Former NABJ president gets diversity award

Dorothy Gilliam, the retired Washington Post columnist and former NABJ president who has been a long-time advocate for high school journalism and scholastic press rights, and the Prime Movers Program of George Washington University, have been recognized with the second annual Diversity Award from the Journalism Education Association, a national scholastic media teachers' organization based at Kansas State University, Manhattan.  She will be presented the award April 19 during the spring JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Anaheim, California.  The award is sponsored and juried by JEA's Multicultural Commission and it recognizes exceptional multicultural approaches and programs that enhance scholastic media.
 
In 2003, Gilliam became the founder and director of the Prime Movers Program housed at GWU in the District.  The program is the first of its kind that directly partners professional journalists from major media organizations and college journalism interns with high school journalism students in a collaboration to enhance journalism programs.  Some activities are reconstructed from defunct programs; others are resurrected from fledgling operations.  While at the Post, she was the founder and first director of another innovative program to enhance high school media--theYoung Journalist Development Program, a hallmark scholastic media outreach project. 
 
Prime Movers, however, takes a broadened and collaborative approach which allows students to do journalism in radio, television, online media and podcasting, as well as newspaper production.  But professional journalists consistently say they, too, are benfactors from the unique mentoring arrangement with collegiate and scholastic journalists by learning the inner workings of schools, youth issues and, as often recounted, a lasting impact of revitalizing their own "professional juices."
 
Since its inception, 10 Washington, D.C.-area schools, 350 students, 30 college interns and 29 professional journalists have participated in enhancing journalism programs, student training and adviser refreshment. Gilliam has also replicated the program through a partnership at San Francisco State University and the San Jose Mercury News and last year initiated a two-phased program with the Philadelphia City School District, TEmple University, The Philadelphia Inquirer and KYW-AM radio that will create media clubs or journalism activities in 28 city schools, most which previously had no scholastic media voice.  The program is funded through the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  An estimated 900 students nationally, from both urban and suburban schools, will have benefited in the unique journalism training.
 
"Dorothy Gilliam is one of those rare professional journalists who truly 'gets it' about the value of scholastic journalism to students, their schools and to the future of the journalism profession," said Reginald Ragland, the director of DCJEA, the local JEA chapter.  "She was a trailblazer with the Washington Post... a trailblazer with the formation of NABJ and the Maynard Institute.  And she has continued to be a trailblazer for quality scholastic journalism.  There aren't many who have impacted high school journalism with the same influence as they have in their profession."
 
During her professional career, Gilliam was one of the Post's first Black female reporters and columnists.  She covered the riots of the Little Rock, Ark., following the integration of Central High School, known as the 'Little Rock Nine;" was the first female president of the National Assn. of Black Journalists and one of the founding members, in 1986, of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.  She was a previous recipient of JEA's  Scholastic Media Citation, now known as the Friends of Scholastic Journalism, in 1998.

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