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Updated: Friday, May 27, 2005
Published: Friday, May 27, 2005 |
Contact:
NABJ Communications
(866) 479-NABJ
NABJ Region IX Conference Held in Las Vegas
WASHINGTON -- The National Association of Black Journalists sponsored a three-day career-development conference in Las Vegas an event expected to attract media professionals from Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
The conference provided valuable career development to journalists, students and media-related professionals, while also addressing topical issues that matter to media in the region. It was held May 26-28 at Ballys Las Vegas, 3645 Las Vegas Boulevard South.
The past year for black journalists has been challenging on many fronts and we must continue to push the industry to put as much focus on diversity as it does the bottom line, said NABJ President Herbert Lowe, a courts reporter for Newsday in New York. Regional conferences, like the upcoming conference in Las Vegas, bring together the best and brightest in the media industry to discuss topical issues of interest and strategies for the future.
We have been working diligently to offer attractive programming for all, said Region IX Director V. W. Vaughan, assistant managing editor at The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. The support from national experts, media executives and local journalists has been tremendous.
Conference attendees found a host of workshops including: The Apprentice, the things they don't tell you in college or grad school; The Nielson Trap, exploring the importance of accurately measuring audience participation; Ethical Boundaries in News and Public Relations, examining the use of company video news releases and the Armstrong Williams debacle; the American Society of Newspaper Editors Diversity Report, showing that newspapers are woefully negligent in recruiting and retaining black journalists; and a workshop on how to improve visual editing skills, led by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Partners from the Unity Journalists of Color, Inc., will also participate and conduct several workshops.
A highlight of the conference was a town hall forum. The public was invited to this session where recent media controversies will be examined. Controversies include former Las Vegas Weathercaster Rob Blair, who substituted the racial slur coon for the last name of Dr. Martin Luther King; talk show host Armstrong Williams; former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair; and the Nielsen reports and how the black community is affected by them. This meeting provides a public forum to discuss concerns of media coverage and allow journalists to offer perspective on the controversies.
For more information about the conference or NABJ, call (301) 445-7100.
An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation, with more than 4,100 members, and provides educational, career development and support to black journalists worldwide.
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