented a community forum in conjunction with the national annual ''Time Out for Diversity'' week activities. The forum was held on Saturday, May 3 in the Mabee Theatre on the Rockhurst University campus. The Mayor's Commission on Race report released in November 2002 was the catalyst for selecting the topic, ''Finding Common Ground: Advancing Race Relations in Kansas City.''

If you didn't catch the forum, we had some interesting panelists: Gwen Grant, president & CEO of the Urban League and a member of the Mayor's Commission on Race; Donovan Mouton, representing Mayor Kay Barnes; Carson Ross, former Missouri state representative; Mark Zieman, editor and vice president of The Kansas City Star; Maj. Rosilyn Allen, representing Kansas City Police Chief Rick Easley; and Rita Valenciano, board chair of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations. I hope you caught the article in the May 4 edition of The Kansas City Star. It captured the essence of the forum.

It has been a wild month, and KCABJ has garnered lots of positive publicity. Just around the corner is the KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Workshop. It is scheduled on the Rockhurst University campus from June 16-27. Be ready when called upon to share your expertise and experience with our young people who have a distinct interest in journalism. We need them and you.

--Anita K. Parran


Newspapers Fail to Meet Minority Hiring Goal

The American Society of Newspaper Editors reported in April that newspapers overall failed to reach this year's goal of increasing the number of journalists of color on their staffs. ASNE's goal was to have minority journalists make up 15.6 percent of newsroom jobs in 2003. But a survey of newsroom diversity showed only 12.5 percent are minorities. The survey found that journalists of color held 12.1 percent of the jobs in newsrooms nationwide in 2001.

ASNE in 1978 set a goal of having the percentage of journalists of color by the year 2000 equal the percentage of minorities in the population. But in 2000, there were only 11.9 percent of minorities in newsrooms compared with people of color equaling 31 percent of the U.S. population. ASNE moved the goal to 2025 but set up benchmarks every three years as a way to measure the progress.

Nearly every newspaper in the nation failed to meet the parity goal. Some of the worst offenders included The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Dallas Morning News, and the Houston Chronicle. The Kansas City Star reported that minorities held 17.5 percent of the newsroom jobs. Minorities constituted 17.6 percent of the Kansas City area population of 1.8 million. Kansas City alone, however, has a minority population of 37.5 percent of its total of 441,545 persons.

Having journalists of color on newspaper staffs increases the likelihood that newspapers will include stories of people of color in the full spectrum of life. ASNE reported that newspapers were slow to grasp the significance of the death of R&B singer Aaliya in a 2001 plane crash because they lacked journalists of color on their staffs.

NABJ's response to the annual ASNE survey was to call on small and midsize U.S. newspapers to accelerate their efforts to train, recruit and hire black journalists and other journalists of color. NABJ said the number of black journalists climbed .04 percent, or by 40 black journalists. That reversed a troubling two-year decline. Most black journalists work at newspapers with more than 100,000 circulation.

NABJ reported that the percent of minorities in management declined in 2003, falling one percentage point from 20 percent to 19 percent. Also, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. newspapers that responded to the survey said they had no journalists of color on their staffs.

The Asian American Journalists Association called on ASNE to release the data on individual newspapers as ASNE has done in the past. Asian Americans now make up 2.62 percent of journalists in U.S. newsrooms compared with 2.36 percent in 2002.


In Other News

  • The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the E.W. Scripps Co. announced a joint effort to improve news coverage of Latinos and increase the number of Hispanic journalists at Scripps newspapers nationwide. The initiative called Si Se Puede began in April. For more information check out www.nahj.org or call (202) 662-7145.

  • America Onnline is setting up a new content area for African Americans. It also is seeking a senior programmer to help make it happen. For more information contact Keith Brengle at kabrengle@aol.com.


    NABJ News

  • KCABJ has been notified that it is in compliance to retain its affiliation with the National Association of Black Journalists. Several NABJ chapters nationwide, however, are at risk of having their affiliation status revoked. KCABJ turned in its chapter audit, the organization has elected officers, it is registered with the state of Missouri as a not-for-profit corporation, it has a budget and meets regularly to conform with NABJ standards.

