NABJ Monitor, August 21, 2021

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THE MONITOR

VP LAUDS BLACK JOURNALISTS

Harris leads star-studded list of speakers at 2021 convention

18 BLACK STUDENTS PERSEVERE

16 NATURAL HAIR ON THE AIR

Under pressure, students at Ivy League schools highlight resilience

Crown Act making braids, curls more accepted on TV news

S AT U R DAY, A U G U S T 2 1 , 2 0 2 1 • N AT I O N A L A S S O C I AT I O N O F B L A C K J O U R N A L I S T S • w w w. n a b j m o n i t o r. c o m / 2 0 2 1

NABJ 2021 E LECTION

TUCKER

WINS AGAIN!

BY DEIDRE MONTAGUE NABJ Monitor

Dorothy Tucker has won a second term as NABJ president with 83% of the votes, defeating challenger Manuel Smith, who obtained 17% (531-111).

Tucker congratulated all of the board members, those continuing and those just elected to their seats.

She also congratulated Smith and pledged to him and his supporters that their concerns will be addressed.

While she is excited for a second term, Tucker noted it is time to get to work.

Smith congratulated Tucker and the new incoming board and said he is looking forward to the work that they will deliver on behalf of members. He thanked his supporters and colleagues who supported him throughout his run and said he enjoyed every minute of campaigning.

Smith also voiced his concerns that NABJ engaged a low number of members to actively vote in this year’s election and vowed to hold the new board accountable.

Manuel Smith, NABJ President Candidate Although the results have been announced, the vote counts are preliminary and will not be certified until next week.

Tucker will rejoin Ken Lemon, who has also been voted in for a second term as vice president of broadcast. Running unopposed, he received 596 votes.

New members of the NABJ Executive Board include unopposed candidates Amir Vera as vice president of digital (586 votes), Madison Carter as secretary (584 votes), Brie Jackson for Region I director (227), Eva D. Coleman for the Region III director (187 votes), and Tamia Fowlkes (75 votes) as the student representative.

When asked about low voter turnout for this year’s election, Smith acknowledged that while he is disappointed about not winning, he is more disappointed that members seemed to him to be disengaged. A total of 1,841 members voted out of over 4,000, however, many are not able to vote Continued on page 4

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“I’m a little speechless…I was so hoping for this outcome,” Tucker said. “I really appreciate the work of the election committee. I appreciate all of those members who voted for me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for giving me the honor to represent the most respected journalism organization in the world.”

DOROTHY TUCKER, NABJ PRESIDENT

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THE MONITOR 2021 NABJ MONITOR STAFF ASSIGNMENT DESK SHAMARIA MASSENBURG BROADCAST CHELSIE BURROUGHS CHLOE GODBOLD SARIAH BONDS YAW BONSU (PRODUCER) NICOLLE MAJETTE (PRODUCER) ALEXIS LOMAX (PRODUCER) PRINT/ONLINE JAVIER SARMIENTO JR. KIANA STEVENSON DEIDRE MONTAGUE CALEN RAZOR KIAH ARMSTRONG COPY DESK SHEILA HODGES AMBER COURTNEY GRAPHIC DESIGN WHITNEY HUGHES MARLEY MALEFANT WEBSITE/DIGITAL OCTAVIA JOHNSON SAMANTHA CHERY DANIELLA JOHNSON (SOCIAL MEDIA) PHOTOGRAPHY WORTHINGTON MOORE PUBLIC RELATIONS KYREE COOK

NABJ’s virtual convention platform featured clickable graphics for information, workshops, the exhibit hall and special events.

Inside NABJ’s Decision to Go Virtual Again Vaccines provided hope but the risks were too great to bring members together in person in Houston

BY CALEN RAZOR NABJ MONITOR

In January, NABJ had a tough decision to make. A vaccine for COVID-19 was approved but no one could predict whether people would be able to show up to the organization’s Houston convention in person.

As hotels pushed the group for a decision, NABJ decided to err on the side of caution, leading to another virtual convention for 2021.

“We were facing a million-dollar loss if we said yes to hotels and then canceled somewhere down the line,” NABJ President Dorothy Tucker said. “So we looked at all the facts we had thus far and took them all into account for this decision.”

Given the circumstances, the association is ready to make the most of its resources.

After all, it won’t be the first time the group has hosted a virtual convention.

NABJ’s virtual 2020 joint convention with NAHJ was successful with a combined 3,000 registrants. Even NABJ founding member Joe Davidson, who has been

attending since the very first convention, was impressed.

“I thought last year’s convention was good. In fact it came out better than I expected,” Davidson said. “It was remarkable, especially considering the amount of time they had to pull it off.”

As expected on their first time around, minor bugs and technical issues affected the virtual convention experience last year.

Tucker says she received multiple complaints about bad connections.

But, after having that experience, the organization has had time to make improvements. NABJ Parliamentarian Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig is confident that will show.

“You’re going to see the difference in how it’s stepped up, how it looks, and how easy it is to maneuver through workshops,” Fitzhugh-Craig said. “I think that’s a plus this year to make people feel connected.”

Members seem to be confident in the organization to provide a meaningful convention even in the face of a pandemic. According to preliminary numbers from NABJ Executive Director Drew Berry, this year’s convention amassed 2,400 registrations — exceeding their predictions by 200.

The programming committee is not allowing the digital convention to deter efforts to give members what they came for.

A series of interactive and hands-on workshops are planned to engage journalists and allow them to reflect on current issues.

“We curated programming that is timely, representative of the organization and news making,” Convention Programming Chair Leisa Richardson said. “It raises discussion and offers insight on everything from the racial awakening to how to navigate the industry during a pandemic.”

Along with the virtual convention, the organization will conduct the virtual Student Multimedia Projects program for the second time. Last year, the program was successful in giving students the newsroom experience while operating online.

“My team that I had last year came through and we had successful virtual projects,” Student Projects Co-Chair Carol Gantt said. “It surpassed my expectations the way we were able to pivot, so I had a great team.”

The projects always aim to equip students with skills they will need in actual newsrooms in which they’ll soon be working. And while going virtual may have seemed like a hindrance for a hands-on experience with student journalists, it might actually benefit students more in the long run.

“The virtual platform forces students to learn necessary skills,” Gantt said. “Now you don’t have a shooter, now you don’t have someone to do your graphics and you need to do them. That puts a lot in your back pocket that you can pull out later.”

Students have been working in a daily

virtual newsroom with professional journalists as mentors, building stories with their mentors in print, digital and broadcast. While Gantt hopes to return to an inperson experience, she and co-chair Justin Madden are still looking to produce meaningful work with this year’s NABJ babies.

If you ask any seasoned member of the NABJ, they’ll tell you first about the tightknit community the organization fosters.

Lifelong relationships are created at inperson conventions, turning colleagues into friends.

While she’s grateful that NABJ is able to hold the convention, Richardson said the biggest con is the fact that it’s not in person.

“The NABJ Convention is a family reunion. We thrive, and it gives us energy to go back to our newsrooms,” Richardson said. “We re-energize by seeing our colleagues and friends who we see every year usually.”

Berry says it’s much too early to make a decision about whether next year’s convention will be in person or a hybrid. But Tucker is remaining optimistic about reuniting the NABJ family in Las Vegas in 2022.

“We’re full steam ahead on our plans for Vegas next year,” Tucker said. “I feel confident that our members are vaccinated, so I hope we can move forward with an in-person convention.”

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VP Kamala Harris Applauds Journalists’ Work Brief appearance highlights star-studded 2021 virtual conference

BY MARLEY MALENFANT NABJ Monitor

Vice President Kamala Harris paid homage to journalists covering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at the 2021 NABJ virtual Newsmaker Plenary, one of the highlights of the 2021 NABJ Virtual Convention Aug. 18-21 that was filled with special guests.

In a 3½-minute speech, Harris addressed the daily propaganda that journalists and scientists face with the virus.

The vice president shared a tidbit about the scientific work her mother did. She said challenging assumptions, investigating, and finding the facts were requirements in her field and acknowledged that journalists do the same.

“For 18 months now, you have shared the facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and the science around it,” she said. “There is not an issue in our nation that Black journalists do not cover.”

Despite it being the second year NABJ has gone virtual, the conference still has star-studded guests.

Some of this year’s special guests include Kim Godwin and Rashida Jones for a presentation on leadership. Dr. Ian Smith, host of the Emmy award-winning television show, “The Doctors,” and public health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci shared their thoughts on the ongoing pandemic. ESPN broadcasters Michael Wilbon, Stephen A. Smith, and Monica McMutt chopped it up with NABJ mentees for the Sports Task Force mentor luncheon.

Godwin was named president of ABC News in May. She is the first black woman executive to run a broadcast news operation. Jones succeeded Phil Griffin for the role of MSNBC president in February. Jones is the first black woman to lead a cable news network.

After Harris’ speech on Thursday morning, Smith moderated a discussion with Fauci and White House senior policy adviser for COVID-19 equity Dr. Cameron Webb.

Smith opened the discussion with a question to Fauci on how mistakes were made early in the pandemic on how to slow the spread of the virus.

Fauci said that while he has a thorough understanding of how viruses work, there was still a misunderstanding of how this particular virus moved. Many assumed COVID-19 was like influenza, he said. The country did not put mask mandates into place last March, he said, and that allowed the rapid spread of the virus.

“Could you have imagined me getting in front of the TV and saying ‘OK, we have one documented case and we have a few that we think are community spread,’” Fauci said. “‘A: You have to shut down the country. And B: Everybody has to wear a mask.’ They would have thought I was crazy. But retrospectively, it was a mistake not to do that.”

Smith added that he and his wife were in Japan pre-pandemic and noticed how wearing a mask was culturally accepted there. Smith said his wife told him that Americans would be too stubborn to do the same.

Top, Vice President Kamala Harris addresses journalists at the 2021 NABJ Convention. Lower left, physicians Dr. Ian Smith, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Cameron Webb discuss the government response to the pandemic.

Lower right, Beverly White describes covering COVID-19.

“It’s been frustrating for me as a physician and a man of science to see how people have behaved and reacted to something that is a scientific phenomenon, the politicalization of it and people who are fighting over it and making it something that is not,” he said.

A panel of five journalists shared their coverage and insight into COVID-19 for the final leg of the newsmaker plenary.

Dallas-based broadcaster for KVTV Steve Pickett asked the journalists what they see in their coverage and what obstacles can get in

the way of doing the job.

KNBC Los Angeles general assignment reporter Beverly White said the stories she’s covered were devastating. According to The Los Angeles Times, for every 100,000 Black residents, 8.1 people were hospitalized with COVID-19; for every 100,000 Latino residents, 5.3 were hospitalized.

White said there was a shift in coverage where she had to include more Latino voices as well as Black voices in her stories. This brought the challenge of getting through a language

and cultural barrier for reporters.

“The numbers are undeniable, the science was there, like a cold slap in the face,” White said. “We may not have been righteous in our coverage of these communities before the ‘rona arrived. But we frankly have no choice. Black folks in LA are fewer than 10%. But Hispanics [represent] 60% to 70% depending on your math. So we had no choice. We go into those communities and bring our Telemundo cousins if need be and try to save lives. This is no joke and it’s still ongoing.”

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NABJ 2021 E LECTION

Tucker to Serve a Second Term as President Continued from page 1 for president due to varying levels of membership.

“My candidacy spoke to these very concerns.

Are we engaging our members? Are we talking about the issues?” he said. “Listen, one of the things I’m probably disappointed most about in this campaign, we didn’t talk about the issues. … Instead of talking about real member concerns, it became about who are we going to get to endorse us, pitting people in corners … instead of giving our members an opportunity to hear both sides.”

Tucker said that age may have played a factor, as many of the members are under the age of 35, and she made note that this is not necessarily a new issue. She also added that every member cannot vote for every race. Academic members, students members, and public relations professionals do not vote for executive offices, but they are counted in the total voter

turnout.

She said she would like to see more members to engage, which is why she went on social media to encourage members to vote in the election for the candidate of their choice.

When asked if she would take into consideration what was on her opponent’s agenda, Tucker talked about tackling the chapter split.

When this issue first came up, she said she made phone calls and discovered that there is an issue in Region I when it comes to fundraising and finances. She says she wants to figure out what is the best split and address the problem.

“At the end of the day, my main goal is that our chapter leaders feel valued and made whole,” Tucker said When asked why there were so many uncontested races and what will be done to make sure this does not happen in the future, Tucker said she is glad to hear members are concerned and

“I’m gonna pledge today to remain active, engaged and on the forefront of ensuring accountability, accessibility and transparency within NABJ, and to push for this organization’s leadership to make members’ needs and concerns a priority over profits.”

MANUEL SMITH, NABJ PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

hope people will work with her and the board on a solution. She says it’s time to ask members why they didn’t vote.

“This may be the time for us to put out a questionnaire,” Tucker said. “Let’s put out a survey. Let’s ask people, ‘Why didn’t you vote? What is it that would get you to cast that ballot?’”

Smith agrees and said he wants to be a part of the solution, but it will take more than a survey.

“How do we do things better at NABJ?” he asked. “There’s a better way of being able to do it. Maybe the way that I see it happen, or the way you want to see it happen may not be the right answers. Let’s get at the right ones that make this organization strong and get people more involved and more engaged.”

When asked about increased LGBTQ+ programming, Tucker said a proposal on this topic was rejected for the convention.

“If there is a proposal that is made, I want to encourage the programming committee to take a second look,” she said. “Don’t dismiss it. Go back to the producers, let’s add this, so we can have sessions that represent all of our members.”

When concerns were brought up of NABJ being focused on broadcast, Tucker said that she will commit to having more programming for print journalists, which is why she said started the master classes. She said that they will be offered on a regular basis, not just at the regional and national convention.

“Members have to work across all mediums,” Tucker said.

Newly elected Vice President of Digital Amir Vera wanted to make sure that NABJ does not forget that digital needs to be included within the workshops NABJ offers. Both Tucker and Executive Director Drew Berry stressed that this year’s convention theme was digital.

From left, NABJ President Dorothy Tucker speaks to an audience in Birmingham, Alabama; Tucker, left, traveled with the board to Birmingham in early 2020.

NABJ President Tucker Reflects on Tenure, Looks to Future

BY SAMANTHA CHERY NABJ Monitor

Dorothy Tucker checked off a number of her goals during her NABJ presidency despite challenges posed by the pandemic.

