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‘The Help’ crackled with emotion, 7
th
Newsletter /Our 30 year/ September 2011/ Vol. 31, No.9
___________________________________________________________________________________
$3 million gift for a center on
race at Columbia J-School
Garland scholarship to resume in fall, J-officials told alumni
By Toni Randolph
PHILADELPHIA – Columbia University J-School has received a $3 million gift to create a chair on race and
ethnicity. Associate Dean Arlene Morgan announced the gift Aug. 6 at the annual J-School alumni breakfast during
the NABJ convention in Philadelphia. Morgan said a formal announcement will be coming in the fall.
Morgan said the gift came from Ira A. Lipman, founder of the security firm Guardsmark, LLC. Lipman also
provided a gift to the J-School to support the John Chancellor
Award, which was established in the mid-1990s.
The school wants to establish an International Center for Race and
Ethnicity, Morgan said. “What we‟re looking for is a
comprehensive center. We want to do this at an international level.
Race is not just a problem here,” she said. Morgan said Columbia
needs about $10 million to launch such a center - and that the gift
from Lipman “will give me the calling card to raise more money.”
She said school officials hope to select a chair by 2015.
Now that the Phyllis Garland Scholarship Fund is permanently
endowed, Wayne Dawkins, ‟80, said the J-School is on track to
award scholarships during the next school year. School officials
briefed him before the breakfast. The J-School collected $104,800 in contributions – and exceeded the goal by more
than $4,000 - during a drive to endow the fund last year . Dawkins recognized the efforts by J-School trustee and
alumna A'Lelia Bundles, ‟76 in exceeding the goal for the scholarship fund.
Admissions official Leon Braswell said the Class of 2012 includes 23 black students, including Tracy Jarrett,
granddaughter of the late NABJ founder and president Vernon Jarrett. Braswell says black students will comprise
about 8 percent of next year‟s class.
He also said annual tuition and fees for the Masters program total more than $50,000.
Alumni at the breakfast talked a bit about a succession plan for the BA Newsletter, now in its 31 st year. Dawkins,
the founding editor, said he‟d raised the matter about 15 years ago, but added that Reginald Stuart, ‟71, tabled the
idea. Stuart again suggested tabling the discussion until next year.
Continued on page 2
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
Page 2
Garland scholarship to resume/Continued
The newsletter has come a long way in its 31 years. “We started on an Olivetti typewriter,” Dawkins said. [He still
owns that low-tech relic.] These days, he mails copies of the newsletter to only a few of its 600 subscribers – and
electronically delivers the other 95 percent.
Dawkins also said the newsletter has a wider reach because of the Internet. Since 2002 the J-School‟s website has
published the newsletter; that makes it available to 10,000 alumni around the world. “We created something that‟s a
brand. It has value,” he said.
Seventeen J-School alumni attended the annual breakfast: Lawrence A. Aaron, ‟70, Reginald Stuart, ‟71, Karen
Gray Houston, ‟73, Gayle Pollard-Terry, ‟73, Doug Lyons, ‟74, Doxie A. McCoy, ‟78, Betty Baye, ‟80, Wayne
Dawkins, ‟80, Cheryl Devall, ‟82, Melanie Eversley, ‟88, Toni Randolph, ‟88, Deborah Skinner, ‟97, Wendell
Edwards, ‟97, Claire Serant, ‟98, Stacey Samuel, ‟06, Sabrina Ford, ‟07, and Sia Nyorkor, ‟09.
The writer, a 1988 Columbia journalism graduate, is editor for new audiences at Minnesota Public Radio.
J-School movers and shakers at NABJ-Philadelphia
Allison Bourne Vaneck, ‟00, won a Salute to Excellence Award for “Nevin Phillips: PGA merchandiser of the
year,” in the television sports market 16 and below category. Vaneck is with WMNS CBS TV2, U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Meet the women who helped keep Hugo Boss in town,” by Olivera Perkins, ‟87, and Deborah Adams Simmons of
the Cleveland Plain Dealer won the Salute to Excellence award in the news/business over 150,000 circulation
category.
“Black Girls for Sale” by Essence magazine‟s Rosemarie Robotham, ‟80, Angela Burt Murray and Jeannie Amber
won in the investigative award for
magazines over 1 million circulation
category.
When Kimberly Martin accepted the
Salute to Excellence Emerging Journalist
of the Year, the young sports writer
praised mentors Lawrence Aaron, ‟70,
who guided her when she was an intern at
the Bergen Record, and Zachary Dowdy,
‟92, also with Newsday. Martin is a beat
writer covering the Yankees and the Jets.
