Black Journalists Group Seeks Direction

By: Mark Fitzgerald At 27 years of age, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is under-going a midlife crisis. Its heady early days of idealistic struggle are long in the past. Also receding into memory are the years when corporations wooed black journalists with receptions and sponsorships at crowded conventions -- and political figures from Louis Farrakhan to then-candidate Bill Clinton made their cases.

Here at this year's convention, which ended Aug. 4, there were no keynote speakers, and the most prominent figure was Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe.

Like a stern personal trainer taking on an out-of-shape middle-ager, NABJ President Condace Pressley vows to restore discipline to the association: "The glory days of the '80s, when media companies had plenty of dollars to support our functions -- 'them days are over.' It's a new day."

The need for fiscal discipline hit NABJ just before its convention last year, when the membership found itself with a $344,000 operating deficit. The finances have rebounded somewhat: Treasurer Glenn Rice, a reporter for The Kansas City (Mo.) Star, stated that NABJ ended fiscal 2001 with a $57,500 surplus.

What remains a problem is the slippage in membership. NABJ should be growing at about 10% annually, Pressley said. Instead, membership dropped about 11% over the past year, to 3,004. More worrying was the 20% drop in the "full" membership category. Those 1,338 working journalists -- down from 1,676 last year -- now account for less than half of NABJ's membership.

Vernon Jarrett, the legendary former Chicago Sun-Times columnist who was among the founders of NABJ, complained that it is no longer attracting serious journalists. "The reason we don't get the quality journalists is that they think we're a jive, come-together-once-a-year organization," he said.

Jarrett, who now writes a column for the daily black-oriented Chicago Defender, is both a critic and an example of NABJ's fissures: he heads one of two factions in the large Chicago chapter who elected separate leadership slates. In the end, the national leadership "decertified" the Chicago chapter until the factions resolved their problems.

NABJ President Pressley, assistant programming director for WSB-AM in Atlanta, warned at the association's business meeting that other chapters could be shut down if they continue to violate national bylaws. "We have gone soft on holding our chapters accountable," she said. "My sense ... is that after Jan. 1 we are going to have a lot of chapters that are going to be gone, and to the extent that some people get mad because we start decertifying chapters ... you can all get mad and kick me out, and that'll be fine."

For all the group's internal problems, this year's NABJ job fair was remarkably busy, considering newsroom employment has yet to recover from last year's layoffs. Papers generally were looking to fill at least a few jobs, and some employers -- such as the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, The Seattle Times, and the New York Times Regional Newspapers Group -- had a dozen or more openings each. Said Bob Nishizaki, assistant managing editor for news operations at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., "An event like this lets you track talent more closely, even if you don't have anything open immediately."