Tucker, a CBS 2 Chicago investigative reporter, bested Gregory Lee Jr. and Marlon A. Walker in 2019 to become NABJ’s 22nd president. Since then, she’s worked to connect NABJ members and ensure that Black journalists are being treated fairly in their newsrooms, among other objectives.

As she seeks reelection this year, her tenure is being scrutinized by NABJ voters, who must choose between her or NABJ-Philadelphia’s Manuel Smith to be president until 2023. If Tucker is successful, she would be the second person, after Sarah Glover, to hold two terms as NABJ president.

“I want to say thank you to our members for being patient, for being understanding [and] for

continuing to engage with this organization,” Tucker said.

Before Tucker became president, she served as NABJ vice president of broadcast and director of Region V, a now-defunct region that covered South Central states. When Tucker first ran two years ago, her campaign promises included increasing training webinar offerings, creating a report card to grade media companies on their hiring, promotion, and retention of Black journalists, and offering more hardship scholarships.

During Tucker’s presidency, the number of webinars tripled, which included sexual harassment sensitivity and LGBTQ+ sensitivity trainings.

“We’d have a webinar about networking and becoming the next manager and hundreds would flock to it,” Tucker said. “It showed me that despite the fact that we could not physically see each other, we still wanted to be engaged.”

In the wake of the pandemic, Tucker introduced the organization’s COVID-19 hardship relief grants, which provided no-strings-attached

funds to NABJ members negatively affected financially.

NABJ avoided a potential financial crisis through Tucker’s leadership as the association carefully transitioned from an in-person to its first-ever virtual convention in 2020. The money saved allowed the association to escape its yearslong financial deficit.

“There were other organizations that did not survive, but we are financially stronger than ever before,” Tucker said. “We are the envy of the journalism world.”

Under Tucker’s leadership, the association also announced the launch of the NABJ Media Network in conjunction with the Reynolds Journalism Institute. The project is set to be NABJ’s first-ever digital news platform, which will allow Black journalists to cover Black communities through articles, videos, and photos. The network will debut after NABJ’s 2021 national convention.

Tucker’s tenure was also marked by watchdog

advocacy. She publicly rebuked news organizations like CBS and ABC for racial discrimination and homophobia toward their Black employees.

This resulted in NABJ meeting with newsroom leaders, dismissals of perpetrators, and the hiring of more Black journalists in top-level management positions.

“We have meeting after meeting after meeting, and then we follow up in another three months and say, ‘What’s going on?’” Tucker said. “Sometimes in the newsrooms, you’ll see somebody get promoted or a new hire. That’s because NABJ has been having some side conversations. So that is important to me that we gather those kind of facts, that we know what’s going on.”

If reelected, Tucker hopes to carry out the grading of media companies, start an NABJ membership drive and identify instances of pay inequity.

“It has been really an honor to have served during this time,” Tucker said.

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NABJ 2021 ELECTION

Lack of Competition in NABJ Elections Worries Members

BLACKILLUSTRATIONS.COM

“I think it’s a shame.

We need people to be on board to make sure that their voices are heard and the voices of the membership are represented. And when people are running unopposed or even worse, on vacant slots, to me it feels like it’s disrespectful to the founders who sacrificed so much.”

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF DIGITAL BENÉT WILSON

BY OCTAVIA JOHNSON NABJ Monitor

Of the seven seats up for election this year for NABJ’s board of directors, only one was contested. The other six—vice president of broadcast, vice president of digital, secretary, Region I director, Region III director, and student representative—were unopposed races.

It’s a trend that concerns some members.

“Committee members have been, you know, getting the word out via social media, but I think that we’re going to do it even more,” NABJ Elections Committee Chairwoman Melanie Eversley said.

Unopposed candidates are not new in the elections. In the past few years, some seats were either run unopposed or left vacant until someone was appointed to the seat. From 2011 to 2021, 37 candidates ran unopposed in NABJ elections and six seats were vacant and required appointment.

Former Vice President of Digital Benét Wilson ran unopposed during the 2015 NABJ election and said more effort is needed to gain more candidates.

“I think it’s a shame,” she said. “We need people to be on board to make sure that their voices are heard and the voices of the membership are represented. And when people are running unopposed or even worse, on vacant slots, to me it feels like it’s disrespectful to the founders who sacrificed so much.”

Wilson added that in the 2009 NABJ Election she ran for the Region II director seat, and most of the seats were contested. Although she didn’t win, the election made her interested in helping more within NABJ. Her dedication led to her run for vice president of digital, where she ended up running unopposed.

She sees the lack of an opponent as a missed opportunity.

“There’s no discussion, there’s no way to talk about the future of NABJ and what those people can bring to the table to make a great organization even better,” she said.

Candidate Ken Lemon also ran unopposed in 2017 and 2019. This year he’s running for

re-election for the vice president of broadcast seat unopposed.

“Sometimes you’ll see some positions that are highly contested,” he said. “And then other times, you know, you’ll have to fill positions … where sometimes the [seats] would be filled by the president.”

During the Presidential Candidate Forum, candidates Dorothy Tucker, the incumbent, and Manuel “Manny” Smith, the challenger, discussed the reason behind this year’s unopposed seats.

Smith claims the issue with unopposed candidates shows the level of engagement within the organization. He believes that communicating with new voices and elevating the veteran voices will help bring re-engagement into NABJ, which will encourage more people to want to run for a seat on the board.

“Unfortunately, when you have the largest leadership roles in the organization, and almost all of them are essentially unopposed, that speaks to a path of, you know, of gamesmanship, right, of only a select few people being appointed, or encouraged to run for roles,” Smith said.

Smith also used examples of his time as the president of PABJ and how they tripled their membership to about 200. He hopes by voicing the concern of the unopposed candidacies, there will be a change in the future.

“People always ask about the future of NABJ,” he said. “There it is clear as day, we’ve got people who are not interested in serving in some of our most crucial roles. Why is that and what do we do to fix it?”

Tucker argued that NABJ members were engaged this year virtually and the organization had more people in the webinars, events, regionals, grants, fellowships, projects, and the 2020 NABJ Convention. However, she also believes that during the pandemic, most of the journalists were trying to focus on the newsroom and “get back on track.”

“I just accepted the fact that there were times that our members were just overwhelmed,” she said at the forum.

Tucker later explained that although the pandemic may have played a part in the unopposed seats, “We shouldn’t blow that up.”

Both candidates agreed that they want to see more people from the younger generation running for seats.

“If students feel inclined to run and feel like that’s a way that they want to get involved, they should definitely do that,” said Tamia Fowlkes, candidate for student representative. “If they don’t want to do that, then definitely just apply to everything. There are so many opportunities in this organization, and increasing those opportunities is something that I really wanted to do.”

Smith said if he is elected as president, he plans to get more people into the organization by actively engaging with current and future members of NABJ. Tucker said she has a great feeling about the future elections and if she’s re-elected, she hopes all of the local chapters know she’s here to support anyone who’s interested in running for the national board.

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Abby Phillip

Miguel Marquez

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Fredricka Whitfield

Ed Lavendera

Taylor Rooks

Don Lemon

Sidney Wright

Ana Cabrera

Jim Acosta

Sanjay Gupta

Tara August

Javier Morgado

Emily Atkinson

Drew Watkins

Omar Jimenez

Susie Xu

Pedro Martinez

Kyung Lah

Boris Sanchez

Tina Shah

Victor Blackwell

Ellana Lee

Juan Carlos Lopez

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LGBTQ+ Task Force Pushes for More Change Time will tell if queer members begin to feel that change has been made within the organization

BY CALEN RAZOR NABJ Monitor

Last year’s NABJ treasury race sparked a conversation within the organization about frustrations among LGBTQ+ members after a series of tweets from candidate Ernest Owens highlighting the issues.

Since then, NABJ President Dorothy Tucker and LGBTQ+ Task Force Co-Chairs Tre’vell Anderson and Femi Redwood have used their leading roles to begin the necessary changes to address those concerns.

Time will tell if queer members begin to feel that change has been made within the organization. But in the meantime, the community’s efforts are in full effect.

For the first time in its history, an NABJ President —Tucker— released a statement in November 2020 declaring “NABJ Will Be a Safe Space for LGBTQ+ Members.”

“There was pressure in the beginning to [quickly] put a statement out condemning homophobia,” Tucker said. “But as a reporter, if you put a statement out claiming you don’t like something, the next question will be: So what are you going to do about it?”

Before releasing a statement on behalf of NABJ, Tucker spent time with members of the community learning what specific issues people had experienced — with direction and advice from Redwood and Anderson, who sits on the board as Region IV director.

Some steps they’ve taken to reiterate NABJ’s inclusive culture are providing LGBTQ+ sensitivity training to all members, including the board of directors, and updating the organization’s Code of Conduct and Anti-Harassment Policy, “adding sexual orientation to the existing categories of gender identity and gender expression,” according to Tucker’s statement.

“Every change that has been made regarding LGBTQ+ issues was because members of the task force have verbalized it and put in the work,” Anderson said. “I recognized that the Code of Conduct wasn’t as inclusive as it could be so I brought it up. Dorothy and the board recognized my concern so we updated it.”

In another effort to highlight the experience of queer people in the association, Anderson released a two-part oral “History of NABJ’s LGBTQ+ Task Force.” The piece highlighted the efforts made by some of the task force’s founding members to make the organization more inclusive for gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and trans journalists.

Back in 2005, it was a struggle for them to even get approval from the board to create the task force. So to some of the members, including Jerry McCormick, founding president of the San Diego Chapter, Tucker’s statement was a real indicator of progress for the community.

“For the president of the organization to openly recognize and say this is a safe space for LGBTQ+ members, that shows how far we’ve

LGBTQ+ Task force CoChair Femi Redwood, member Steven Thrasher, Co-Chair Tre’vell Anderson and member Marqueeda LaStar gather for a photo at the 2018 NABJ convention in Detroit.

come in the 40-plus years since the organization has been in existence,” McCormick said.

However, Owens feels the statements and sensitivity training don’t do much in terms of moving the needle, and he continues to voice his opinion on the organization’s relationship with the queer community after bringing attention to the conversation via social media.

“I felt like a lot of this was performative and a surface-level response,” Owens said. “Was it horrible? No … but I encourage chapters to work on these issues internally.”

And while Anderson has been heavily involved in the work that has been done throughout the past year, they have yet to reach a point to comfortably say the organization is fully prepared to move forward on queer issues.

“I have personally emailed my co-board members explaining and teaching them how to use my [non-binary] pronouns, yet I’m still misgendered every single time we meet,” they said.

While it will be no easy or quick task, Tucker, who is running for re-election, hopes to continue in her position as president and remain at the forefront to take concerns head-on. “[Working with the task force] was a learning experience for me,” Tucker said. “Sometimes it was uncomfortable because I didn’t know all of the language and perceptions that

“Every change that has been made regarding LGBTQ+ issues was because members of the task force have verbalized it and put in the work” LGBTQ+ TASK FORCE CO-CHAIR TRE’VELL ANDERSON

could be offensive. But I was so appreciative of their patience.

“Task force members reporting their personal experiences to me, even if I don’t see it, is reason enough for me to stop and do something about it.”

Much of the interaction and mixing of members happens in the excitement of NABJ’s annual conventions. Since the pandemic put a halt to large gatherings in 2020, the organization has yet to have that experience since 2019.

So even though its leaders have been putting policy in place in these digital times to foster an inclusive nature, queer members may not know the effects of this work until everyone is face to face, task force members said.

“We don’t know, yet, that a group of us can be sitting around kiki’ing and not have folks look at us crazy,” Redwood said. “The task

force realizes that while [our accomplishments] feel great, we don’t really know yet.”

NABJ Parliamentarian Michelle FitzhughCraig remains optimistic about in-person interactions in the future. “[Task force efforts] will help when we do come back together to make us even stronger,” Fitzhugh-Craig said.

The task force’s main focus at the moment is developing strategies to support Black LGBTQ+ journalists within the organization.

Since last year, the co-chairs have conceived two exciting opportunities for queer students, one of which is a new scholarship in the name of Monica Roberts, a trans journalist who used her platform to cover overlooked topics within the trans community. The other is a grant in the name of NABJ’s first openly gay president, Thomas Morgan.

As time goes on, the organization and task force will take baby steps into the right direction. Owens’ tweets are not the first effort to call change into action and, according to task force founding member Patrick Riley, they certainly won’t be the last.

“I think that people’s beliefs and positions are changing every day,” Riley said. “And it is because the representation of LGBTQ+ people is proving itself to not be going anywhere.”

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N A B J AU T H O R S S H OWC A S E

New Books Highlight Black Empowerment the speeches. People analyzing what he said and what he told was very important to us. If you listened to what Malcolm X said 60 years ago, this is important today. Unedited. He is looking to advance in some of the issues today. And that’s kind of sad because it shows how far we have not progressed.”

BY JAVIER SARMIENTO JR. NABJ Monitor

The annual NABJ Authors Showcase spotlights works that are creating a buzz and offers writers the opportunity to gain advice and insight from renowned authors.

The following participants spoke to the NABJ Monitor on the inspiration for their work, the rising interest in Black literature amid a racial moment, the challenges they face and what struck them most being an author during a time when history seems to be repeating itself.

ROCHELLE RILEY, author of That They Lived: African Americans Who Changed the World

DEBORAH D. DOUGLAS, author of U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement On how the past year, given the pandemic and racial injustice, affected readership of Black stories: “There has been renewed interest in understanding more about American history and Black history and understanding our current condition. Actually, if anything, I feel fortunate that my book came out at a time when people are interested in me, to the extent that I have challenges as a Black author, I think that Black authors have the same challenges as Black journalists and you know, fighting to understand how to maybe move through the world and how we need to tell the story and how we need to enter our community into the story and not talk about the community, but talk to the community.”

On the inspiration to write her book: “I had a window of relevance and that‘s what inspired me to write it. In 2018, a group of several travelers designated an official Civil Rights Trail in the South and so on. My first book ever followed the official trail in the South. That doesn’t mean that the civil rights movement did not occur in other places around the country. It’s just that my book follows the South and the official trail designated by Travel South and other travel agencies. It actually starts in Delaware and it goes as far west of Kansas and it goes to Louisiana and Florida. But in my book, I chose better places to capture a cohesive narrative of the civil rights movement. “ How she estimates the past year has impacted the sales of her book: “ I think that it’s in the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others, but there is a resurgence, of course, that I’ll say there has been renewed interest in understanding more about American history and Black history and understanding our current condition.