Lisa Cox, ‟92, was elected NABJ
secretary. She also helped produce the
awards gala. Doug Lyons, ‟74, was the
unflappable coordinator of the Authors
Showcase. Melanie Eversley, ‟88, was a
major player in the NABJ Digital Task
Force.
Brotherly Love & Sisterly Affection: Cheryl Devall, ’82 (wearing a typewriter
key necklace), and Betty Baye, ’80, smile for the camera. Photo by Michael Fields
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
Page 3
A challenge to be in New Orleans;
BBC scolded over riot coverage
By Wayne Dawkins
PHILADELPHIA – Just before Arianna Huffington, owner of the Huffington Post/Black Voices addressed NABJ
on Aug. 4, Paula Madison emphatically announced that she and her husband would contribute $100,000 toward
next year‟s convention in New Orleans. If members had to make a choice between attending the NABJ and the
Unity meetings, said Madison, she urged “wavering” audience members to be in New Orleans in June 2012.
Last spring NABJ withdrew from the Unity coalition of Hispanic, Asian and Native American journalists‟
associations because a financial dispute. Unity 2012, the fifth confab since 1994, will be in Las Vegas.
Before becoming a majority owner of the Africa Channel and the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks, Madison was
NBC‟s chief of diversity and an executive vice president.
Climbing as others slide
About 175 people packed the room for the Aug. 5 business meeting.
President Kathy Y. Times told them that membership
had dipped below 2,900 during her administration
amid the Great Recession – but she added that now
the numbers approach 4,000 members.
“We had tough times,” she said, “and that in part was
what the Unity vote was all about.”
Michael Brown offered the treasurer‟s report and said
2009 revenues of $1.7 million rebounded to $2.4
million in 2010. NABJ leadership reduced liabilities
and built up a $500,000 increase in net assets.
“Today,” said Brown, “you‟re in the black.”
The room filled with founders, former presidents
and board members and mostly longtime members
burst into applause.
Treasurer Gregory Lee said NABJ saved $169,000 this year on hotels compared to the convention‟s housing costs
in five Tampa hotels in 2009. 25 media companies participated this year compared to 14 in 2010 and 36 non-media
companies participated this year, slightly up from 35 in
2010.
Maurice Foster gave his executive director report: NABJ
netted $80,000 during the January Hall of Fame gala in
Washington. During that time of year, association
revenues are lowest. Foster tracked membership as
follows: 3,200 [end of 2009], 2,900 [2010], 3,400
[June], 3,293 [August]. Foster said 1,960 plus 50 who
were not counted in the computer tally pre-registered for
the convention. Foster said that the previous night he‟d
ordered more supplies to accommodate the on-site
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
Page 4
registrations streaming in. Last year, 94 companies reserved job fair booths; this year, 159 companies did.
“While other journalism groups are sliding, we‟re on a growth path,” said Foster.
Mavericks who handled the heat
At the Aug. 6 awards gala, Times said she‟d concentrated in the first 18 months of her 2-year term on sustaining the
association. The FAMU alumna and Miami Heat fan compared NABJ this year to the underdog-turned-champion
Dallas Mavericks: “Steady, didn‟t choke under pressure and stayed focused. We‟re in the black
and we won.”
Event emcee T.J. Holmes of CNN called Times “steely,” and praised NABJ leaders for finding
ways to get laid-off members to recent conventions. Observers also noted that President Times
knows first-hand about losing a job. She was let go from her reporter/co-anchor position at the
Jackson, Miss. Fox station. These days, Times and husband are creating media content as a small
business owners.
Hail to the [new] chief
Gregory Lee was elected the 19th president of NABJ easily outpacing rivals Deirdre Childress and Charles Robinson
with 57 percent of all votes cast, 294-168-50. Lee, senior assistant sports editor at the Boston Globe, is the youngest
president in association history, but longtime treasurer
brings the experience of service with four past presidents.
Days after the election, Lee spoke on behalf of NABJ
during an international crisis. He chided the BBC for what
he called inflammatory analysis and poor judgment during
its coverage of riots and looting in England after police
there killed an unarmed young man. David Starkey, a
historian and commentator on BBC, said without
challenge that rioting “whites had become the blacks.”
“We are struggling to understand this stunning lack of sensitivity because the BBC has a longstanding reputation
of integrity, accuracy and impartiality with very clear editorial guidelines,” said the NABJ statement. A BBC
spokesman issued an apology and said the network‟s choice of vocabulary “could have been clearer.”
