NABJ receives grant for Ford Foundation to train “minority” journalists

The grant will be employed by NABJ in three core areas: to increase multimedia workshops and educational programs in 2009 and 2010; to create a professional scholarship program for recently laid-off members desiring professional training and networking opportunities at the NABJ Annual Convention & Career Fair; and to help facilitate NABJ’s move to a new state-of-the-art facility at the Philip Merrill School of Journalism on the campus of the University of Maryland.

“NABJ will greatly benefit from these funds in its unified effort to improve newsroom diversity and increase the competitiveness of black journalists across the country,” said NABJ President Barbara Ciara.

NABJ offers year-round webinars, teleconferences and regional conferences in addition to a broad spectrum of journalistic and communications programming over five days at the NABJ Annual Convention, the premier yearly event for journalists of color.

Sponsors and workshop leaders partnering with NABJ in 2009 include the Poynter Institute, Google, NBC News and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

“Journalists of color are disproportionately facing cuts in the workforce, and with the type of training NABJ offers, it will be harder for employers to let them go,” said Ciara, referring to a recent American Society of News Editors (ASNE) report, which determined that 13.5 percent of black newspaper journalists lost their jobs in 2008. A study by the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) similarly shows that black TV news directors dropped from 4.2 percent to 2 percent nationwide in 2007.

“This generous gift provides an extra helping hand to members during a critical time for the industry,” said NABJ Executive Director and COO Karen Wynn Freeman. “Thanks to this grant, NABJ can continue providing valuable multimedia training and assure that members will have the resources to attend.”

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

The NABJ Annual Convention & Career Fair in Tampa, Fla. Aug. 5-9 is the largest gathering of minority journalists in the country. For more information, go to: www.NABJ.org.

An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation, with more than 3,500 members, and provides educational, career development and support to black journalists worldwide.