Veteran reporter presents abbreviated history of 20-year-old journalism group
Photo By Terry
Gilliam
Sherri Williams, president of the Columbus Association of Black Journalists and a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, recognizes Felix Hoover, a founding member of the organization, at its 20th anniversary celebration on Friday, Dec. 5. CABJ Vice President Alex Wiley and Shawndrea Thomas (partially hidden), both of WSYX-TV, look on. Hoover, a reporter at The Dispatch when CABJ formed in 1988, is contributing senior reporter for YourNewsColumbus.com.
By Felix Hoover
For YourNewsColumbus.com
Columbus is my home, and so is the Columbus Association of Black Journalist, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
This home has people with many varied talents and different views on what our association should be. With an ever-shifting mix of professionals in black newspapers, mainstream print publications, radio, television, public relations and new media It has survived for two decades in a highly competitive field.
Over time we have gotten past the perception of disloyalty to employers that arose whenever more than a handful of us convened for whatever reason. We also gained the trust and respect of one another to work toward common goals: to better the industry, improve ourselves and mentor the next generation.
At times we have emphasized community involvement, as when we held workshops on how the public can access the media.
We have consistently sought to encourage high school and college students who want to be the next Jerry Revish, Yolanda Harris, Mike Jackson , Ed Clay or Sherri Williams. And yes, we have warned the young folks about work schedules that make odd hours, working holidays and pay so modest that it would prompt now-Mayor Michael B. Coleman to change his college major from journalism to pre-law.
We have honored our fallen colleagues, most publicly with scholarships in memory of Julie Bailey and Lauren Crowner.
More privately we have memorialized James Evans, Amos Lynch Jr., Charlie Briggs and Collin Bryce – many of us knew him as Tony.
We have saluted local legends in and out of the media and feel privileged that they would spend of Friday night with us in celebrating CABJ’s 20th anniversary.
We have gone through growing and shrinking pains, but even at our lowest point have remained one of the strongest chapters in whatever region we’re in. Regions have been realigned several times in our 20 years.
Many of us have valued our chapter’s affiliation with the National Association of Black Journalists and have attended many of its national conventions across the country.
As such, we have danced with Ed Bradley and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, clinked a glass with a dying Max Robinson and reminisced with Paul Delaney.
The driving force behind the chapter’s formation was Starita Smith, former bureau chief for the Dispatch’s NeighborNews office at Mount Vernon Plaza. She had mentored many reporters, including Dispatch employees Julie Bailey, Connie Higgins and this reporter.
“You
and I and Julie and Connie were together when those encounters with
Ed Bradley,
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
and Max Robinson
occurred,” said Smith, now a teaching fellow in sociology at the University
of North Texas. “I was the one who got us the hook up to go up the penthouse
for the private party with Max Robinson. That was before we had a chapter.”
Formation of a local chapter had been one of Smith’s long-time dreams, she
said.
“I made a concerted effort to lure Connie, Julie and you to come to NABJ conventions. I knew that once you came, you would be ready to make a commitment to the organization and you would have a wonderful chapter but first you have to be indoctrinated in the culture of the organization.”
Shortly before the chapter formed, Smith had been recruited for a job in Austin, Texas, but others in the core group committed to the national and local organizations.
We have bubbled with pride when our home folks have received top honors, including some who attended the local’s 20th anniversary, as well Wil Haygood, Dana Tyler and others who have excelled in other markets.
We have been chastised by Louis Farrakhan and lovingly reprimanded by Vernon Jarrett, a pioneer in Chicago journalism as a newspaper columnist and a broadcaster. And we have been scrutinized, our credibility under attack, when a certain senator from Illinois spoke to us.
We have marveled, while maintaining professionalism, that the nation has elected that senator to be its 44th president, the first black to hold the country’s highest executive office.
We have reflected on our own firsts – those that we want to publicize as well as ones we’d rather forget.
We have recognized photographers, including Charles Busby, Don Gresham, Vince Jordan, Kojo and Terry Gilliam, now owner of YourNewsColumbus.com.
Through all of these things, we’ve somehow survived. And eaten a lot of food.
Nathan’s hotdogs on the sidewalks of New York, anything grillable at Cecil Joneses’ house, hors d’oeuvres galore in the Brewery District. And more hors d’oeuvres at BoMa, site of the 20th anniversary salute.
We may not have tasted the gourmet cooking of Chuck White, who served more than 50 years in broadcasting, but we have absorbed his words of wisdom and insight about the exponential growth in local black journalists since his barrier-breaking start in 1957. He was one of the speakers at CABJ’s 20th anniversary celebration on Dec. 5.
That night was special for CABJ because we heard stories that matter to the public and to us as media professionals, such as the unrelenting effort of Jerry Revish to seek justice and release from prison for Walter Smith, now a broadcast journalist in his own right.
We honored diversity and saluted the work of Dispatch reporter Geoff Dutton who wrote the “Test of Convictions” story, which led to Robert McClutcheon’s release from prison.
And we talked to one another, recounting tales of CABJ and Columbus media in earlier times and just catching up with one another.
We thanked, but not enough, the public relations professionals who have reached out to the community in ways that many working journalists could not. In this regard, think of Kevin Dixon, Pam Busby, Jackie Wright, B.J. Lundy and many others.
In preparation for the celebration, committee members talked to founders, including media professors Linda Florence Callahan, CABJ’s first president, who now is at North Carolina A&T, and Felecia Jones Ross, who’s at Ohio State University. We called cinematographers Don Gresham in Chicago and Big Doug Perkins in Washington. Both sent their regards, as did Connie Higgins in Sarasota.
We regretted the absence of former presidents Reggie Anglen and Kirk Richards, who with the help of Secretary Pamela Glason Thornton and Treasurer James Giles, held the fort several years until a new wave of dedicated officers and committee leaders stepped forward.
The cavalry was arrived with Sherri Williams, president; Simone Sebastian, first vice president; and Alexis Wiley, second vice president, with Giles remaining treasurer.
We have opened out dictionaries at the urging of event chairman Kerry Charles, and have found his picture under effervescent.
CABJ is not a static organization. Our numbers have waxed and waned, but somehow we have survived, carrying on traditions of the group founded in 1988 and of earlier efforts led by Ann B. Walker and Sharron Kornegay.
In celebrating, we have added rookies and restored veteran journalists to our roster and have set the tone for stronger personal and professional relationships.
We believe CABJ is in good health, fortified with a new wave of active members with the same vision, energy and enthusiasm that the founders had 20 years ago.
Felix Hoover is a founding member of the Columbus Association of Black Journalists. He has worked at WLWC-TV, the Call & Post and the Columbus Dispatch and contributes regularly to YourNewsColumbus.com. He wrote this milestone commentary to honor past, present and future members of CABJ, to remember all black journalists who have worked in this market and to give the public a glimpse of the black news family.