Closer to home, Lee will follow up a three-way contest for NABJ president and a contested vice-president/print race
by appointing several people to unfilled regional director seats.
Photos: Gregory Lee/bjasc.org; Kathy Times/file; Suzanne Malveaux, ’91, of CNN, Jay Harris of ESPN,
unidentified/frontrow.espn.go.com; an animated Cornel West, right, at DuBois forum/Eric Burse, NABJ Monitor
NABJ-Philly ’11 highlights: Double special honors winner Acel Moore
Founder Acel Moore became the second person to earn NABJ‟s two highest awards, Lifetime Achievement, which
he won last month, and Journalist of the Year, which Moore accepted in 1979 after he‟d won a Pulitzer Prize
[Bernard Shaw was the first double recipient, in 1989 and 2007]. Moore, who uses a wheelchair now because of
multiple surgeries, began his newspaper career in 1962 as a copy boy at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Over decades he
rose through the ranks to associate editor of the newspaper. Moore is married to Linda Wright Moore, ‟73, a
Philadelphia TV journalist, columnist and mayoral press secretary. … The Rev. Al Sharpton withdrew from a
scheduled Aug. 5 DuBois forum appearance with Cornel West of Princeton University. Sharpton told the online site
loop21 that he would have been a “distraction.” Before the convention NABJ rank- and file- members criticized his
consideration over trained journalists for an MSNBC news/talk host job … A repeated theme during the convention
was whether racial diversity had become casualty in an era of economically stressed newsrooms and shrinking
staffs. NABJ released its fourth annual diversity census: an examination of television newsroom management.
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
Newsroom to Classroom:
W
Page 5
Syllabus exchange /digital instruction
hy was a mass media instructor in the audience blowing kisses toward four panelists?
The woman from a Mid-Atlantic university explained that it was the first time she heard clear
and useful advice in order to prepare course syllabi.
On Aug. 5, presenters Bonnie
Newman Davis [Virginia
Commonwealth], Wayne Dawkins
[Hampton], Herbert Lowe
[Marquette] and Yolanda
McCutchen [Claflin] offered a
unified message: Be sure that
syllabi spell out the learning
expectations for the courses and
the rules for appropriate
classroom conduct.
Lowe, a former NABJ president
[2003-2005], said there are two
kinds of students, “those who want
a grade and those who want a
career.” He has learned to serve both constituencies. During the second half of the 90-minute session, presenters
shared examples of the way they operate digital classrooms, whether it was the classroom management site
Blackboard.com, news sites such as NPR.org and NYTimes.com, or the Poynter Institute‟s News University.
The 20 people in the audience included journalism educators, news industry professionals considering transitions to
academia and news professionals who were about to teach courses as adjuncts. Presenter Newman Davis is this
year‟s NABJ Journalism Educator of the Year. – Dawkins
Photo: From left, Bonnie N. Davis, Yolanda McCutchen, Herb Lowe.
Author’s Showcase: Self-publishing, an alternative
Angela Dodson, former editor of Black Issues Book Review, distributed to about 50 audience members handouts
that named 10 reasons authors don‟t need editors for their manuscripts.
OK, she was kidding. Of course writers need rigorous editing – line, copy, then proofreading – before publishers
bind manuscripts into books. Dodson is an independent book editor, writer and consultant.
Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he self-published “Katrina‟s Secrets: Storms after the Storm”
because he was convinced trade publishers who‟d offered him contracts would dramatically alter his narrative voice.
S. Renee Smith urged the audience to take advantage of publishing in the e-book format because that new
platform – available on Kindle and Nook tablets, or Apple iPads – is increasing its book business market share
at a rate of 3 percent a year.
Longtime self-publishers Karen E. Quinones Miller [Oshun Publishing] and Wayne Dawkins [August Press] on
Aug. 6 shared guerilla marketing tips and also gave point-by-point lessons in publishing fundamentals,
the financial and administrative realities of the business.
Late addition Brenda Blackmon, a New Jersey anchorwoman, acknowledged that she broke nearly all the
conventional rules of self-publishing, yet published a “A Mom‟s Story,” children‟s book about her daughter‟s
battle with lupus. Blackmon‟s crusade has raised awareness about the rare, debilitating and sometimes deadly
affliction that disproportionately affects African-Americans.