  • Richard Prince with the Media Monitoring Committee reports that the group has submitted three nominations for the NABJ Thumbs Down Award in 2003. They are Black Entertainment Television for the cancellation of ''BET Tonight with Ed Gordon,'' MSNBC for its hiring of Michael Savage, who routinely refers to non-white countries as ''turd world nations'' and charges that the U.S. ''is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts and the mental defectives,'' according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and newspaper owner J.O. Emmerich, for having zero percent minorities at Mississippi newsapers serving sizable communities of color.

  • The NABJ Authors Showcase will return to the 28th Annual NABJ Annual Convention on Aug. 6-10 at the Hyatt Regency Dallas Hotel. Early bird registration runs through May 16. The applications are at www.nabj.org. The cost for people who are NABJ and affiliate chapter members is $207 vs. $230 for NABJ members only. Membership in KCABJ more than pays for itself with the registration. The pre-registration cost through July 7 is $255, and on-site registration is $605. It pays to register early.

    This is an election year for NABJ. Check out the Web site for more information on who's running and which issues will be on the ballot, such as a measure to reduce the size of the executive board.


    KCABJ Workshop Deadline Extended

    The deadline for registering for the KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Workshop was extended from April 25 to May 10. The action was taken at the April meeting of KCABJ. The extension enabled a few more students to get applications into KCABJ. The applications are on KCABJ's Web site at www.kcabj.org.

    KCABJ's '80s party will be at Nieces from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday, July 26. Tickets are $10. Advance tickets sales will begin soon. KCABJ will pay $400 for food. KCABJ gets the door revenue. Nieces gets the bar receipts. KCABJ members Glenn Rice and Jenee' Osterheldt are continuing to fine-tune the planning for the event.


    Pearls of Wisdom

    KCABJ Secretary Kia Breaux attended the National Writers' Workshop and came back with a few tips for KCABJ members:

    Isabel Wilkerson, the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, stressed the importance of reporters making a real intellectual and emotional connection with the people they interview. She offered several basics on how to get into a subject's shoes:

  • Listen

  • Figure out what the subject needs and how to help the person

    Don't be afraid to help when possible

  • Remember details

  • Try to understand the subject's situation

  • Never try to be something you are not.

    At the writers' workshop Juan Williams, senior NPR correspondent, spoke of capturing the essence of the person in a story. His tips included finding key moments that allow readers to connect to the character, looking for telling stories about a subject's character and doing intensive reporting, follow-up research and asking more questions.

    During break-out sessions at the workshop, Cheryl Carpenter, deputy managing editor at The Charlotte Observer, offered six principles for editors: They are: ask as many or more questions as an editor as you did as a reporter; distance yourself from cynicism (skepticism is OK); talk more edit less about journalism values, writing, story structure, tone and pace; be straight with your colleagues; seek feedback and be a perpetual student.

    Jacqui Banaszynski, assistant managing editor for The Seattle Times, encouraged reporters and editors to have regular ``idea meetings.'' She suggested exercises such as naming the 10 most important people in the circulation area and the 10 most interesting persons and then focusing on the persons who appear on both lists. She offered that there are seven paths to stories: profiles, issue stories, exploratory stories, investigative stories, narratives, expert voices and descriptive stories.


    Time Out For Diversity Activities

    KCABJ partnered with The Kansas City Star newsroom diversity committee to sponsor a town hall meeting on May 3 at Rockhurst University. It was titled ``Finding Common Ground: Advancing Race Relations in Kansas City.'' KCABJ President Anita Parran moderated the forum. The panelists were Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City; Donovan Mouton, a neighborhood advocate and representative for Mayor Kay Barnes' office; Rita Valenciano, president of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations; Carson Ross, former Missouri House of representatives member; and Maj. Roslyn Allen with the Kansas City Police Department.

    Participants talked about the mayor's report on race relations and the work that remains to bridge diversity gaps in the metropolitan area. About 70 people attended the forum at the Mabee Theatre at Sedgwick Hall.

  • Also during Time Out For Diversity Week, KCABJ members Ron Mott, Kia Breaux and Lewis Diuguid also appeard on Steve Kraske's KCUR-FM program, ''Up to Date,'' with Steve Gonzales and Mary Sanchez at The Star to discuss the importance of having journalists of color working in the media.

  • Many KCABJ members also attended diversity workshops at The Kansas City Star that Keith Woods lead. Woods, who is with the Poynter Institute, said newspapers must reframe diversity to help journalists better convey stories to readers. Diversity is about including the full range of humanity and people's experiences. It's about covering the uncovered. It's important for our democracy.

