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September 2001 KCABJ Newsletter

2001 NABJ CONVENTION
Sutton: Mistakes Were Made, And I'm Sorry

Will Sutton

The sorry financial state of the National Association of Black Journalists dominated the group's 26th annual convention in August.

NABJ President Will Sutton apologized for the shortfall to the organization's members in The NABJ Monitor, the student-run convention newspaper, and in the latest issue of the NABJ Journal.

"I'm sorry,'' Sutton told The Monitor. ``I said it in January, in April, in a letter in August, today and I'm saying it Friday. I don't know how many different ways you want to hear it.''

To try to mend the problems, NABJ has formed a new finance committee that will advise the NABJ board on spending. The committee includes the incumbent treasurer, two past treasurers, two independent financial advisers and a media executive. The group would have oversight on spending that exeeds $5,000.

Nearly 3,000 journalists from throughout the country gathered in Orlando, Fla., for the convention. More than a quarter of the membership of the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists attended. They were President Benita Y. Williams, NABJ Treasurer Glenn E. Rice, Malecia El-Amin, Kesha Moorefield, Melanie Coffee, Yvette Walker, Angela Curry, Steve Penn, Kia Breaux, Gerald Jordan, Stan Austin, Ardua Harris and KCABJ Treasurer Lewis Diuguid.

The NABJ Monitor kept persons at the convention informed about NABJ's sickening financial problems often quoting NABJ Treasurer Glenn Rice:

NABJ fell short of its annual budget last year. Its operating expenses were more than $500,000 over budget, and NABJ lost more than $436,000 in the stock market as the national economy soured.

As a result NABJ closed out fiscal year 2000-2001 nearly $1 million in debt.

Part of the revenue shortfall problem involved poor attendance at the 2000 NABJ convention in Phoenix and the 1999 Unity convention in Seattle. Most of NABJ's members work for media companies on the East Coast and in the Midwest, and did not travel to the West Coast sites. Only about 2,000 black journalists attended the Unity convention, and 1,950 people were at the convention in Phoenix compared with more than 3,000 at the 1998 NABJ convention in Washington, D.C. NABJ has more than 3,000 members.

"Frankly, we should not have taken our annual convention from Washington, D.C., to Seattle along with Unity: Journalists of Color Inc. and to Phoenix last year,'' Sutton wrote for the NABJ Journal. "Most of our membership is east of the middle of the nation, and we have to be realistic about where we do our best attracting convention participation. We should go West every several years or so but never back to back.''

The NABJ board picked the convention locations years in advance.

Each convention is the organization's biggest money maker. Convention revenue helps cover operating costs for the year. NABJ has an annual budget of $2.5 million.

Cost overruns in the last two years occurred because NABJ sponsored too many events at the Phoenix convention that were unbudgeted, provided too many complimentary convention registrations for volunteers and speakers, paid airline and hotel expenses for some national board members and sponsored Media Institute programs that were poorly planned and not well attended.

NABJ's financial problems made headlines in stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post leading up to the Orlando convention. Heated discussions dominated the open NABJ business meeting at the convention last month as members vented over the organization's financial affairs.

NABJ Treasurer Glenn Rice came through the fray both in articles on the financial troubles and during the convention as a superstar and savior of NABJ.

Click here for the NABJ Monitor's complete coverage of the 2001 Convention.

NABJ Elects President

Condace Pressley

Condace Pressley was elected the new president of the National Association of Black Journalists over Herbert Lowe by a vote of 709 to 285.

The announcement was made close to midnight at the Newsmaker Banquet on Aug. 24. Each had served on the NABJ board six years. Pressley is a former regional director, and Lowe spent three years as secretary.

Pressley is an assistant program director at WSB-AM Radio in Atlanta, where she works with a $2.4 million budget. Lowe is a general assignment reporter for Newsday.

In her acceptance speech, Pressley vowed to "restore financial soundness to NABJ.''

Click here to read the complete text of Pressley's acceptance speech.

KCABJ Media Awards

The entries for the 10th Annual KCABJ Media Awards have gone to the judges. Entries came from a wider variety of media than ever before. They include daily newspaper, weekly newspaper, radio, television, advertising, cable television and new media.

The judges for the broadcast, advertising and new media entries are KCABJ members Kesha Moorefield, KCABJ Vice President/Print Tanyanika N. Samuels, KCABJ President Benita Y. Williams and KCABJ Treasurer and Media Awards Committee Co-Chair Lewis Diuguid. KCABJ Secretary Joi Preciphs is the primary judge of the print entries and will pick persons to judge them.

Next KCABJ Meeting

The September meeting of KCABJ will be filled with important topics. Members will pick the scholarship winners for 2001, set ticket prices for the awards banquet and review candidates for the 10th Annual KCABJ Thumbs Down Award. The Thumbs Down entries have accumulated over the last year. They include broadcast, print and advertising candidates.

