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December 2002 KCABJ Newsletter



KCABJ To Hold 2003 Elections

The election of officers to the executive board of the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists will dominate the group's December meeting. KCABJ President Anita K. Parran said at the November meeting that she would appoint a nomination committee to pick the candidates for president, vice president/broadcast, vice president/print, secretary and treasurer for KCABJ.

People who are interested in running for those elected positions or in serving on the nomination committee should contact Anita at (816) 822-0588. The election will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 14 at the AARP offices, at 700 W. 47th St., Suite 110. KCABJ members and people interested in becoming KCABJ members are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be provided.

Current officers: Anita Parran, president; Crystal Lumpkins, vice president/broadcast; Tanyanika Samuels, vice president/print; Joi Preciphs, secretary; and Lewis Diuguid, treasurer. The meeting is being moved up because of the holidays.

The KCABJ Christmas party for 2002 will be discussed as well as a critique of the 11th Annual KCABJ Media Awards and fund-raising possibilities and community projects for 2003.


News From Elsewhere

Publishers of six of the largest circulation black newspapers have launched a joint campaign to promote the black press in Philadelphia. A PR/Newswire story reported that the initiative is in response to the African American community's two-month-long boycott against the Philadelphia Daily News.

The black newspapers are running ads in each of their respective papers, promoting the names and phone numbers of each publication and touting a combined weekly readership of 1.2 million persons. It's in response to the black community's concerns about the lack of fairness and racial sensitivity of the Philadelphia Daily News.

The headline of the ad reads: ''More than 1.2 million readers every week get the truth about our community from the Black Press.'' The participating newspapers are The Philadelphia Tribune, The Philadelphia New Observer, The Philadelphia Sunday Sun, the Black Suburban Journal Scoop and the Neighborhood Leader.

The Philadelphia Daily News is a Knight Ridder newspaper. The parent company also owns The Kansas City Star. The Coalition for Fair News Coverage began the boycott against The Philadelphia Daily News on Sept. 9. The coalition includes more than 100 community, business, civic, civil rights, grass roots and religious organizations.

  • The National Association of Black Journalists is seeking workshop proposals for the 28th Annual NABJ Convention, Aug. 6-10, 2003 in Dallas. Programs that are accepted will be scheduled from Thursday, Aug. 7, through Saturday, Aug. 9. The submission deadline is Dec. 20.

    Now is your chance to enhance the NABJ convention with innovative programs, panel discussions and workshops that can benefit journalists in the industry. Forms can be downloaded from www.nabj.org. For more information call Wanda Seridan at (301) 445-7100, ext. 105.

  • J-Flash News from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism:

    -- At least one-fifth of all U.S. dailies practiced some form of civic journalism in the 1990s, and their editors say it improved public deliberation, increased volunteerism and changed public policy. The University of Wisconsin analyzed 651 projects collected by the Pew Center. You can learn more at http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/spotlight/index.php.

    -- Forty-five percent of female editors are looking to change newsrooms or leave the industry. Check out http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/research/r_apipewstudy.pdf.


    News You Can Use

  • The American Society of Newspaper Editors is seeking juniors, seniors and graduate journalism students to write and copy edit stories, shoot photographs, design pages and produce an online edition of The ASNE Reporter. The students will produce a 12-page daily newspaper that covers the 2003 convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, which will take place April 8-11, 2003 at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans. The deadline to apply is Dec. 13. Students will be notified of acceptance on Jan. 20, 2003. For more information contact Bobbi Bowman at (703) 453-1126. The application is at http://www.asne.org/images/ASNEreporterapplication.pdf.

  • The College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico is seeking part-time instructors in art history, art studio, music, theater, dance, video and film. For more information, call Lewis Diuguid at (816) 234-4723.

  • ABC News Radio has an opening for a vice president. The position is the senior news executive at the network. The person is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the unit, which supplies the news product on the ABC Radio Networks. For more information contact Mark Foley at mark.d.foley@abc.com.

  • WGBH's Local Production unit is seeking a contributor for ``Greater Boston,'' the station's nightly public affairs series and other WGBH local news programs. The position calls for two to three field pieces per week written and produced by the contributor. For more information write to human_resources@wghb.org.

  • The Denver Post is seeking a metro columnist with broad interests and a populist voice. For more information call Lewis Diuguid at (816) 234-4723.

  • Mid-career journalists are being sought for the USC Annenberg Getty Arts Journalism Program. It will give those selected the opportunity to learn new ways to improve arts coverage. For more information contact Sasha Anawalt or Rachel Uslan at (213) 743-4988.

  • The Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland is inviting journalists to take part in its seminars on ``Paying for Health Care,'' Feb. 18-21; ``Islam and America,'' April 21-25; ``Covering Business After Enron,'' June 17-20; ``Government Secrecy: Local, State and National,'' Sept. 7-12; ``Cities, Suburbs and Beyond,'' Oct. 26-31; ``Editorial Writers Seminar,'' Dec. 3-5. For more information check out http://www.knightcenter.umd.edu.


    KC People

  • KCABJ member Helen Gray, also religion editor at The Kansas City Star, participated in a Poynter Institute fellowship in November on ``Reporting on Faith, Religion and Values.''

  • KCABJ members Steve Penn and Lewis Diuguid in November trekked to Delaware State University in Dover for the 10th annual meeting of the William Monroe Trotter Group of Black Voices in Commentary. The conference included meetings with Democratic and Republican officials in Dover and at the White House in Washington, D.C.

  • Remember KCABJ member Candice Y. Clay? She had been a copy editor at The Kansas City Star in the 1990s. Candice left to return to college in her home state of Texas. She sent word recently that she had graduated from law school and in November passed the Texas bar exam. Congratulation Candice!

  • Sandra Combs ''Sam'' Birdett, director of the Journalism Institute for Minorities at Wayne State University, is the new president of the Detroit Metro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Sam had been with the Pontiac, Mich., newspaper and had been a frequent visitor to Kansas City.

  • Lori Bergen wants to create professional ties with KCABJ. She is an associate professor with the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. She's also with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, which will hold its annual conference this summer in Kansas City. That will take place July 30-Aug. 2. To reach Bergen call (785) 532-2369 or e-mail her at lbergen@ksu.edu.










    2002 Kansas City Association of Black Journalists
    P.O. Box 32744, Kansas City, Mo. 64111

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