Now, whether in 2021 that level of interest has changed, you know, they have a high level I can’t be sure of, but I hope so. I hope that anybody who was encouraged to learn more about the Black experience and about structural racism in our society and how society is actually structured for some people to win and for some people to lose, I hope that they’re maintaining their level of interest to learn about that today.”

WANDA S. LLOYD, co-editor of Meeting at the Table - African American Women Write on Race, Culture and Community Why the George Floyd murder was the primary reason for writing her book: “Tina McElroy Ansa (co-editor) and I had a conversation right after the death of George Floyd, and we were in a lot of pain emotionally about the way he was killed, about the protests that were going on across the world, about some of the violence that was going on in Minneapolis. We were just in a lot of pain and we had a conversation about what we should do because we were both authors. Tina was a novelist and has published five novels. So, we decided “why shouldn’t we write a book?” That’s something we could do. And we came up with the idea for this book and to get other women to write essays in the book. And so what we did is we edited the book. We did not write the book. Tina wrote the introduction and I wrote a chapter in the book.

On the challenges she faces as a Black author: “One of the challenges that I face is getting publishers and agents interested in the content.

It is very difficult for Black authors. It was very difficult for me because I think I didn’t have an entry into the network of agents that see the value of my memoir. So when I say it was difficult for me to get agents and publishers closer to signing a contract, they didn’t give me an opportunity because my memoir was available to the public before the death of George Floyd.

So, all of a sudden, George Floyd’s death came about, it hurt me, I should say. A lot more people in the book industry were interested in the book, but by that time I already had a publisher, so my work was out, barely out. But that was my challenge personally which correlates

with my book “ Meeting at the Table -African American Women Write on Race, Culture and Community “ because the book was published

by Tina. She also has her own coach, from Down South Press, so we didn’t have to find a publisher for books basically.”

How the pandemic and racial justice movement of the past year impacted her book sales: “In the sense of readership, I can tell you that Tina and I, my co-editor, launched an aggressive virtual book tour. We knew this was not to go on the road because this book was during COVID. It was written, edited and published during COVID. So we are very comfortable with the amount of repetition it is getting.

We’ve spoken to so many groups such as book clubs, and universities and so many organizations open in the literary centers that are looking for content like ours, they are looking for content that address issues of race and culture.

They are looking for content that has women involved. We are speaking in a few weeks to a group of women and journalists because I am a journalist, Tina was a journalist early in her career. And so we’re really excited about this with the diversity that is racial.”

TAMARA PAYNE, author of The Dead Are Rising: The Life of Malcolm X On her inspiration for writing the book: “It was basically that it’s important to get down some stories out there and putting in the context of American perspective, and getting a glimpse of Malcolm’s childhood, family and sharing information here, then also putting that into what we were able to learn from investigative journalism of interviews that anybody who knew Malcolm X and who Malcolm X was to them, what they saw about the experience getting those stories together. A lot of stories about Malcolm X have been really through

THE FULL LIST OF NABJ AUTHORS SHOWCASE PARTICIPANTS: Gloria Browne-Marshall, She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power Denny S. Bryce, Wild Women and the Blues Alois Ricky Clemons, INBOUNDS

On her inspiration for writing her book: “I want adults to read this and understand and not block kids from things they can be because you don’t think they can do it, because look at where all of these kids are, you know what they grow up to be.

For example, Muhammad Ali was 12 years old, and someone stole his bike. He became the world’s greatest boxer, but not just that, one of the world’s greatest men. So that’s why I did it. And that’s what I want people to take. I’d love to somehow get it in the hands of every child in America.”

Wayne Dawkins (NABJ Founder), Emanuel Celler: Immigration and Civil Rights Champion

On the challenges she faces as a Black author: “I face the same challenges that anyone who is not a white male faces. There is an instant belief in what people write if they are white and have a penis. And what you do is not let that deter you from continuing to speak your truth, continuing to do your job by continuing to make a difference. We have got to make people understand that there is no one truth.

There is no one opinion. There is no one way that the story should be told. And as long as we continue to fight for that, we will have actual, real, fully balanced stories instead of myths that are determined by a small group of people who happen to have more money.”

In her estimation, how the past year regarding COVID and racial justice movement impacted readership of Black stories: “That’s a really good question because one of the things that ‘s been true over the past six years is that we have really gotten a sense of what true leadership is supposed to be, what it is and what it isn’t. Whether you’re talking about those who write literature or those who write about the news, we have seen people step up in ways that they needed to. We have seen what horrible leadership looks like and the true leadership. True courage has come from those who are willing to step up in various ways when things are wrong, whether they’re writing and speaking out about things or whether they’re stepping up to address things. So for political leaders who are willing to be courageous and take a stand against what’s wrong or whether it’s people who are writers stepping up to point out what’s right, This is the time where everybody has to participate. We have a recognition of the pandemic that Black folks have lived in for centuries.

Derrick Z. Jackson, The Puffin Plan

Jarvis DeBerry, I Feel to Believe Deborah D. Douglas, U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement Ava Thompson Greenwell, Ladies Leading: The Black Women Who Control Television News

Nancy Johnson, The Kindest Lie Vivian King, When the Words Suddenly Stopped Wanda S. Lloyd and Tina McElroy Ansa (co-editors) Meeting at the Table, African American Women Write on Race, Culture and Community Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X Jackie Scott-Bell, Bullyanna Gary Washburn and Marc Spears, The Spencer Haywood Rule: Battles, Basketball, and the Making of an American Iconoclast Reggie Williams and Jarrett Bell, Resilient by Nature L. Michelle Smith, No Thanks: 7 Ways to Say I’ll Just Include Myself, The Remix

Extraordinary Times Demand Extraordinary Minds 35+ media organizations from across the country with opportunities available nation-wide.

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NABJ Media Network Gets Ready to Launch Online

BY KIAH ARMSTRONG NABJ Monitor

The NABJ Media Network is set to launch at the end of August. The web-based digital site will have articles centered around issues that impact the Black community through the lenses of the Black community.

NABJ Founder Sandra Dawson Long Weaver will serve as the editor-in-chief, Tamara Banks will serve as the director of content and media partnerships, and Drew Berry as executive director.

NABJ partnered with the Reynolds Institute of Journalism, which offered student help.

The site will feature 90% of its news from NBC, CNBC, ESPN, Bloomberg, and more. A portion of the site will also aggregate original content from freelancers who are NABJ members. They will have the opportunity to pitch stories and will be given stories that no other news organization is covering.

“Members have pushed for this news site for decades, and we finally have something that is our own voice, which is one of the most important and innovative things that NABJ has done since its founding in 1975. This is a gamechanger,” Weaver said. “This allows us to tell stories

from our point of view.”

Weaver will lead the effort by looking for stories from various sources about the Black community that the network can aggregate. She will also take issues and topics that are circulating that can be produced into original content, such as commentary from NABJ members who can take listeners on a deeper dive of what’s really going on.

The Black Press grants given by the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative allowed NABJ to give 28 awards up to $10,000 to freelancers or Blackowned media to write about how COVID-19 affected the Black community and education. All of those stories will be featured on the site.

With a portion of the funding coming from Craig Newmark of Craigslist and the Reynolds Institute of Journalism, which helped build the $5,000-$7,000 site, it wasn’t just the money that pushed this initiative forward. Banks says it was

Screenshots from the NABJ Media Network show examples of the kind of storytelling the network will offer. The web-based platform, currently in a soft launch, is scheduled to go live at the end of August.

this moment in time.

Banks says with the protests of police brutality, killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many more, and the election of Donald Trump, racism that many Black Americans knew still existed was now in the faces of all Americans.

“I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in a newsroom, and they will call a rally and a

celebration of a team winning the Stanley Cup and say, ‘Oh they’re celebrating’ where they’re destroying property and there are people getting hurt,” said Banks. “And you have Black folks protesting inequities, and that’s a riot.”

Partnering up with other news organizations will allow the Media Network to set up plugins on the backend of these news sites or an RSS feed through which they will be able to get the stories straight from the source. This also helps NABJ push the stories that are being produced

by Black-owned media into more communities.

Content for the site can come in the form of print or broadcast and can be featured on the network’s partner sites. The website will also have advertisements.

“Where we are today, we would not be here, this organization, this website, had it not been for the leadership and really the courage that Black reporters had 45 years ago, like founder Weaver to step out there and tell newsrooms that we have a voice and we have a lens,” said Banks.

The website is currently undergoing a soft launch, which has a focus group of about 30 people testing it through Aug. 23.

Schools Worry About Critical Race Theory Laws

BY WHITNEY HUGHES NABJ Monitor

On May 25, Ohio joined the wave of states to introduce or pass a law that would limit the discussion of race in K-12 classrooms.

“It strives to ensure that every Ohioan is treated equally under the law and that every individual enjoys the rights and privileges of non-discriminatory, objective representation of educational and historical facts,” Ohio Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, a sponsor, told her fellow legislators.

These laws are a part of Republican efforts to ban critical race theory (CRT) from being taught in schools. Critical race theory was developed by legal scholars as a way of explaining whether or not systems in America are contributing to the continuance of racism.

Ohio House Bill 327 would prohibit school districts from “teaching, advocating or promoting divisive concepts,” language that is reflected in many of the similar bills across the country.

Toledo Public Schools, a minority majority school district in Ohio, is developing an Afro-centric education program to better serve the student population, which is 40% Black. Experts say that the passing of HB 327 could potentially harm students.

Already, says Dr. Treva Jeffries, transformational leader of the department of equity, diversity and inclusion at Toledo schools, the state approved curriculum does not accurately reflect the diversity of the students in the school district.

“Talking about race and race issues that have created systemic racism, pillars of systemic racism and continue to impede success of marginalized individuals is just reality. It’s history and reality,” Jeffries said.

In addition to the 40% of students in Toledo Public Schools who are Black, over 20% are

COURTESY OF TOLEDO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

COURTESY OF TOLEDO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Dr. Treva Jeffries, transformational leader of equity, diversity and inclusion for Toledo Public Schools.

Dr. Hope Bland, the director of equity and social justice for Toledo Public Schools.

Hispanic or biracial. This ethnic makeup of the school district prompted Superintendent Dr. Romulus Durant to call for an Afro-centric education program.

“We’re moving heavily into that, where one, it’s not only the cosmetic makeup of the building, but at the same time the truth, the understanding of the cultural awareness of your history,” Durant said.

Dr. Hope Bland, director of equity and social justice at Toledo schools, who is helping to develop the Afro-centric program, said critical conversations on race best serve the student body

and will continue to be had whether or not HB 327 is passed.

“We’re not letting it infringe on our ability to still have conversations around race.” Bland said.

“We know we have to be strategic if they pass it.”

Toledo Public Schools has held multiple community events on race and social justice over the past six years. In addition to adopting a more inclusive Afro-centric curriculum, it is a goal to host events on equity and diversity annually to address problems affecting the community.

Bland and Jeffries say they will figure out a way to continue these conversations if HB 327

passes in a way that complies with the law.

With the progression of states proposing laws banning CRT at the elementary and secondary levels, some of Ohio’s university level diversity officers worry that there could soon be legislation applying to post secondary institutions. Many universities, including The Ohio State University, offer courses on critical race theory in the curriculum.

“That will be a blow to higher education, a blow to faculty and staff, a blow to our students, and a blow to just this country’s progress,” Dr. Jacqueline Meshelemiah, associate vice provost for diversity and inclusion at The Ohio State University, said. She believes that prohibiting critical race theory at universities could potentially decrease the number of minority faculty members and students.

Students and faculty could become less successful in higher education with restrictions to critical conversations around race and diversity, she said.

“How can any racially minoritized student be successful if they’re living, working, learning in hostile environments and they are unable to talk about or challenge those systems that continue to harm them?” Meshelemiah said.

Meshelemiah says she agrees with a statement from president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education Paulette Granberry Russell, J.D. opposing the efforts to ban critical race theory in education as an attempt to “sanitize history.”

Toledo Public Schools hopes the Republican led effort to restrict conversations of race and current racism in America fails in Ohio.

“Just the mere act of trying to suppress voices to talk about race is a racist act in itself, and it’s just one more notch in the systemic racism that exists in our country,” Jeffries said.

The 23 states with proposed or passed laws on race in education are the following: Alabama Arizona Arkansas Idaho Iowa Kentucky Luisiana Maine Michigan Missouri New Hampshire North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee Texas Utah Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin A bill has now been introduced to the U.S. Congress.

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NABJ Preserves Archives for Future Generations

BY DEIDRE MONTAGUE NABJ Monitor

20th-century journalist and activist Marcus Garvey once said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

This describes the importance of the NABJ Archives Project, as it looks to showcase the groundwork and accomplishments of members through the 45-plus years.

Morgan State University Professor Wayne Dawkins is NABJ’s official historian. He has worked to gather all the artifacts to put this project together.

The project started last fall, when NABJ President Dorothy Tucker called him.

The pair had talked about an archive project for a number of years. But not much of anything was done. With Dawkins’ 25 years of experience in journalism and 15 in academia, Tucker saw him as the right candidate.

Dawkins’ task was to find the right archive company for the job. He chose Heritage Works.

Dawkins has been working on the archive much of this summer and is almost done organizing the artifacts and getting it in a digital format.

Along with putting together the NABJ Archives Project, Dawkins has also published three books, two about Black journalists, which focus on the history of the organization and the successes and challenges that founders persevered through.

“Those founders represent history in American mainstream journalism,” he said. “At least one-third of those founders have now died and the youngest founders are in their late 60s.”

“It’s important that you get to know these folks now, while they’re still with us,” he said. “And just how the organization grew from a group that brought 300 to a conference in the early days, but now easily attracts over 3,000.”

One of the founders, Joe Davidson, talked about the pride that he and other founders have felt about the overall growth of the organization.

“We feel very proud, you know, to have been a part of this from the beginning,” Davidson said.

“We feel like it’s our child.”

NABJ Executive Director Drew Berry agreed that the NABJ Archives Project is needed. “This is an ongoing project, but we want to get the really critical information from many, many years ago, before it’s lost forever.”

When Davidson was asked about how current NABJ members could honor the founders and the legacy that they have built, he encouraged members to continue to do the work.

“I think the best way to honor us is to do the work that NABJ is designed and set out to do: to be vigorous in its advocacy for Black journalists’ coverage of African American people and African people, generally, and to be vigorous in that advocacy, to really encourage young journalists take part in mentoring programs and student projects,” he said.

Davidson added that NABJ needs to continue developing and strengthening relationships between journalists and Black-oriented media and white-dominated media.

Berry suggested other ways that current members could honor the mission of the founders while working toward a better future for Black journalists.