The number and breadth of the possible award winners follows last year when KCABJ handed out Thumbs Down Award.

The scholarship winners will be picked from the 12 students who were in the 2001 KCABJ Urban Student Journalism Workshop at Rockhurst University. The top students will be judged on their test scores from the two-week program, their attendance, their participation, the stories they turned in and the potential that they possess in being good journalists.

KCABJ will award at least three scholarships to students. They are the KCABJ Roy Wilkins Scholarship, which has been given out annually since 1987; the KCABJ/Kansas City Star Laura R. Hockaday Scholarship, awarded since 2000; and the KCABJ Nancy Diuguid Scholarship, given out since 1994.

In addition KCABJ President Benita Y. Williams will give out the KCABJ President's Award to the person who has done the most in the last year to further the interests of KCABJ. Informtion on the time, date and place of the upcoming meeting will be e-mailed to members soon.

State of Black KC 2002

KCABJ Secretary Joi Preciphs has agreed to author the chapter on the media of Greater Kansas City for the Urban League of Greater Kansas City's upcoming report on "The State of Black Kansas City.''

Former KCABJ Vice President/Broadcast Eddie Williams wrote the chapter of the last report published in 1991. Gayle Holliday contacted KCABJ this summer after the death of Bill Clark, longtime president of the Urban League. The Urban League plans to put together the progress report in honor of Clark.

News From Elsewhere

The press is sending out conflicting messages on the state of people of color in the media. The Kansas City Star reported that a record number of minority actors found work in Hollywood last year as employment for performers overall rose by 7 percent.

Officials credited diversity awareness programs and civil rights groups for pressuring studios and producers to hire more black, Hispanic and Asian actors. Of the 53,134 TV or movie roles, 11,930 went to minority actors, the guild reported. White actors still dominate the industry, playing 76.1 percent of all roles. About 14.8 percent of all roles went to African-Americans, the highest percentage since the guild began compiling statistics in 1992.

But The Call of Kansas City reported in August that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was threatening to boycott the TV networks, saying not enough had been done to put people of color in broadcast jobs on and off camera. The National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group, added that not enough was being done to include Latinos on TV.

At the same time, The Associated Press reported in August that blacks and whites today share the same favorite TV shows because of television's heightened efforts to include multicultural casts. Those shows included "Law & Order,'' "ER'' and "The Practice.''

At the same time, The Call reported last month that nearly 25 percent of the jobs in television news are held by people of color -- the highest number in the industry's history. However, the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) report included numbers from Spanish language stations. The 24.6 percent figure is up from 21 percnt last year. The report also found that people of color aren't in the top director and manager position in television news.

Opportunity Knocks

TPT/Twin Cities Public Television has an opening for a recruitment training & diversity specialist in its human resource department. For more information contact Lewis Diuguid at (816) 234-4723.

NABJ is seeking nominations for its 2002 Special Honors. They are for Lifetime Achievement, Journalist of the Year, Percy Qoboza Award, Community Service Award, Best Practices Award, Chapter of the Year Award and Student Chapter of the Year.

The Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism is accepting applications for midcarer journalists to attend a five-day, expenses paid seminar at the University of California-Berkeley that will focus on changes taking place in the urban landscape. For more information call (510) 643-7425. Applications are due before Sept. 12.

The Black Wall Street Journal is looking for articles, stories, graphs, editorials and other material about minority businesses. For more information send inquiries to sking@cyberstoreusa.com.

The Michigan Journalism Fellowship is accepting applications. For more information call Wendy at (734) 998-7666.

KC People

KCABJ's membership climbed to 47 with the addition of Edwin Birch and Khia C. Simmons.

KCABJ member Angela Curry was honored at the 26th annual NABJ convention, receiving the NABJ Community Service Award. KCABJ member Yvette Walker also made sure that Angela received recognition and applause at the Knight Ridder breakfast held during the NABJ convention for Knight Ridder newspaper employees.

Glenn E. Rice was elected to a second, two-year term as treasurer of NABJ. The NABJ board spot for region VIII director, which includes Missouri, is vacant.

Also at the NABJ convention, three KCABJ members served on panels, sharing their expertise with people who attended two separate workshops on copy editing. Malecia El-Amin and Yvette Walker were on one panel and Kesha Moorefield spoke during another session.

Many former KCABJ members were at the convention. They included Greg Fields, Pam McKelvy, Kathy Times, Gromer Jeffers, Mark Holland, LaVelle E. Neal III, Florestine Purnell, Gerald Jordan and April McClellan.

Opinions Online

If you want to know what African-American opinion writers nationwide are thinking, check out www.trottergroup.com/members.htm.

2001 Kansas City Association of Black Journalists
P.O. Box 32744, Kansas City, Mo. 64111