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
Page 6
Learning Breakfasts: Building wealth, education
By Wayne Dawkins
PHILADELPHIA – The “Building Wealth in Tough Times” Aug. 5 breakfast posed a conundrum
for African-Americans. The panel of financial journalists and other experts essentially recommended
that investors trust the venal financiers who ruined them during the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
How badly did that event screw millions of black households? Before the Great Recession, said a new Pew Research
Center report, the white-black wealth gap was 6-1. After the Great Recession, the disparity widened to 20-1.
That said, I asked the experts how many years would it take for Black America to return to a 6-1 wealth disparity.
Financial pundit Kelvin Boston initially danced around my question with bromides about the need for blacks to
create their own businesses. When I pressed, he said three to five years. The Rev. DeForest B. “Buster” Soaries Jr.,
a New Jersey pastor and pioneer in faith-based economic development, didn‟t blink: It will take at least a generation,
he said, for African-Americans to recover from the financial wreckage.
The panel, which included moderator Sharon Epperson of CNBC and Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post
advised the audience to diversify their assets with a mix of stocks, bonds, and yes, real estate. Why? The tragedy of
the Great Recession was that many black first-time homebuyers had most of their wealth tied up in their houses and
many of those houses lost so much value they ended up “under water,” worth less than the purchase price.
The “tough times” part of the panel title was prescient: Six hours later that day, Standard & Poor‟s downgraded U.S.
credit from AAA to AA+ and the unprecedented move sparked chaos in the international markets and bloodletting
on Wall Street on Monday Aug. 8, the next business day.
Still left behind – Education achievement gap
Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary of Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Education said “Absolutely, education
is a civil rights issue.” Her department, which was virtually dormant before the Obama administration arrived,
is active now, she said. It employs more than 600 attorneys - including new hires – to aggressively pursue Title VI
violations. Previously, 70 percent of civil rights work in education dealt with disability cases, said Ali.
About 60 people attended the Aug. 4 W.K. Kellogg Foundation-sponsored-breakfast. Some panelists‟ statements
caused indigestion:
The state of education journalism is abysmal [No, spotty or inconsistent depending the on the region is more
accurate. My hometown Daily Press in Hampton Roads, Va. probably covers education with more purpose than
many metropolitan-size newspapers. Some metros rise to the occasion: the Los Angeles Times‟ evaluation of
school district teachers, for example, hit like an earthquake].
Don‟t call high-achieving predominantly black and brown schools “miracle schools.” [OK, we should
avoid stereotyping, but there are schools that perform despite the obstacles of intransigent bureaucracy and
indifferent “educators.”]
“Waiting for Superman,” the 2010 documentary that resounded like a primal scream for education reform was
dismissed by Amy Wilkins of The Education Trust as “a cartoon that left teachers raw.” When I followed up with
that panelist after the session, she conceded that it‟s fiction that all teachers are equally competent, and as fellow
panelist Alandra Washington of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation quipped, teachers unions do not represent the
interests of children; they represent teacher‟s interests.
Let the church say amen to panelists who said that improved parent engagement in struggling urban schools
should help close the achievement gap. Ron Allen of NBC News moderated the panel in place of Rehema Ellis,
J-‟77, who was nursing a foot injury.
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
Page 7
‘The Help’ crackled with emotion at film fest
By Melanie Eversley
PHILADELPHIA – Two films about under-explored facets of African-American life were the subject of
this year's NABJ Film Festival during the annual convention in Philadelphia, and both presentations filled
a 600-seat auditorium at the Pennsylvania Convention Center to capacity on Aug. 6.
“The Help,” a drama about the lives of African-American maids in the segregated Jackson, Miss., of the 1960s, has
generated some controversy because it is based on a book by Katheryn Stockett, a white author. Reaction has ranged
from support and praise of the movie starring Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Sissy Spacek and Cicely Tyson to
criticisms of thin, inaccurate portrayals of its African-American characters.
After the screening, NABJ members questioned a panel
hosted by NBC's Tamron Hall that included Stockett,
Davis, Spencer and director/screenwriter Tate Taylor.
“I found that as an audience, the NABJ members really
did enjoy the film, but it did also incite questions that
people had about the voice of the author,” said Patrick
Riley, chairman of NABJ‟s Arts and Entertainment Task
Force and a freelance journalist. “I think it made for a
very spirited debate among members and panelists.”
The Task Force coordinated the film festival.
Davis, who plays maid Aibileen in the film, defended her role during the discussion. She said African-Americans
should welcome the opportunity to expose the public to all levels of their experiences. “The biggest and greatest
message that we can show the world is that we are just as complicated, just as beautiful, just as rich as anyone else,”
she said, generating applause.