“Members need to stay committed to the mission, advocating for Black journalists and keeping their skills up to date,” he said. “And when you do get these positions, excel. Don’t take those positions for granted …. and with that knowledge, bring in others.”

NABJ board members visit the White House during the Carter administration.

(Courtesy of the White House)

From left, founder Les Payne, left, and Barbara Reynolds visit; Founder John White speaks with a fellow member. (Courtesy NABJ Archives)

From left, founders Mal Johnson, left, and Acel Moore at an early convention. (Courtesy NABJ Archives); Convention programs from the early years of NABJ. (Photo by Founder Allison Davis)

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Black Press Experience Both Pain, Profit

BY DEIDRE MONTAGUE NABJ Monitor

COVID-19 has impacted many sectors of the workforce, including journalism. However, the pandemic also revealed the importance and relevance of the Black press.

Aaron Eaton, the digital coordinator of The Philadelphia Tribune, the oldest continuously published newspaper serving African Americans, said his newsroom lost revenue and some staff because of COVID-19.

Johann Calhoun, former senior editor at The Philadelphia Tribune, says that one of his biggest concerns was making sure that both jobs and the well-being of employees were safe and taken care of.

This is especially important and difficult for Black press because they don’t have the financial resources that many mainstream press organizations do, he said.

“Mainstream outlets, they have the finances, they have the resources, where they can automatically work remote, whereas some Black press outlets were unable to do that,” Calhoun said. The Tribune offered the remote option to a number of employees, but “it was mostly in house work.”

The Black press was having a hard time before the pandemic, said Tene Croom, the current co-chair of the NABJ Black Press Task Force, and during the pandemic many shifted to digital.

“Honestly, the Black press has always struggled. So it wasn’t really that much of a big hit,” she said, and now the pain is being felt in the mainstream. “If you notice mainstream media now, a lot of them and cities are having some of the similar issues, having to go to printing once a week, having to be just online.”

Sasha Allen Walton and Endera Allen, editors of Northend Agent’s, Connecticut’s largest and longest-published African American newspaper, said they had to rethink the entire operation to keep the paper afloat. That included shifting up marketing, preparing to launch a new website, choosing strategic philanthropic partnerships, supporting Black businesses and providing accurate information about COVID19 while not overwhelming their readers with pandemic stories.

“Anything that can relinquish some of the load on the top, we removed,” Allen Walton said. “In fact, we increased journalists during COVID. ... We just really assessed what was working for us and what wasn’t.”

AMID PAIN, SOME SAW GROWTH The irony of 2020 is that African American businesses had their best years in advertising, said Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president of The National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade organization for Black press.

“You had this health pandemic, but you also had an epidemic of white supremacy, an epidemic of racially motivated police brutality where the response was the Black Lives Matter movement,” he said. “So that gave more, not just content, but value. The Black press was more valued to get people to get the vaccines.”

Eaton said The Philadelphia Tribune experienced some growth during the past year as well some pain.

“During COVID is when George Floyd protests happened. So not only do we see some of our lowest numbers, we saw some of our highest numbers during the pandemic, inversely, at the same time,” Eaton said. “So it’s been a weird last

Sasha Allen Walton and Endera Allen edit Northend Agent’s, Connecticut’s largest and longest-published African American newspaper. They say say they had to rethink the entire operation to keep the organization afloat during the pandemic.

two years or so. For us, we’ve took major losses and major pluses at the same time.”

The Atlanta Voice Newspaper had one of its best fiscal years, despite COVID-19, due to advertisement and promotional income, Publisher Janice Ware said. Election advertising helped boost the bottom line in 2019 and 2020, she said.

“It was a better year for us, and it probably would have been without those two things taking place,” she said.

The Atlanta Voice is a nonprofit, founded by Ware’s father, “and we were able to then apply for and receive a lot of grant dollars to continue supporting,” she said.

“Mainstream outlets, they have the finances, they have the resources, where they can automatically work remote, whereas some Black press outlets were unable to do that.”

JOHANN CALHOUN, FORMER SENIOR EDITOR AT THE PHILADELPHIA TRIBUNE

IMPORTANCE OF THE BLACK PRESS Croom said supporting the Black press is important.

“We are the ones who can tell the story like no other. It takes us to tell the story,” she said.

“Now, granted, there are African Americans, people of color at mainstream newspapers doing a fabulous job. But when it comes to NNPA newspapers, the Amsterdam News and some of the other papers, there is nothing like it. Because we dig deeper, we go more to the heart of the story. Because we have more time and more print space to the story, we can do it better, we just do.”

Ware agrees that no one can tell Black stories better than the Black press.

“We have been charged with chronicling our history, letting people know what really did take place. And if we are not the ones we’re telling our stories, who’s gonna tell them?” he said. “If you’re not African American and you don’t live in these communities, you don’t feel our pain and our pressure. You can’t talk and you can’t speak or relate to our people the same way we can.”

Added Calhoun, “When you’re able to tell your own life, it’s richer, it’s deeper. There’s truth to it. And there’s more facts that’s provided to the reader.”

Allen Walton said there’s a credibility with the Black press in the community that the mainstream media cannot match. “You saw the impacts of white media that’s trying to tell us to get the vaccine. But what happened is no one trusts you. So you had to get Black doctors and Black media to say ‘Hey, the choice is yours, but here’s the resources and the information for you

to make the decision that’s best for you.’

“And I saw for the first time older people in the family saying ‘I’m not listening to that other media. I’m waiting for our media to say something.’”

Eaton said that beyond serving the Black community, the Black media provides a window into this world for those who are not a part of it.

“You have Black media, Black press, where other cultures can come in and read newspapers, magazines, watch videos, content rooted for Black people to kind of understand what we are going through in our lives and what it means to be Black in America or around the world globally,” he said. “So Black press kind of serves that purpose, not only for us as Black people, but for other cultures to kind of understand who we are, what we’re all about, what we like, what we don’t like, and some things that are important to us.”

PANDEMIC RELIEF AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES Though COVID-19 caused significant impact, it also allowed members of the Black press to gain new skills and opportunities to fund new projects.

Chavis said The National Newspaper Publishers Association helped many members of the Black press through the NNPA Digital Network by providing training.

“We went through training with a special project with Google News initiative,” he said, “training their staff in digital advertising, the digital technology infrastructure necessary to engage in programmatic digital advertising that was very successful.”

He also talked about the training offered to member publishers, editors, photographers and videographers. He checks training for website developers, to make sure that they are staying engaged, but in a way that generates profit or revenue, so that their businesses can be sustainable, even through crises.

NABJ has also offered support to the Black Press during the pandemic, specifically through the Black Press Grant, which was funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. This $300,000 grant allowed freelancers and Black owned media organizations to write stories about how COVID-19 has impacted the Black community and education issues and receive up to $10,000 in funding.

The coordinator for the NABJ Black Press Grant project, founder Sandra Dawson Long Weaver went into detail about the application process.

“We set up an application form, so people could apply for the grant,” she said. “You needed to say what type of stories you would be doing for what publication. It could also be digital stories, it could be video stories, photo stories.”

Twenty-eight grants were awarded, she said, for various amounts up to $10,000.

When applicants were approved for a grant, they received the first half of the money to begin the project. The second half comes when the project has been completed and seen by Weaver and her team. She is now in the process of reviewing final projects.

“A number of people are sending in the stories that they have written or the video or the links to what they’ve done,” she said. “And we’re actually starting to put those on a website so they can be seen.

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Grants to Black Press increase Focus On COVID in Community

BY SHEILA HODGES NABJ Monitor

As the pandemic hurt the finances of media organizations nationwide, NABJ has worked this year to support Black press and journalists through COVID-19 grants.

Starting in March, NABJ and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative distributed nearly $90,000 in grants to Black press and journalists covering COVID-19, the vaccine and how both intersect with K-12 education nationwide.

Harry Colbert Jr., editor-in-chief of North News, Duane Fernandez, a freelance journalist with Daytona Times, and Josh Barker, staff writer for New York Amsterdam News, were three grantees.

All three hope to use their grants to expose the historical trauma and disparities Black people have faced in the healthcare system. They hope that this information will give context to low vaccination rates in the Black community.

At New York Amsterdam News, Barker stated that in addition to writing articles, they will be hosting live events with experts and creating multimedia content.

“This is all in the name of improving things, to improve our healthcare system beyond COVID,” said Barker. “Once again there were disparities that were already in the health care system, but COVID really brought it to the forefront and brought them out.”

From there, the grantees hope to increase vaccination in Black communities by either calling on their cities to address the disparities or by showing the safety of getting vaccinated.

After having over 30 family members get the virus and some die from it, Fernandez is producing a documentary with interviews from various perspectives on the importance of getting vaccinated.

Colbert will be showing how people can use nontraditional entities working with healthcare professionals to get vaccinated.

Without this grant, the journalists stated that many of these stories and resources could have gone uncovered.

“A lot of times when we’re talking about a story that affects general America or the world, Black stories often get either minimized or completely left out,” said Colbert, adding that Black journalists can help prevent that.

In addition, Black press often gets less funding than mainstream media companies, which can affect how well they reach audiences.

“They’re able to do great graphics, great digital things and great digital things online and wonderful things like having studios and cameras and other stuff that we do not have access to,” said Barker, adding that grants like this help bring Black press to that level.

In a statement about the grant, NABJ President Dorothy Tucker acknowledged this problem, stating that NABJ is excited for Black press and journalists to use the funding to “make an integral impact on how our communities are receiving information related to the pandemic.”

Grant money remains available. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.

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Black Journalists Battle with Mental Health

BY WHITNEY HUGHES AND DANIELLA JOHNSON NABJ Monitor

Being a Black journalist in America can be challenging when having not only to report on global issues, but also on difficult topics that impact the Black community.

Working in the current political climate while being in a global pandemic has become overwhelming for some.

They have learned that they have to take care of themselves when under pressure.

“At the top of this year, I was the most depressed I’ve ever been,” award-winning journalist and NABJLA President Jarrett Hill said. He said that he had experienced burnout from the previous year and decided this year to step back from daily reporting to focus on some of his other passions, which include screenwriting and media advocacy.

For Hill, it was important to carefully consider what he allowed himself to see and participate in, including the video of George Floyd’s killing.

“When I’m asked to be a part of something, I’m much more thoughtful of what I say yes to just because I don’t want to have to live with the harm that it can do sometimes,” he said.

In an article on the mental health of journalists for the USC Annenberg Center for Mental Health Journalism, psychologist Dr. Glenda Wrenn Gordon advises journalists to be aware of the harm that reporting on traumatic events can have on their own mental health.

Journalists, she writes, are empathetic and their work often helps society to process trauma and heal, but they may not have the resources to see to their own healing.

“Journalists are not likely to be trained mental health professionals, requiring each to rely on their own experiences and skills to navigate the flood of emotions that come with work,” she writes.

Phillip Emmanuel, a multimedia photojournalist for WTLV/WJXX First Coast News, has experienced this type of trauma since starting his career. Emmanuel says that his career has had a negative impact on his mental and emotional health but his passion for journalism drives him to figure out how and where to find help.

“It was really tough out here for journalists, and I don’t think a lot of people realize that,” Emmanuel said.

“Some of us are really out here doing the right thing, ethically, like telling the truth and it seems like those are the ones, at least from my experiences, I have seen the worst done to in this field.”

One of Emmanuel’s earliest experiences with reporting on traumatic events was the Treyvon Martin case as an intern for 13 WAMZ in Macon, Georgia. In 2016, Emmanuel covered the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott.

Emmaual was also an active photojournalist during the protests and the pandemic.

“So I always do it for the people. Always,” Emmanuel said. “This is my piece of always giving back because it’s a public service that we do. And a lot of people just don’t realize the public part.”

Throughout his career, Emmanuel has made sure to interact with NABJ to build a sense of community outside the one he’s from. Whether the interactions are in person or virtual, NABJ is always there to help and motivate him to continue telling the stories of his community.

NABJ President Dorothy Tucker knows what it means to be resilient in the face of covering traumatic events.

In her 20 years as a journalist Tucker has retold her fair share of traumatic events, but this past year, the pandemic and social justice issues took a toll on her mental health.

“Sometimes it was a lot because as a mother of two Black men and as a Black woman, but in particular my boys, you know, I was going through what so many Black mothers experienced,” Tucker said. “And at the height of George Floyd, I remember being on the air and I’m covering the story and I’m talking about the protests that are going on, the social unrest that is happening, the looting that is happening, the anger in explaining and talking to the anchors about the why behind it and putting context

Advice on self-care from experts

BY WHITNEY HUGHES NABJ Monitor

Although self-care and mental wellbeing can look different for everyone, three mental health experts, Dr. Akilah Reynolds, Dr. Kortni Alston and Dr. Brandon Gillespie, have some tips that can help any person better manage their mental health. Reynolds, a therapist, practices with the online Black Girl Doctors practice; Alston, a scholar on happiness, hosts the podcast “Kourting Happiness.”

Gillespie, a journalist and mental health advocate, hosts “The Brandon Show.”

Yamiche Alcindor, PBS Newshour White House correspondent, says some stories have made her cry, and she needs to step back and take a minute to care for herself. (Courtesy of: Yamiche Alcindor)

Photo by Ashley Ngyuen/ Courtesy Jarrett Hill Jarrett Hill, award winning politics and pop culture journalist, said after experiencing burnout from last year he now prioritizes a day off a week.

Courtesy Nadra Nittle Nadra Nittle is a freelance health reporter and contributer to “Civil Eats,” a nonprofit news organization centered around the American food system. In May 2021, she participated in a virtual discussion hosted by NABJLA on managing mental wellbeing on the job.

into what they’re saying.”

And then, she recalled the relief she felt when one of her sons, driving from Chicago to Atlanta, arrived safely. She was just happy he made it home alive. Her experience prompted her to curate and participate in mental health webinars sponsored by NABJ this year.

“I did so because I needed to share, I needed to hear what my colleagues were going through and tell them what I was going through,” Tucker said. “I needed to hear some tips from the experts. I needed that comfort zone, and I needed to know that I wasn’t alone.”

In April, NABJ had its first-ever virtual Media Institute on Education and Health emphasizing that mental health should be prioritized both on and off the field.

PBS Newshour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor often finds herself on the frontlines reporting on policing, voter suppression and emotional experiences such as the death of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, which she found difficult to cover.

“I have definitely had times where I’ve been upset when I cover a story, when a story has made me cry,” Alcindor said, “when I felt like I needed to take a minute and just step back from a story.”