  • KCABJ member Jenee' Osterheldt was the moderator for a discussion at The Kansas City Star with Lee Salem and Greg Melvin of Universal Press Syndicate. They talked about the challenges of editing the often controversial comic strips ''Boondocks'' and ''Doonesbury.''


    Job Openings and More

  • The University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications is seeking a journalist who can teach a "Diversity In the Media" course in the fall. For more information contact Ann Brill at abrill@ku.edu.

  • The Arizona Republic is seeking a reporter to cover immigration and U.S.-Mexico border issues. For more information contact Jeff Dozbaba at (602) 444-4379.

  • The Indianapolis Star is seeking an editor for its 19-member business staff. For more information call Leisa Richardson at (317) 444-6378.

  • The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is seeking applicants for its Maynard Management @Kellogg at Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. For more information call Amanda Elliott at (501) 891-9292.

  • The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors is seeking applicants for its minority fellowships. For more information call Mary Curtis at (704) 358-5255.

  • Northwestern University is seeking a faculty member for the Washington Medill News Service. For more information call Ellen Shearer at (202) 661-0102.

  • WGBH in Boston is seeking a producer for its ''Zoom'' program. For more information write to resumes_atl@wgbh.org.

  • The Associated Press is seeking a multimedia editor at AP Digital in New York. For more information write to apjobs@ap.org.

  • The Emma L. Bowen Foundation for Minority Interests in Media is seeking high school seniors or students who will enter their freshman year in college in the fall of 2003 for paid internships at media companies throughout the United States. For more information contact Sandra D. Rice at (212) 975-2545 or e-mail her at sdr@cbs.com.

  • East Carolina University is seeking applications for the director of the newly formed School of Communications at the College of Fine Arts and Communication. For more information call Denise Williams at (804) 521-7590.

  • The San Antonio Express-News is seeking an assistant features editor. For more information call Elaine Ayala at (210) 250-3411.

  • The Center for Reproductive Rights is seeking a director of communications. For more information call Lewis Diuguid at (816) 234-4723.

  • ABC News is seeking a deputy political director. For more information call Lewis.


    KC People

  • KCABJ's membership inched to 31 with the additions of Margaret Nichols, Anthony Powell and Christi L. Gipson-Diggs, Ron Mott and April Jackson.

  • Former KCABJ member Andre Jackson, assistant managing editor for business news at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers at the group's April meeting in Cambridge, Mass.

  • The Kansas City Star's Yvette Walker made the cover of the Multiracial Family Circle newsletter. She was the featured speaker for April.

  • E. Lenita Johnson, former KCABJ vice president/broadcast, was featured in a Kansas City Star article and photograph in April as the first black woman president of the Board of Governors at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg. She got connected to teaching at CMSU in the 1990s through KCABJ's work to place more black faculty members in journalism and communications colleges in this area. She has since risen through the ranks.

  • Speaking of CMSU connections, KCABJ member Crystal Y. Lumpkins will begin a new job as assistant professor of communications at CMSU in the fall. Crystal, who was KCABJ's vice president/broadcast in 2002, has worked in the media relations office at UMKC the last four years.

  • Three must be the charm for CMSU. Kevin Moye', a graduate of the KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Workshop a few years ago, is graduating from CMSU on May 10.

  • Another KCABJ workshop graduate, Keyra Price, is now an account executive with the Matthews Media Group in Rockville, Md. She also is engaged to be married.

  • The late St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Greg Freeman will receive NABJ's Lifetime Achievement Award at the convention in Dallas. NABJ's board voted at its spring board meeting to bestow the the honor. Freeman, a former NABJ Region 8 director, died on Dec. 31, 2002. He is the third person from NABJ's Region 8 -- which includes Kansas and Missouri -- to get the award in the last eight years. The others were late St. Louis publisher Joe Palmer and former University of Kansas professor Samuel Adams.

  • Look for Cynne Simpson on KCTV's morning show. She was featured in The Kansas City Star as a new arrival to the television station.

  • Did you know that the typical U.S. journalist is a 41-year-old white man who makes $43,600 a year, has a college degree but didn't major in journalism? That's according to the American Journalist in the 21st Century.










    2003 Kansas City Association of Black Journalists
    P.O. Box 32744, Kansas City, Mo. 64111

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