The National Association of Black Journalists is gearing up for its 27th Annual Convention and Career Fair in Milwaukee. It will take place from July 31 through Aug. 4. The theme this year is ''Building the Best!'' It reflects the desire of NABJ to have the best journalists as well as the best convention program.

Here are some interesting numbers of who attends the NABJ conventions: 4 percent are educators, 6 percent public relations; 5 percent work for magazines, 3 percent in radio, 1 percent for online publications, 1 percent newsletters, 33 percent newspapers, 24 percent television, 14 percent academia and 9 percent are students. By region, 12 percent come from the West, 16 percent from Mid-Atlantic states, 21 percent from the Midwest, 25 percent from the Northwest and 26 percent from the South.

Workshops at the convention will include covering politics and elections, computer-assisted reporting, integrating new media in the newsroom, opportunities in the black press, sports PR: crossing over from sports journalism, convergence: from film to digital to video, mid-career moves to magazine, going on camera: tips for multi-media journalists and survival in the new millennium of TV News.

Eugene Kane, president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association, urges people to check out the organization's Web site at www.nabjwbma.com. In an e-mail he circulated recently, Kane wrote: ``We've got lots of information on our chapter, with links to interesting and exciting things to do in Milwaukee. Check it out and discover the surprises we have in store for you in Wisconsin's largest city, one with a 33 percent African-American population.''

Convention registration information, airline discounts and accommodations can be found at www.nabj.org. There is an early bird registration fee. The cost continues to go up from there. Registration on-site is the highest.

KCABJ Student Workshop

The KCABJ workshop committee met and picked 12 students for this summer's 2002 KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Workshop. It will take place at Rockhurst University in Sedgwick Hall, room 308. It is a commuter program, but KCABJ picks up all of the costs and even gives the students money to buy newspapers each morning.

KCABJ member Glenn Rice and KCABJ Vice President/Print Tanyanika Samuels, both reporters at The Kansas City Star, are this year's coordinators of the print portion of the workshop. KCABJ member Khia Simmons has volunteered to assist KCABJ Vice President/Broadcast Crystal Lumpkins with the broadcast portion of the program. Crystal is a 1987 KCABJ workshop graduate, adjunct professor of journalism and full-time public relations staff person at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

In addition to the applicants, three students were picked as alternates. Orientation will be at 1:30 p.m. June 15 in the Nelson Room at The Kansas City Star. The workshop will run June 17 through June 28 at Rockhurst University. Students were strongly urged in letters from KCABJ to bring their parents with them. Students will take daily current events, spelling and grammar quizes. They will participate in ``news conferences'' during which some of the city's leading newsmakers will talk with them about what's going on in this community. Students will be responsible for completing several stories outside of class and attending lectures on journalism from the best in the business.

The students will return to The Star on June 22 to type their stories into the computer system in the features newsroom of the newspaper. The KCABJ Journal, a newspaper featuring of their best work, will be published in the fall by The Kansas City Star.

Their broadcast week starts June 24. Students will get to shadow broadcast journalists and produce their own newscast. Students will be evaluated by the staff of the workshop to determine which among them earned one of three scholarships KCABJ annually awards. That announcement will be made in the fall during the 11th KCABJ Media Awards Program. This is the 20th year of the student journalism workshop.

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