For these times, she stressed the importance of her support system of friends, family and a loving husband, resources Gordon emphasizes journalists should tap.

Self-care for Alcindor means taking the time to enjoy life. That can be going to the gym, running or hiking.

However, it is equally important for her to spend time with friends and family, to go on vacation when necessary and to take breaks from work and media.

Hill’s self-care looks different in some areas. “I’ve worked with my team to change what my schedule looked like,” he said. This allows him to focus on meetings during the first half of the week and creation for the second half.

He also tries to have one day a week where nothing is scheduled. This is important to him because it allows him to relax and restore his energy. He takes that day to do anything that he feels like doing, whether that is sleeping in or getting a haircut.

Health reporter Nadra Nittle stressed the importance of physical activity and guided meditations for managing anxiety and stress.

“Waking up in the morning and either walking my dog or going on the elliptical is really good for my mental health,” she said.

Still, self-care can be a challenge. Nittle at times finds herself putting her work before mental health. Heavier workloads can sometimes prevent her from maintaining her care routines, which can be the case for many working journalists.

“Just feeling like, ‘Okay I have to get stuff done,’ so it doesn’t matter if I am exhausted or drained,” Nittle said.

“That kind of prevents me from maintaining those routines.”

Listen to Yourself “You may not know when you need a break, and you may be in the beginning stages of self discovery, but everyone knows when something’s off,” Gillespie said.

An important part of self-care is listening to your body and understanding when things are different. Eating less or sleeping less can be signs that you are experiencing stress.

Practice Mindfulness “Sometimes what happens is when you’re triggered by something traumatic that you’ve experienced, whether it’s racial trauma or some other trauma, you’re not always in the present moment,” Reynolds said.

Being grounded in the present helps people with trauma induced stress, anxiety or depression, she said.

Ways to practice mindfulness involve using your physical senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell to enjoy the present moment. Focus on a comforting feeling or song.

Surround Yourself with Positivity “Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal human functioning,” Alston said.

When considering mental health and well-being, it is important to form positive relationships and surround yourself with positive accountability partners who will help you acknowledge when you need a break.

Have Good Sleep Hygiene Rest and relaxation can be crucial for maintaining good mental health.

“We do need sleep and we don’t really need a reason to rest. I think rest is actually a part of productivity,” Reynolds said.

Make sure that you are getting enough sleep by developing a nighttime routine. Without proper rest, it becomes difficult to remain productive.

Disconnect As a working journalist, it becomes difficult to step away from the media to focus on yourself. This is an important part of self-care.

“You really have to set boundaries and be aware of what your limits are,” Gillespie said. It is not just setting boundaries for your assignments but knowing when to take a break from being online and watching the news to again be mindful of yourself in the present moment.

Experience Joy Reynolds describes joy as a form of resistance when surrounded by stress and trauma in the world around you.

Spending time to recognize what makes you happy is also an essential part of listening to yourself, but it does not always happen right away.

Talk to Someone “I definitely suggest therapy… or maybe talking to someone who is not a therapist that they love and trust,” Reynolds said.

Speaking with a trained therapist can always be helpful, but even speaking with trusted friends and family when you are experiencing issues with your mental health can be very helpful.

Gillespie suggests talking to someone when you begin to feel that something is off with your behavior. If you are not quite at a place where you are comfortable speaking openly, writing in a journal can be a first step.

Celebrate Your Successes “It’s really about setting parameters for your life and then really taking a moment to count your blessings and recognize your successes,” Gillespie said. “Even if they are small, every success is success, no matter how large it is.”

Some challenges can come from feeling like you are not where you are supposed to be in life. It comes from comparing your journey to others and not allowing yourself to celebrate your own success, he said. Even small steps are movement in the right direction.

Resources If you are experiencing issues with your mental health as a Black journalist, there are many resources that can help. A few are the following: • The Black Girl Doctor, A network of Black women therapists who offer virtual individual and group counseling sessions.

• Black Journalists Therapy Relief Fund, This provides assistance for Black journalists who are unable to pay for mental health support.

• Therapy for Black Girls, An online space dedicated to encouraging the mental wellness of Black women and girls.

• NABJ, Additional resources in coping with trauma as a journalist including a webinar on mental wellness.

Yahoo is a proud sponsor of the National Association of Black Journalists Thank you for your partnership in launching the inaugural Yahoo Multimedia Journalism Fellowship.

2021 Yahoo Multimedia Journalism Fellows

Garin Flowers Yahoo News

Terrance Smith Yahoo Sports

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Colorism and Sizeism Persist in Newsrooms

BY KIANA STEVENSON NABJ Monitor

“My life experience has been so different from other people’s life experience.”

Demetria Mosley, a creative communications and marketing strategist, says she has been plus-sized for her entire life and in addition to racism as a Black woman, has constantly experienced anti-fatness as a journalist.

She’s not the only Black woman journalist who deals with more than racism. Many deal with discrimination based on their weight and complexion as well.

While reporting for a publication in the past, Mosley noticed her boss was treating her differently than the non-Black, thinner people in her newsroom, she said. Mosley, who is confident that she completes her job responsibilities well, concluded that his perception of her as lazy and the mistreatment that followed was either due to her race or her weight.

Demetria Mosley, creative communications and Marketing strategist Mosley recognized the anti-fat bias, but experts say the misuse of the term “fatphobia” is harmful and can lead to confusion.

Plus-size women of color, especially those with darker complexions, often find their talents undervalued, experts say. At fault are sizeism and colorism.

UNSPLASH

“Why in the world would they think I was lazy? It had nothing to do with like, was I not interviewing people?

Was I not writing? No, it was just this concept that…I was being lazy and didn’t want to do things.”

DEMETRIA MOSLEY, CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING STRATEGIST

Anti-fatness is most often labeled as “fatphobia,” a fear of fatness. It can also be called “sizeism,” defined by Merriam-Webster as “discrimination or prejudice directed against people because of their size and especially because of their weight,” or “fatmisia,” a recently coined term that calls out the bigotry and hatred projected through anti-fat bias.

“People don’t realize how ingrained that fatphobia is,” said Mosley. And so I can just talk to another fat person and they will know exactly what I’m talking about, and a smaller person will be like, ‘Huh, I never thought about it like that.’”

In the journalism and media industry, appearance can play a role in the trajectory of careers and the reputation journalists carry in the industry. Reporter, producer and “Queen of Commentary” Danielle Young finds fault in this approach.

“It becomes more about the fact that you’re fat than talent, than you’re doing amazing,

than you’re a really great journalist,” said Young. “Let me just be what I am, right without you having to qualify it because I’m outside of whatever norm you think exists.”

Danielle Young, Reporter, producer and Queen of Commentary Young says she has never been explicitly told her weight was an issue while working in media, but she presumes it has affected her success in some way. Still, she is reluctant to label the industry fatphobic, especially as it has been previously defined.

“It’s not a fear,” said Young. “It’s a dislike.

It’s a personal idea, like it’s somebody’s personal thoughts or feelings of my unworthiness.”

For Sapphira Martin, a content writer, podcast producer and choreographer, the contrast became more noticeable when she lost weight.

“As I got older and was working, you know, I gained weight because of personal reasons,”

said Martin. “I just have noticed in the last two years since I have lost that weight how people have treated me differently, respond to even something as simple as my Instagram posts differently than when I was a heavier person.”

According to Martin, she was never mistreated due to her weight because she worked in spaces that specifically celebrated Black women’s bodies and beauty. But, she does believe the media tend to display one type of woman colorism.

Martin explains this favored look is a result of companies’ disregard for Black consumers.

She states audiences are believed to relate to racially ambiguous women more, and those connections are more profitable.

“I’ve just seen different things over the years, even in working in radio,” said Martin on the impact of colorism. “Seeing who’s on the air as opposed to who’s not on the air, lighter-skinned girl is the face of the company as opposed to the brown-skinned girl is working behind the scenes and working the boards, but she has the same talent.”

COMBATING COLORISM

“Shame is a marketing tool. Shame is the way to keep people in check.”

NICOLA CORBIN , WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DR.

In 2012, Weber State University Associate Professor Dr. Nicola Corbin researched colorism to properly define the term in “The Publicness of the Private: Articulations of Colorism in Popular Media.”

“Its intra-race discrimination based on the shade of one’s skin, the person’s hair texture and the kinds of features that the person has,” said Corbin. “[With] better benefits or advantages allowed to the people whose features, skin color appear more European and lesser to those who appear more traditionally African as we conceptualize those ideas.”

These norms have implicitly determined every aspect of Americans’ life including relationships, accessibility, wages and rights.

“Shame is a marketing tool. Shame is the way to keep people in check,” said Mosley. “It just keeps people in a space of not being able to have complete, abundant liberation because we’re all in scarcity, because we think that we’re lacking something… If everybody felt free and happy about themselves, then who can make money? Who can profit?”

One possible solution proposed by Mosley would start with the media prioritizing diversity and wider representation.

“I think it’s very important also for there to be more darker-skinned fat people in media to really rewrite those negative stereotypes that people think of dark-skinned people plus fat people,” said Mosley. “I know someone that has darker skin than me is definitely discriminated [against] more as a fat person than me, a light skin, fat person.”

Corbin says a way to combat colorism and anti-fatness in media rooms is simply fostering conversations.

“I think what you do is equip the next set of folks with the tools to keep interrogating, keep pulling it apart, pulling out a conversation,” said Corbin. “Because in the daylight, we can plainly see how things sometimes get really essentialized and just naturalized as the way they always are and should be… Not so much. Let’s see how foolish this looks in the daylight.”

Young says women simply need to keep going and believing in themselves and accept what makes each human different, as these are the tools one has been given to fulfill their individual destiny.

“It certainly is a whole lot of stuff that we have that’s a part of who we are in this world, and I think just knowing that… you’re good enough, especially if you’re striving to be great,” said Young. “And that greatness does not only exist in one type of body, one type of person. That greatness exists everywhere.”

Congratulations

to Kim Godwin, President of ABC News – the first Black woman President of a major broadcast news network

“I have immense respect and admiration for ABC News. As the most trusted brand in news, they are to be commended for the extraordinary work and dedication of the journalists, producers, executives and their teams across the organization. I am honored to take on this stewardship and excited for what we will achieve together.”

Godwin oversees editorial and business operations for broadcast, digital, streaming and audio news across the organization which includes trusted and iconic franchises “Good Morning America,” “World News Tonight,” “20/20,” “Nightline,” FiveThirtyEight, “The “T View” and “This Week.”

Godwin brings a breadth of experience in newsroom leadership garnered from an accomplished 35-year career dedicated to excellence and the vital role of journalism.

Make an impact in your career while building the future of The Walt Disney Company.

EOE • DRAWING CREATIVITY FROM DIVERSITY • © DISNEY

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Saturday, August 21, 2021

COURTESY OF RAQUEL HARRINGTON

COURTESY OF DANA WHYTE

Redefining Standards for Hair On the Air Crown Act, protecting right to wear natural hairstyles, brings focus to TV news journalists

BY CHLOE GODBOLD NABJ Monitor

Natural hairstyles for women of color continues to be a hot topic for TV journalists.

Raquel Harrington is a multimedia journalist at FOX61 in Hartford, CT. She’s been wearing her hair naturally since early 2019.

“I can tell you the first time I did it I was terrified,” Harrington said. “It’s on my social media platforms. The day I decided to wear my natural hair, it was the day I decided to wear braids.”

Research done by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business suggests that women of color are more likely to experience racial discrimination and societal bias in the workplace when wearing their natural hair or protective styles such as braids, locs, or twists.

“People are afraid of what they don’t know,” Harrington said. “I remember I was speaking with a viewer and he said my hair looked like ropes. That really ate me alive, and I had to remember, it’s just unknown to this person. So our job, we’re going to educate them.

The Crown Act was signed into law in California on July 3, 2019, prohibiting race-based hair discrimination regarding employment and educational opportunities.

Back in 2019, NABJ multimedia student project alumnus and 2015 NABJ Emerging Journalist award recipient Brittany Noble, a news anchor at WJTV in Jackson, MS was told her hair was unprofessional after anchoring while wearing locs at WJTV in Jackson, MS. She was subsequently fired from the television station.

The Crown Act has allowed African American reporters and anchors to feel more protected while wearing their hair naturally on-air.

Dana Whyte is a morning reporter at WOOD TV8 in Grand Rapids, MI. The passing of the Crown Act influenced her to explore more natural hairstyles three years ago while reporting.

“I didn’t actually know what the Crown Act was until I started wearing my hair naturally because it was so new,” Whyte said. “I first decided to go natural, on a weekend at work in Lansing

because management wouldn’t be there.”

She did not have any problems from management after her decision.

“They were supportive and thought it was great,” Whyte said. “Having good co-workers makes a huge difference because you know you’re supported.”

Harrington says wearing natural hair or protective styles on-air is not only about feeling comfortable in the workplace.

“This is how my ancestors wore their hair, and this is how I wear my hair to not only protect my

hair, but to represent my culture and stand for what I believe in,” Harrington said.

Whyte agrees that authenticity and representation are increasingly important in the TV industry.

“You shouldn’t have to change yourself for a job, and if a job wants you to change yourself to work there, then why would you want to work for that person anyway?” Whyte said.

Harrington wants to continue to bring awareness to this issue.

“Why do we have to make people aware that

this is how they should accept us?” Harrington said. “Being a Black woman with natural hair, we walk into a room, we automatically draw attention to ourselves. I think that’s as much awareness as it comes to.”

To find out more information about the Crown Act go to https://www.thecrownact.com/ or if you would like to bring the Crown Act to your state, you can sign this petition https://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/ help-make-hair-discrimination-illegal.

14 states and 30 municipalities have passed the Crown Act law. The Crown Coalition continues to educate and push for an end to race discrimination nationwide.

From left, women broadcast journalists with natural hairstyles gather to take a picture at the 2019 NABJ conference in Miami; Raquel Harrington, FOX 61 multimedia journalist, sports braids; Dana Whyte of WOOD TV8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, works in curls.

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Black Students Make Space for Themselves In the Ivy League ‘You really just have to keep pushing, proving people wrong and breaking through’

BY SHEILA HODGES NABJ Monitor

It is a beautiful spring day in Hanover, New Hampshire, as sophomore Queen Eche and her friends walk through the heart of Dartmouth University: the Green. Surrounded by historic buildings, the Green is full of luscious grass and thick trees. Eche and her friends admire the tranquility of the rustling trees against the clear blue sky.