Photo: From left Taylor, Stockett, Spencer, Davis and Hall/ Eversley
Whatever the view, the film does seem to have elicited emotion from the people who made it and the people who've
watched it. Reaction from Columbia J-school alumni at the convention reflected the range of filmgoers‟ responses.
“Don't expect some seriously eye-opening profound sort of experience, as far as I‟m concerned, because I think it
leaves out the real story of real people who are here in the South and some particularly tumultuous stories,”
said Serbino Sandifer-Walker, J-„89, a multimedia journalism professor at Texas Southern University who is
working on a book about Houston's civil rights movement.
Sandifer-Walker, who grew up in Texas, says domestic workers in her family shared horror stories of their
treatment. She said she does not feel “The Help” portrayed the depth of that horror.
“I don't think it reflected the authenticity of what these women went through and what they are still going through
and what it did to their families and how it affected them emotionally and psychologically,” Sandifer-Walker said.
“Being treated like you were property or you‟re going to work for someone who was an alcoholic and they haul
off and hit you, and you have to stand there and take this abuse” is one example of how her relatives were treated,
she said.
The reaction from Dexter Mullins, a 2011 J-school graduate, reflected the other end of the spectrum. Mullins, a
desk assistant with “NBC Nightly News,” believes the film is “most definitely” worth seeing.
Continued on page 8
Black Alumni Network
September 2010
“I think it's a great story of overcoming obstacles,” he
said. “It's also a great way for people to learn about a
part of black history that we don't like to talk about.”
Mullins said he has benefited from conversations
about the movie with author Stockett, who he met at
the NABJ convention and who emphasized that she‟d
created a work of fiction, and with Spencer, who he
met while helping with camera setup for her
interview with TheGrio.com. Mullins recalled his
favorite scene in the movie: when Minnie, the maid
portrayed by Spencer, serves up a pie with a harmful
mystery ingredient to her former employer, an
avowed racist and trouble stirrer around Jackson.
“It was great to see Minnie stand up for herself,”
Mullins said. “Even though she knew the
consequences of her actions, she had to make herself
equal.” Mullins said he believes that AfricanAmericans, sometimes, look for a target for their
complaints when a non-African-American tries to
portray their experience. “I don't think there should
be any complaints because nobody black did it
before,” Mullins said. “I think that I would encourage
everyone … to go and see it and also to read the book
and also read critically, and understand it is a novel.”
Doxie McCoy, J-78, said she saw the film at the
convention and again with friends once she returned
home to the Washington area. “It was even better the
second time around," said McCoy, D.C. Mayor
Vincent Gray's director of communications. "Great
acting, particularly Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer
... I found the movie much better than the book.”
Page 8
The discussions have generated so much energy that
author A‟Lelia Bundles, J-„76, created a Facebook
page titled “Helping Ourselves” that offers an
opportunity for “writers, readers and movie buffs to
share books, movies and plays about the real „Help.‟”
The page offers example after example of books and
productions that portray African-American domestic
workers through history.
NABJ convention goers also viewed a preview trailer
and PowerPoint presentation about “Red Tails,” a
film exploring the lives of the Tuskegee Airmen to be
released in January. NABJ had an opportunity to
offer the presentation because Paul Brock, NABJ‟s
founding executive director, is a longstanding friend
of a producer at George Lucas Films, Riley said.
Afterward, convention goers heard a discussion of
the film with actors Terrence Howard and Cuba
Gooding Jr. and producer Charles Floyd Johnson. “I
think the folks who sat in on [the] “Red Tails”
[presentation] are really ready to support it via
social networking,” Riley said.
Regarding the fact that both films explore the
African-American experience but have, in the case of
“The Help,” a white author and, in the case of “Red
Tails,” a white-owned production company, Riley
said there are many ways to tell African-American
stories: “We don't aim to have the NABJ film festival
strictly about the black voice, but it is primarily going
to be something that is of black interest."
The writer, a 1988 Columbia journalism graduate, is
a reporter at USA Today and a contributor to
TheGrio.com
The Black Alumni Network of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was founded in May 1980 and
since the group has published monthly. Log on to our Web site at www.journalism.columbia.edu Alumni & Friends
page. Wayne J. Dawkins – editor, Betty Winston Baye, Kissette Bundy, Angela Chatman, Cheryl Devall,
Dan Holly, Kip Branch, contributing editors E-mail tips, comments, suggestions to wdawk69643@aol.com
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