Passing by they see students soaking up the sun, laughing, studying, reading and sometimes playing games in the outdoor space. “It is snowing,” whispers one of Eche’s friends, a comment that might seem confusing on this beautiful spring day with not a speck of snow in the sky.

The comment has nothing to do with the weather. It references the lack of Black students they see as they walk by. On the Green busy with students, Eche and her friends remain among the few Black students in sight.

“Whenever we walk across the Green, it’s like ‘Dang, we’re the dirt on the snow,” said Eche.

“But we don’t say it in a negative way. We say it like ‘We really stick out like sore thumbs.’”

For Eche and other Black students on campus and across other Ivy League campuses, it is snowing everyday.

The Ivy League -- Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell universities and the University of Pennsylvania -- are considered some of the most prestigious universities in the world, receiving hundreds of thousands of applications each year while only accepting a small cohort.

These schools, all located in the Northeast, enjoy some of the highest endowments in the nation, and that money draws huge numbers of applicants and results in low acceptance rates in these selective, historically white institutions.

Since the civil rights movement, Ivy League schools have actively recruited students of color with some success. However, since 1994, Black students have only made up only 7 to 8 percent of Ivy League campuses.

While being Black at an Ivy League institution has its unique challenges, based upon interviews with Black students, alumni and administrators at these schools, struggle does not define the experience of Black students. Heroism, solidarity and resiliency do.

FEELING THE PRESSURE After arriving on their Ivy League campuses, Black students say that they face many internal and external pressures.

The first often mentioned is imposter syndrome, doubts about one’s ability and a fear of being exposed as a fraud.

“I think it is something that is very pertinent, especially among the Black students at Harvard, where we feel sometimes that we don’t belong or we’re in a constant audition of ourselves, trying to prove that we weren’t just an affirmative action or diversity quota,” said Harvard junior Glenn Foster.

He attributed this to the lack of diversity Black students find both racially and economi-

cally. First generation Black students may often feel isolated at Harvard when they do not see other Black lower middle class and first generation students.

Class of 2016 Harvard alum Alterrell Mills saw imposter syndrome among his public school friends. Like himself, many of them did not have “social capital” in the sense of coming from a preparatory school or being an athlete.

It wasn’t a matter of feeling they didn’t deserve to be at Harvard, Mills said. It was more, “They let us in. We got a lucky break. Now it’s time to completely earn our admission.”

For many, this need to prove themselves comes in addition to having to represent and support their communities back at home, adding a unique layer of seriousness to their college experience, according to Yale Class of 2020 alum Roland Brewster.

He described himself as entering Yale with a very “pre-professional” mindset because he wanted to use his degree to help support his family, especially with his father who is not in the best of health.

“I sort of felt that I had to represent my community to some extent and really in the sense that I wasn’t here to kind of mess around,” said Brewster. “I had to be very conscientious of everything I did, taking it seriously. I definitely had fun, but all that being said, there was definitely a part of me that knew how important it was for me to perform at the highest level here and give it my best.”

Other Black students felt the same pressure to perform well at school for communities back home. This was the case for Dartmouth sophomore Eche, whose friend made the “snow” comment. Coming from a community where dropout rates are high, she said that children in her area look up to her as “the kid that got out” and “the girl that made it into the Ivy.” “So to me, it’s like there’s no turning back,” said Eche. “There’s no looking back. Every moment you make, you’ve got to use it to your fullest potential. Otherwise, that’s a moment that you just wasted.”

Such a mindset can affect Black students academically, emotionally and psychologically, said Cornell sophomore Obioha Chijioke. At Dartmouth, Eche stated that she feels this pressure to be a “happy black person.”

“It’s like I can never release my frustrations out the way I would want to,” said Eche. “I have to be civil. I have to be articulate. I have to make sure I know all my history. I have to be precise in how I say things. Otherwise I’m going to be crucified and called stupid.”

These pressures also come into play when Black students want to call out problems at their institutions.

Foster said at Harvard there is a tension between wanting to be an advocate for the Black community and being “respectful of the fact that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Stereotypes also wear down Black students.

Some of the most common stereotypes, Eche said, are those that paint Black men and women as angry and radicalized. She also gets asked whether she is an athlete.

“I don’t play sports by the way,” said Eche. “I just work out. But it’s like, ‘Oh, what sport do you play?’”

While the Black community at Ivy League institutions are diverse, with students coming from various economic and cultural backgrounds, Black students across Ivy Leagues seem to face some common struggles.

Right, Dartmouth sophomore Queen Eche poses in front of Dartmouth Hall on the Green with other sophomores. Eche and her friends were among the few Black students in sight.

Below, Cornell sophomore Obioha Chijioke sits in front of the Cornell Botanical Gardens at the Nevin Welcome Center at the beginning of his freshman year. Chijioke pushed himself to work hard and ignore imposter syndrome during his first year.

COURTESY OF GLENN FOSTER

PHOTO BY: RUJUTA PANDIT/COURTESY OF: QUEEN ECHE

RESILIENCY IN THE STRUGGLE However, despite the struggle, Black Ivy League students say they find a way to persevere for the sake of their dreams, future Black students and their communities at home.

For example, although imposter syndrome is a challenge for Black students, some say they cope by using it as a motivator.

This was true for Cornell sophomore Chijioke.

“You really just have to keep pushing, proving people wrong and breaking through and showing that you’re not only equipped to succeed, but you are equipped to excel,” said Chijioke.

Class of 2020 Yale alum Roland Brewster was told by his cousin that if he did not experience imposter syndrome at some point in his life, he wasn’t reaching high enough.

However, Eche of Dartmouth says imposter syndrome is not a problem for her and her Black peers.

“It’s like we work so hard that we know we deserve this,” said Eche. “Heck, we deserve more.”

Community has also been a saving grace for Black students when dealing with these struggles, according to those interviewed.

Eche stated that it has been cathartic to talk about it all with her peers at the Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry, which houses offices for Afro-American Society at Dartmouth.

“We go to the Black space and we just talk,” said

Harvard junior Glenn Foster leans against a statue of John Harvard on his last day on campus before leaving due to the Covid lockdown in March 2020. During the pandemic, Foster admired how his Black peers advocated for one another during the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Class of 2016 Harvard alum Alterrell Mills speaks at the 2016 African American Student Union Conference as co-president. Mills found that he and his public school friends experienced imposter syndrome during their undergraduate years because they did not have much social capital.

COURTESY OF ALTERRELL MILLS

PHOTO BY: JAHMAL WALLEN/COURTESY OF OBIOHA CHIJIOKE

Eche. “We talk smack. We just say what we need to say to other Black people that understand how we feel, and though it doesn’t really resolve anything, it feels good. It feels really, really good.”

Chijioke described the Black community as strong at Cornell even when everything went

virtual. With the promise of classes being inperson this fall, he and the rest of the Black Student Union at Cornell are looking forward to building even more of a sense of community through future events.

This perseverance and solidarity in the Black community has inspired those who were inter-

viewed.

Yale alum Roland described his peers as driven, while admitting that external pressures may force them into that mold.

“There are far fewer Black students who I think come into Yale with a ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here, like, let’s just see how it all works

out,’” said Brewster.

Eche admires how her Black peers “carry themselves” and “don’t let things get past them.”

“The Black people at Dartmouth, they’re like, ‘I know I’m more than enough, but these people don’t care about that so I’m just going to work harder,’” said Eche.

In addition, said the Rev. William Gipson, special adviser to the vice provost of social equity and community at the University of Pennsylvania, Black students in these white spaces ask hard questions when issues arise such as police brutality against Black people. Gipson worked at Princeton before joining Penn in 1996.

Foster said he has found it beautiful to witness Black students on campus persevere through the struggles of moving out and navigating the new space while also advocating for themselves and their peers during Black Lives Matter.

Thus, rather than buckling under the pressure of inner battles they face, Black students have continued to persevere for themselves and others, uplifting and advocating for them along the way.

HOPE ON THE HORIZON Across all interviews, the needs of Black students on Ivy League campuses often overlapped.

The first pressing need was for more diversity among the student body and faculty at their campuses.

“It’s hard for us to feel like we’re actually being included in the Harvard student population when at the end of the day, a lot of us don’t see each other on campus,” said Harvard junior Glenn Foster. “We don’t see each other in the classrooms. We don’t see [Black] professors in the classrooms.”

Another need for Black students is for institutional support in building community through more cultural spaces and student programs.

Black students say they find it comforting to be among other students who can relate.

The third common need among Black Ivy stu-

dents was to be heard by the administration.

The Ivy Leagues have been making steps towards addressing these needs. For example, according to Columbia University’s Associate Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Mellissa Mayard, the university launched its inaugural Racial Justice Mini-Grant Program, which funds projects that tackle racism at Columbia and beyond. One project Mayard said she admired was one by two Black students who created a podcast about the truth of being Black at Columbia.

“They shared the real things about Columbia-what it’s like being a Black student, interacting with faculty, staff, administration, other peers, non-Black students of color, white students and public safety, and just sort of navigating the Columbia experience,” said Mayard.

Following the death of Geogre Floyd, many Ivy League institutions have created action plans for addressing racism on their campuses. Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber created an action plan for Princeton, which includes diversifying its faculty and suppliers, funding projects on addressing racism and partnering with historically Black colleges and universities.

However, there is still much work to be done across all eight Ivy League campuses, said Princeton University’s Director of Carl L. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding Tennille Haynes. This generation of Black Ivy league students want to pave the way for the next. “[They want you] to be you and have the freedom to just be you without judgment, without bias, without having to explain your identity and your hair and your clothes and why you talk that way and things like that and just have that be accepted like everyone else and move on,” Haynes said.

This should not be fought just by Black students, according to Haynes. “It needs to be a collective effort. We need to see collective activism as well, and that means from everybody.”

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Black Artists in Atlanta Speak Out to Get a Share of Funding

BY KIAH ARMSTRONG NABJ Monitor

When visual artist Tiffany Latrice moved to Atlanta in 2014 in search of more opportunities, the door was continuously shut in her face.

The problem was not her art or ability, she said. It was the fact that she was Black—and a woman, even in a city where Black people are the majority.

She saw the need for a space that would amplify stories of Black women artists by giving them the space to present their artwork. TILA Studios was born in 2016. The company grew after 2019 to include an agency program that gets Black women artists paid jobs and fellowships at establishments including one of the largest art festivals, Art Basel.

The instability of philanthropic funding in Black arts organizations in Atlanta convinced Latrice to run TILA Studios off a unique and rare model that people don’t normally see used in the Black arts community.

“Only a few top tier organizations were getting funding and I knew I would stay at the bottom, pretty much scraping for pennies if I was a non-profit model, so I am a for-profit organization,” Latrice says.

Non-profit arts organizations acquire their revenues from three sources; philanthropic contributions from private donors, earned income and direct government subsidies. Philanthropic contributions can come from a private organization or a private donor. When an arts organization needs grant money, they simply fill out an application that the private organization has put together and they will be granted or denied the money.

The process sounds easy, but the outcome is almost always the same for Black-owned arts organizations nationally—they get denied, says Heather Infantry, a fundraiser for several nonprofits. This can be discouraging, and many don’t bother applying a second time.

In May 2020, the frustration reached an alltime high as bystanders observed The Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta award $580,000 to 11 grantees— only one of them Black-led.

“We knew unequivocally how badly the pandemic was impacting Black people and so

PHOTO BY JOHN STEPHENS

much of the impact of Black life at that point was the result of generations of inequity, socially and economically,” said Infantry, whose background in fundraising for arts and culture led her to address the issue on social media.

She signed off for the day and when she logged back on, she had over 100 comments in response to the foundation’s discount of the Black arts community.

By the beginning of June, Infantry had

Above, Marryam Moma, Stephanie Brown and Adana Tillman with community manager Sierra King attend the 2019 Prizm Art Fair in Miami.

Left, printmaker Chloe Alexander and clothing designer De’Andria Evans attend the 2019 Garden Fellow Kick-Off Event at Hammonds House in Atlanta

PHOTO BY BOWTIE PHOTOS

gotten 30 Black arts organizations to sign a letter, addressed to the Community Foundation that addressed the 87% of its $15 million that they had allocated since their inception in 1993 that went to white-led organizations.

Reason being—most Black organizations wouldn’t have made it past the application process.

“The application is not created with arts organizations and artists in mind. It is created with city, demographic and population requirements that really adheres to city council and governance,” Latrice says. When you create applications in that matter, you’re looking at it from a statistics standpoint and not actually a cultural production standpoint.”

She spent the previous day glancing over the non-profit application portal and was flabbergasted that it required applicants to share the percentages of ethnicities and sexualities within the nonprofit. As the founder of an inclusive organization, Latrice understands the diversity element but described this as intrusive and problematic.

“Instead of asking those questions regarding sexuality and gender, I would ask questions about how the organization is approaching diversity in written form rather than clicking a percentage box,” Latrice said. “They’re not asking about how what you’re doing is generating impact in the community and increasing the sustainability of livelihood, which is what most Black organizations are doing.”

Pap Martin, founder and operator of Kidds Dance Project, applied for a grant through

Metropolitan Atlanta Arts, which is overseen by the foundation, many years ago and was denied.

“The number one reason that I got turned down was because I didn’t have any full-time staff,” Martin says. “Many of the smaller nonprofits, they just don’t have the funds to pay somebody to be on staff.”

After Infantry initiated a virtual town hall meeting with 70 Black-led arts organizations, the Community Foundation revised the application by removing hurdles such as an audited financial review, which can cost between $5,000 and $7,000.

“Black communities haven’t earned wealth at the same pace as their white counterparts so philanthropy in the Black community is much different than it is in the white community,” said Infantry. “The culture of how they give to arts and culture is not a model of our own.”

Following the town hall meeting, the Community Foundation awarded $1.15 million to 28 Black arts organizations, most of which had been denied grant money in the first round.

Martin and her Kidds Dance Project received $15,000, which allowed her to keep programs that she would have lost.

It’s a step in the right direction, but Infantry says she would like to see more.

“To me, racial equity is not what you come and do in the little poor communities,” Infantry said. “It’s about including Black performers and creatives to be a part of these productions.”

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Dictionary.com Includes Black Lingo, People Are Divided

BY NAME GOES HERE NABJ Monitor

The Black words “zaddy,” “finna” and “chile” have been added to Dictionary.com. It’s true.

You can look it up.

These words, common to Black language, already had made their way into the vocabulary of White people within the last few years on social media, and now have been officially recognized by the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, which publishes Dictionary.com.

These words have been a part of Black linguistics for decades and were popular among African-Americans way before non-Black people knew the words existed.

John Kelly, the managing editor of Dictionary. com, says the site was simply doing its job.

“It’s our job as a dictionary to document and describe the English language as it is constantly changing,” he said.

Dictionary.com does not strive to act as gatekeepers of what is English and what it isn’t, he said, but to simply document words as they are used, no matter where they stem from.

“We have to do our best to keep up with language as it changes,” Kelly said, “and that includes taking inputs from different places, monitoring slang, including new definitions, and updating old definitions.”

Dictionary.com’s history with Black language has not always been so inclusive. In 2020, the entry for “black” included the synonyms “dark,” “dusty,” “sinful” and “devilish.” A controversy followed because one of the definitions of the word described people of color.

Random House then introduced “Black” with a capital B as a separate description of a person’s race, leaving “black” with a lowercase b with the controversial synonyms.

Kelly said the online dictionary includes more than definitions. It also includes etymology,

where the word came from.

“We want to document language and that includes giving credit where credit is due,” he said.

“So many words originate in the Black community but are miscredited to white teens on Tik Tok. If we are going to accurately describe the English language, giving credit to its origins is part of it.”

Even though many agree that Black language should be acknowledged by the dictionary, attempts to recognize Ebonics, or the entire system of African-American vernacular, raised a linguistic firestorm two decades ago.

In 1996 the Oakland, California, school board claimed that Ebonics, the dialect spoken by its majority population of African-American students, was a different language than standardized English, and they would take that into consideration when teaching their students. This sparked debate among writers and journalists, many who criticized the move.

Columnist Theresa Wilson wrote in the Iowa State Daily in 1997, “My heart tells me that Ebonics is not a language. Ebonics is not black English. It is bad English.”

Even now Instagram users responding to an informal poll were divided. Among the 70 users who responded, more than 70% agreed that Black language belongs in the dictionary, but that left 29% who disagreed.

“Ebonics isn’t actually English. It’s a ethnic cultural thing,” Diamond White wrote. “I would consider Ebonics more of a dialect than actual English language.”

White suggested that adding Black words to Dictionary.com was an attempt to be “woke,” crediting “White-guilt. I think it is Dictionary. com trying to be more inclusive to the Black community. I think it is them trying too hard.”

Some of the poll respondents suggested a separate dictionary.

“Mark Twain showcased Southern diction in

Top, in a Zoom call, John Kelly, managing editor of Dictionary.com says Black words “zaddy,” “finna” and “chile” belong in the reference work because they are a part of the English language.

Left, A screenshot from an instagram poll shows 71% of respondents think Black lingo belongs in the dictionary.

his famous novels ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘Tom Sawyer,’ really showing the evolution of the English language,” wrote Ashlyn Benson. “I think Ebonics should hold as much validity as the novels they were showcased in. However, I don’t think Ebonics should be featured in a standardized dictionary unless it was a dictionary that only featured Ebonic words.”

Such dictionaries do exist. A staple in Black culture has included the popularization of Urban Dictionary, a website that allows for users to

share popular slang words with their personalized definitions.

Many who agreed with recognizing Black language suggested that those who disagree are anti-Black.

“People undervalue Black people all over the world, even when they are the creators of great things,” Robyn Lewis said. “They probably said the same thing about the traffic light before they found value in it.”

Kelly of Dictionary.com, agrees that having Black language in the dictionary solidifies its validity and value.

“The words that are in the dictionary have effects on real people,” Kelly said. “When a group sees the language they use represented in the dictionary, it’s validated. It shows that their language is real and it matters.”

It’s not just a matter of validating language that exists, according to Zaniah Shobe, who wrote a widely regarded paper on Black language while an undergraduate at the University of Louisville.

Her paper was protesting the idea that speaking “Black” equates to speaking poorly.

“When I talk Black,” she wrote, she felt as if those around her reacted as if “I clearly do not understand where I am at and somebody needs to tell me to talk right if I want the job, scholarship, even the respect I deserve. Being a human is not enough and especially not being a black person will I get the respect I deserve unless I sound white.”

Shobe, reached in August, recalled that in the freshman English class in which she wrote the paper, “my teacher didn’t mind if we spoke with Ebonics. I wanted to highlight that if one person can accept it, why can’t everyone else?”

She says that part of the reason for choosing her topic was to signify a need for change in the way Ebonics is viewed. “The Black community plays a huge part in everyday life, so why can’t we (and our language) be fully accepted?

20 Years Later, Reporter Watches Afghanistan Crisis Unfold

BY DANIELLA JOHNSON & SHEILA HODGES NABJ Monitor

COURTESY OF BARBARA CIARA

Barbara Ciara reports on the first night of the U.S bombing campaign of the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11. Now as Afghanistan falls back into the hands of the Taliban, she thinks about the service members who were part of the initial campaign.

As the Taliban declares victory over Afghanistan, former 2007 NABJ President, Barbara Ciara reflects on her coverage of the start to America’s decade long war with the terrorist group.

President Joe Biden announced that he will be following through with the agreement the Trump administration made with the Taliban to have all U.S. Troops leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

As tensions rise in Afghanistan, many wonder where that leaves American assistance and aid.

Ciara remembers the night that the bombing campaign started vividly, stating that the patriotism and emotions amongst the military and reporters was at an all time high.

“People were emotional. And typically, when you deal with men and women in the military, they are methodical and purposeful, but they don’t have that emotion on their sleeves,” Ciara said. “ And this was different from the commander on down. People were very emotional about the mission.”

Thinking on the fall of the Twin Towers, Ciara recalls witnessing a unique sense of patriotism

among those aboard the USS Roosevelt.

When the war first began, Ciara and many others were under the impression that the war between America and Afghanistan would be short as the only goal was to assassinate Osama Bin Laden and secure Afghanistan. According to Ciara, there was a mutual understanding in the air that getting to Afghanistan, completing the mission and getting back home was the expectation.

“So if you look at what’s happening now and trying to manage that expectation, I think there would be some sense of disappointment,” Ciara said. “The question might be for them, did we achieve our mission now, for many people, the mission should have ended with the assisination of Osama Bin Laden.”

However, as time passed and policies changed, Ciara notes that the mission in Afghanistan seemed to change as well. As a veteran reporter, Ciara has been privy to witness all four administrations, how they handled the Taliban controversy as well as how the timeline in this war matters.

The George W. Bush administration handled and minimized the active threat of the Taliban, allowing the Obama administration to seemingly eradicate it by assassinating Bin Laden. Then,

the Trump administration made a deal with the terrorist group to vacate Afghanistan, leaving Biden the choice to either follow through with that agreement or continue the war.

“And now we are at a place where the United States is withdrawing, many of the folks in the military community that I cover feel like it’s messy, and that’s just what I’m hearing from the military community,” Ciara said. “I take my own opinion out of it, because when people are very close to the conflict and they’ve covered it and they’ve had many tours of duty, I think it’s our job to listen and have a takeaway.”

This confliction leaves the question of what will happen to Afghan people and their society if the Taliban continues their terror. According to Ciara, going forward the world is going to witness the lives of many who will have to adjust to new territories, language and immigration policies in the future.

“Those are going to be the stories that we tell in the future of a recommitment to those people who risk their lives to help out people on the ground,” Ciara said. “So it’s going to be another layer of the immigration issue that we cover so much here in the United States, because if those planes leave, they have to land somewhere.”

AT #NABJ21 PROUD SPONSOR OF THE 2021 NABJ CONVENTION & CAREER FAIR COMMITTED TO A CULTURE OF INCLUSION

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HAITI: DOCUMENTING THE AFTERMATH

BY WORTHINGTON MOORE NABJ Monitor

With the recent 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Haiti followed by a tropical storm, virtually everyone in the Caribbean nation is having difficulty adjusting to the suffering from the natural disasters. Just as difficult may be the task of documenting the tragic aftermath.

That’s the challenging job that veteran NPR photographer Octavio Jones has in front of him.

“It’s an adrenaline rush, but you have to control it,” Jones said. “You have to sort of maintain it, being out there.”

With the death toll continuing to rise, hospitals unable to handle rising numbers of patients and rubble littering the streets, the scene appears to grow more dire with each passing day.

Jones said there are times when he has to make a judgment call on whether or not to

shoot something.

“There was one point that a lady [was] showing me around. And she shows me a 12-yearold girl peeing down the drain,” Jones said. “I took my camera down and said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’

“Should I have taken that picture? I don’t know.”

Still, one of the hardest parts of being on the ground may be the feeling of hopelessness attached to the reality of the subjects he is documenting, he said.

“Folks are coming up to you and asking for your help. It’s a terrible feeling,” he said. “They asked me to help, but you can’t help them.

“You know, that’s probably the worst feeling in the world. But at the same time, it’s my job to show the world what people are going through and gather myself, maintain composure, and remember that I’m working as a journalist and document the situation.”

Clockwise from above, Bellune Sarachel holds her daughter where they live in a temporary home made out of sticks after losing their home in the earthquake on Saturday. Felina Manita and her husband Jean are building a temporary home out of sticks after losing their home in the earthquake on Saturday.

Dieunelson Sante shovels rubble where a store was destroyed by a major earthquake that struck the city of Les Cayes, Haiti on Saturday.

OCTAVIO JONES /NABJ MONITOR

Clockwise from left, Haitians are seen cutting rebar from the hotel Le Manguier that collapsed in the earthquake. A shoe is seen at the hotel Le Manguier that collapsed in the earthquake. Haitians boys watch a pile of rubble where an earthquake stuck the city of Les Cayes, Haiti, on Saturday.

Rescue groups are working to find survivors while hoping to recover from the major 7.2 earthquake that struck the city last Saturday, in Les Cayes, Haiti, on Monday, August 16, 2021

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OPINION

Journalism Profs Need to Keep Up With Trends

BY KIANA STEVENSON NABJ Monitor

ATLANTA – Journalism may be a field with key guidelines, but some professors must shift from the traditional framework to keep young, emerging journalists focused and on top of their game.

This may come as a shock to seasoned instructors who spend class time drilling the AP style guide and newspaper layout into the minds of young students, which is valuable. But, the everchanging standard of education and society at large have equipped educators with new modes of teaching.

“Our students, they have access to YouTube University and they have access to so many different options and opportunities for learning,” said Jarrad Henderson, Emmy-award-winning video producer and adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies.

“You have to be able and capable and keep your skillset up if you want to remain relevant in that energy and be able to pass that down to your students.”

Henderson also serves as the academic representative of the National Association of Black Journalists, a role aimed at faculty development.

He added professors are key to the advancement and achievement of the next generation of journalists as the industry becomes more clickbaitbased and soiled with tea in a quest for page views and advertising to accommodate for shrinking revenues. Ethical and honest journalism is and will always be necessary for true democracy even if metrics say otherwise.

The digital media landscape is ever-changing and has forced educators, storytellers and newsrooms to be leaner, more limber and craft plans that are forward-thinking. Our forefathers evidently predicted the eventual reign of paperless technology, but the impact of the internet and celebrity culture on society took us all by storm.

Today, it is essential to many, including instructors, and has required us to redefine what news is.

“I’m talking to people who are still working in a newsroom and asking them, you know, what they’re looking for when they’re hiring people,” said Michelle Johnson, associate professor of the practice of multimedia/online journalism at Boston University for 11 years. “And so, you know, I have an opportunity to tailor my courses based on that.”

Some may argue that the industry existed for decades without digital, so how pertinent could it be to the craft?

“It’s absolutely required,” said Johnson. “I mean, it’s the way that journalism is done now.”

Last year, the Pew Research Center conducted a study that showed 60% of U.S. adults often get their news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet while 10% get their news from print publications. The study also showed, 52% of adults prefer getting their news from digital platforms, compared to 5% who prefer print. If this is the climate young journalists are merging into postgraduation, professors must consider how vital being well versed in digital is to their students’ success in newsrooms, and crafting curriculums that match the needs of professional newsrooms “When studying media, there is this ‘what if’ element to experience that makes one question if you’re even going to succeed,” said Taniece McCoy, graduate of Clark Atlanta University. “I believe that a balance between field experience

ANDY COLWELL

coupled with media literacy are the foundation for educating future strong media pioneers.”

Many students agree that adaptability is not common among professors who are settled into their careers. Tenure is often to blame for professors at colleges and universities who show little interest in the wants of young people. But Johnson cites it as a potential justification for unchanged curriculum.

“I have friends who work at other schools, and they don’t have much flexibility. Either, you know, it could be because they’re going through the tenure process… so they have publishing responsibilities,” said Johnson. “And there’s some schools, you know, getting anything changed — it’s a process in itself. It can take a long time to get approval to go to make changes to … a course.

So it really depends on the institution.”

According to Dr. Meredith D. Clark, assistant professor at the University of Virginia and the Department of Media Studies, the contract for the standard process to get tenure includes certain percentage requirements for research, teaching and service. This must be completed within the first six years of a professor’s hire. Research has a much higher percentage, especially for in-

Counterclockwise from top, Michelle Johnson assists a young journalist at the 2014 Student Projects in Boston; Jarrad Henderson, NABJ academic representative, speaks at the Northern Short Course in Photojournalism in 2020.

Christopher Daniel and Brian “B-high” Hightower (upper right) take their classes to the Pandora office in Atlanta on Oct. 9, 2019. Clark Atlanta University students pose for a photo with Dave East (middle).

stitutions that are research-intensive or plan to be, which usually takes professors years to complete. With this in mind, it may be difficult to prioritize fresh classroom techniques.

“If I had to venture a guess, I would say that it’s one of the reasons that a number of journalism professors don’t have the most cutting edge version of the skills that they’re trying to teach to students,” said Clark. “We may have the basic skills, but we may not have them for the new technologies that are out, or for some of the new platforms that are available. And that’s because we have to focus our attention elsewhere to make sure that we keep the job.”

But being flexible with new methods of teaching is not impossible despite tenure responsibilities.

Clark, who has extensive experience as a working journalist in social justice, social media, influence of the press and critical race theory is also founding director of the new Center for Communication, Media Innovation and Social Change at Northeastern University.

In Clark’s course on Black Twitter, she made the final assignment for her students a podcast episode. She brought experienced professionals

to talk to the students throughout the semester, and she joined in with the class and learned how to create an episode herself.

“To be completely honest, I didn’t know if I could make one myself,” she said. “We can learn some of the tools and some of the platforms that our students are using or will be using. We can learn how they’re relevant to the material we’re teaching. And the way we’re teaching.”

Regardless of your academic appointments, aforementioned research shows it is not enough to solely base one’s teachings on their experience in the industry. If the intention behind lecturing is the audience’s absorption of knowledge, some professors deem it illogical to not take students’ enjoyment into consideration. They argue the best way to keep students intrigued is by catering to their passions and perspectives.

“The biggest thing that I tell people all the time is my job is a talent developer,” said Christopher Daniel, an Atlanta-based journalist recently inducted into the Grammy committee and multimedia professor at Clark Atlanta University. “It really is more than just you holding a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Mondays and Wednesdays for an hour and 15 minutes.

You are physically there to make sure that whatever vision that that student has, or those students have, they manifest it and then they go after it.”

An equally beneficial by-product of familiarizing oneself with students and their world is potential mentorship. Hampton University graduate Tiana Ruffin experienced firsthand how increased comfortability between staff and students leads to a healthy, successful classroom environment.

Ruffin formed a bond with her public relations professor Keisha Reynolds over the course of her matriculation. When she launched the Tiana Nichelle Marketing Agency last year, Reynolds was an influential figure who Ruffin still frequently goes to for help.

“She was relatable and fun, and she used everything that we would be using right now,” said Ruffin. “She definitely connected with us, and I kind of like watched her. If I had any questions I would always go to her, email her, go to her office hours and just talk to her. She was very open.”

Students believe real-world interaction between working media professionals and student journalists provides realistic definitions of ascendancy. There is no path to prosperity set in stone for every journalist. For young people, the mold often does not stretch enough to include journeys not exactly extraordinary yet equally deserving of triumph.

“They’re always like, ‘As a journalist, you start from the bottom and you gotta work your way up.’ Or you see people straight out of college go straight to it,” said Ruffin. “But you don’t really see the in-between.”

Last year, COVID-19 made it unsafe to convene and nearly impossible to connect. But as we transition back to in-person instruction in the fall, staff and scholars must work together. It is not only essential to humanity, but to the progression of journalism and the development of the best reporters.

“My encouragement to professors out there is to stay curious,” said Henderson. “Ask a lot of questions [to] your students so that you can continue to give them the best opportunity to be successful. I know that’s what I’ve benefited from.”

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HBCU Athletes Are Quickly Changing the Game

By Marquette Walker JSHOP Reporter

JSHOP STUDENTS

JSHOP FACULTY

Nashia AkuamoahBoatemaa Cristo Rey New York High School Bronx, NY

Sheryl Kennedy Haydel, PhD, Project Director Loyola University New Orleans Director of the School of Communication and Design

Katrina Machetta Klein Collins High School Spring, TX Sydney Wilson Frisco High School Frisco, TX

Russell LaCour Arcie LaCour Copy Editing & Project Management Project Advisor

Julian Morris Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy Saginaw, MI

Dana Littlefield The San Diego UnionTribune Editor

Ayanna John Clarksburg High School Boyds, MD

Terry Collins USA Today Technology, Business & Financial Reporter

Skyler Winston Heritage High School Brentwood, CA Evana Coleman Emerson High School McKinney, TX Sumaya AbdelMotagaly Atholton High School Laurel, Md Marquette Walker Jackson State University Memphis, TN Gabrielle Barnes Patricia E. Paetow High School Katy, TX Dominique Ainsworth Oakton High School Oakton, VA

Eva Coleman I Messenger Media LLC Lifestyle & Culture Editor Candace Bagwell Heritage High School Executive Producer of Coyote Nation TV & Photojournalism Instructor Sydney Gray KEVO-Morning Anchor LaDonna Castro LaDoMedia - Owner Toni Harrigan Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services Executive Management Officer JSHOP PARTNERS

Kaitlynn Hughes Royse City High School Royse City, TX

Knight Foundation

Eden Shamy John Guyer High School Lantan, TX

Dow Jones NewsFund

Elena Gorneault Plainville High School Plainville, CT

Loyola University New Orleans Book

Choosing a historically Black College and University (HBCU) culture over a predominately white institution (PWI) experience is a huge move in today’s world. It inspires tomorrow’s leaders to question why that’s the case.

Kennedy Wibert, a center on the Tennessee State University men’s football team, and Se’Quoia Allmond, a point guard at Jackson State University, defied all odds.

Allmond is the first top 100 ESPN girls basketball player in the country to play for an HBCU and is obsessed with creating her wave.

“I think it means a lot ‘cause it opens a lot of doors for young athletes, and they see that they don’t have to always do what they see everyone else doing; they can create their path or own journey,” said Allmond regarding her choosing an HBCU over her Power 5 offers.

The quality of these statements isn’t often considered when choosing schools, and few are willing to take the risk.

“I wanna be a four-time champion coming out of Jackson (State),” Allmond said. Her goals were already in place before making this decision, as she also plans on expanding her brand Certified Bucket Get (CBG) in college.

Wilbert led Middle College High School to their first Regional Championship in his senior year in 2019.

Afterward, he received his offer from TSU. Rod Reed led the team as head coach, and now they have Eddie George taking over the position.

“We have all the hype in the world right now. Everybody’s talking about Tennessee State, all eyes are on us right now, and our main goal is just to win the national championship,” Wilbert said.

The most common idea is that these students want to play ball and live out their dreams. Everybody wants to get paid, but to get paid, you have to master your craft.

“When I took my first visit here, it felt like home,” Wil-

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College With COVID Restraints Now Nearly Normal JSHOP Reporter

Se’Quoia Allmond, a point guard at Jackson State University, spurned big name colleges to attend a HBCU.

bert said. He made that clear because this is his sophomore year, and he will be a junior in his second semester because of the extra summer classes he took while training as a Division I athlete.

“I got weights in the morning. After weights, it’s practice. After practice, it’s class. After class, I go to the cafe or whatever to replenish my body,” said Wibert, recalling his schedule. “Then I go to another class, and then

after that class, I have meetings later on that evening, (and) after those meetings I come in my room to do my homework.”

Often we hear from the coaches or athletic directors, but this is mainly Wilbert’s future. As the landscape for student-athletes continues to change, they hope to continue to speak for themselves and let the public know what goes on behind those closed doors.

By Eden Shamy JSHOP Reporter

that would allow them to continue online learning under the current state funding formula.

This, too, was denied, and the district resorted to using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, funds to finance the Denton ISD K-8 Virtual Academy.

Superintendent Dr. Jamie Wilson said the K-8 academy currently has an enrollment capacity of less than 1 percent of students in the district.Additionally, the district has yet to finance any form of online program for students at the high school level, leaving last year’s online learners with one option; return to school in person.

“It’s unfair to force high school students back into in-person learning,” said Elisha Bowman, a senior at Guyer High.

Bowman was one of 11,000 students districtwide who were taught in a virtual environment last year. He said his chief concern both then and now is COVID-19 and how it may affect his parents. Bowman said he is anxious now that he has no choice but to face the virus on a daily basis.

“The state will only contribute to the rise in cases by denying online learning,” Bowman said.

Wilson talked about similar concerns in front of the Texas Senate Education Committee on Aug. 10.

Wilson said there are “more and more people interested in keeping their children safe,” but unfortunately without funding by the state, the district is unable to mandate masks or find further means to prevent the spread.

Jund, the Guyer High School freshman principal, said there are still hopes for the district to “get creative” with its funding and form an innovative online program for high schoolers in the years to come.

David John is a 22-year-old incoming senior at the University of Maryland. He is eager to leave home to go to campus finally. With his wait almost over, he still has to deal with restrictions due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 started back in December of 2019. The first outbreak was in China, then slowly spread to other countries, forcing the world to lockdown.

After about six months, colleges began reopening to continue academic learning in person. At the time, COVID-19 was still very new, so restrictions were more severe.

But, almost a year later, many people have gotten the vaccine and practiced CDC guidelines. Therefore, attending college at this time is a lot more normal than it was last year.

“It will probably affect study groups since we will have to be socially distanced, so we might have to take them online. Teachers will also be changing course loads to make it easier for students,” John said.

John said he is aware that COVID-19 has a significant impact on students’ learning. Social distancing still applies to large gatherings, so study groups can not always be together in person. Since distance learning has been challenging for many, teachers will try to make the work less stressful for students to ease the distress.

“My social skills will definitely change because when I am at home, I am a completely different person than when I am around friends or people my age,” John said.

He has always been an extrovert, so being in lockdown and not socializing with his friends has been detrimental to him. Since colleges have large capacities, going there at this time will allow him to make many new friends and be

By Nashia Akuamoah-Boatemaa JSHOP Reporter

AYANNA JOHN JSHOP REPORTER

David John packs for college life with the possibility of COVID at the University of Maryland.

as outgoing as he was before the pandemic.

“I prefer traditional in-person learning because you get to be one-on-one with the professor, and I think people tend to learn better in that situation,” said his mom, Adie John. “At this time of COVID, I don’t mind him going because he’s fully vaccinated and follows CDC guidelines.”

And although Adie John believes that COVID-19 is a serious illness that people need to be cautious about, she still wants David to go to college in person rather than online since it is very beneficial for his education and he

gets the full college experience.

With in-person learning, David John said he could concentrate better with fewer distractions, have more time with the professor, gain hands-on learning opportunities, and more.

“I am aware that going to college in-person during the pandemic is a risky thing to do for many reasons, but as long as I stay safe the whole time, it should feel no different than before all of this even happened,” he said.

Editor’s note: David John is the author’s older brother.

Elephants Bring a Family Together

By Dominique Ainsworth JSHOP Reporter

For Sabine Ainsworth elephants represent strength, protection, good luck and good fortune. This is why Ainsworth, a mom of four from Fairfax, Va., gave each of her children an elephant figurine similar to the ones she grew up with as a child.

She often talks about growing up with elephant figurines peppered throughout her childhood homes, and how she came to incorporate them in her home now.

“We had this gray elephant in the house…. We brought it back from Canada, we brought it to St. Kitts and different houses we lived in. It’s still there today,” Ainsworth said.

The St. Kitts native talks about the personal connection and sentimental value of each elephant and how they are able to give her “a memory of her [my] family,” especially now that she’s living in a different country and “hasn’t been home for years.”

Ainsworth remembers being curious

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U.S. College Students Push Back Against Media-Driven Stereotypes About Developing Countries

By Ayanna John

Students Abandon eLearning in Denton ISD When Virtual Academy Funds Are Denied Back-to-school in the Denton Independent School District kicked off Aug. 12 with crowded hallways, unmasked faces and classes that had double or even triple the number of students than they had the previous year.

It was the return of connected learners to the physical classroom. Although the increased population and ability to see each others’ faces sparked energy in the school environment, not all students originally intended to return this year.

When the last school year came to a close, Denton ISD had already been gearing up for another year, which would provide both in-person and online instruction.

Dr. Nicole Jund, Guyer High School freshman principal, said it was the dream “to have two systems [online and in-person] walking alongside each other.” Based on the understanding the district would continue to receive state funding for an online program, enrollment for Denton ISD’s new virtual academy began in April.

To the dismay of many, the Texas House Bill that would have provided the necessary funding for online programs failed to pass.

The bill was refiled Aug. 10, but schools across Texas have yet to know its fate. In the meantime, the district requested a waiver from the Texas Education Agency

THE

Saturday, August 21, 2021

DOMINIQUE AINSWORTH JSHOP REPORTER

Elephant trunks facing up radiate positive energy.

about the symbolic meaning attached to elephants and the first time she looked it up.“Elephants are supposed to bring good luck and strength and health and fortune to your life... , “ she said. “I wanted to manifest that for [my kids] as well.”

She said that discovery is what led her to give each of her children an elephant figurine.

“It’s interesting how such a small object can hold so much meaning,” Ainsworth’s daughter, Sophia, said.

Ainsworth researched how elephant designs and figures are used in the Chinese practice of feng shui and the importance of their position, as well as the direction they’re facing. It is said that figurines with the trunks facing up radiate positive energy, luck, prosperity and kindness.

“My father always had elephants in the family room,” she said. She also keeps elephants in the shared space for “bonding and positive energy,” as well as “to welcome the home.”

The symbolism and the role elephants play in Ainsworth’s life can be shared by many other people.

Elephants play a role in several different groups and cultures. One notable group is Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., one of the world’s largest community service organizations. Elephants are considered the Deltas’ unofficial mascot, and alumnae will often have them in their homes as a symbol of strength and perseverance.

Elephants are also important in African and Asian cultures. They represent inner strength and are used in a variety of cultural practices. In Ashanti tradition, they are believed to be the reincarnated souls of past leaders. In both African and Asian cultures, they are symbols of wisdom and protection.

Ainsworth said she also believes that elephants bring protection. When her father died in December 2020, the elephant symbols in her life provided a sense of comfort.

“Having the elephants now is a symbol and remembrance of him,” she said.

There’s an old saying that every story will glorify the hunter until the lion learns how to write.

This seems to be true in the eyes of many young people born in developing countries around the globe, who believe the western media outlets -- those from the United States in particular -- often fail to tell fair and full stories about these countries and their people.

The focus too often, they say, is on the negative. And while those stories should be told, the news outlets often ignore the countries they are making for the benefit of their own people.

A couple of young people interviewed for this story say they hope to help change global perceptions of the countries where they were born. They say they want to change them for the better.

Rashel Colome, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Miami, was born in the Dominican Republic. She recently said that she “loves her country wholeheartedly” and wants to pursue a career after college that will positively impact communities in her homeland.

“In the Dominican Republic, the government would rather focus on providing their efforts to create a ‘tourist image’ instead of focusing on the communities who are struggling,” Colome said. “This is our reality but that does not mean that our country should be looked down upon like the media constructs it to be... ”There are communities who may not have it all but they are still humans who are caring and beyond all their struggles deserve the utmost respect.”

Fransica Kwakye, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, grew up in Ghana and moved to the U.S at age 12. She said Western media should pay more attention to West Africa’s development in recent years. She said Ghana is far from perfect, but it is a beautiful country with prominent people and not starving children.

The country is known for its production of gold and many natural resources.

“The story that needs to be told is the advancements in Ghana since its independence,” Kwakye said. Whatever story is told, she said, focus on telling the truth.

Kwakye started an organization called Empower Stories and works with Ghana’s minister of information to bring light to the powerful stories that “have been overshadowed for centuries.”

“As a young African woman, I understand the power of stories and how it has perpetuated and formed stereotypes about my potential…,” she said. “My goal with this organization is to transform the primitive, ill-powered narrative of Africa that is often portrayed on media outlets.”

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