Students founded Arizona State University’s first chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists this semester in hopes of creating more opportunities and fairness for aspiring black journalists.
NABJ “is basically a program that advocates on behalf of black journalists and provides opportunities for them that they wouldn’t have otherwise … and works on promoting fairness in the work force for black journalists,” said De’Ron Marques Fantroy, vice president of ASU’s chapter of NABJ and broadcast journalism freshman.
Fantroy stressed that the fairness they seek is not in regard to racism or prejudice but rather equal representation in the newsroom and on television.
“I haven’t really gotten out there yet, in the real world, to experience (prejudice) yet,” said Tia Richardson, media director for the club and also a broadcast journalism freshman. “I’m pretty sure it will come across sooner or later just because it’s life, but I’m willing to just overlook it and work harder just to prove people wrong.”
Fantroy quoted an article from NABJ.org saying that 19.2 percent of newsroom jobs held by black journalists were cut in 2009, and he said that he believes that the percentage of minorities in the newsroom should equally represent the percentage of minorities in the country’s population.
“That’s fairness … giving everyone the equal opportunity,” Fantroy said. “Instead of a newsroom full of white males … it needs to be women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians–everything.”
Richardson added that there should be fairness in regard to story assignments as well as representation.
“They send black journalists … out to do the poverty-stricken stories because they feel like (sources) may talk to us more because they may have better connections with us and things like that, which is not necessarily true because all black people don’t come from poverty,” she said. “We connect to people on another level besides that.”
The club has about 15 to 20 members now but hopes that number will grow and will include people of all ethnicities.
“I don’t want people to think that this is an organization just for African Americans because that’s not true–it’s for everyone,” Fantroy said.
Besides creating ties with existing members of NABJ, the ASU chapter hopes to increase internship opportunities for its members, provide programs and workshops for members to help them beyond college, form mentorships with professional journalists and members of the Arizona Association of Black Journalists and create exemplary students, Fantroy said.
“It’s just an organization composed of primarily African American journalists who are … teaching professionalism, integrity and excellence,” Fantroy said.
Fantroy decided to create an ASU chapter of NABJ after he noticed at a club fair that there was no organization for black journalists at ASU. He and another ASU student, Heather Jackson, founded ASUNABJ on Oct. 22.
“Primarily this year, we just want to get ourselves established here at ASU and let our presence be known that we are an organization here and we are here to stay,” Fantroy said.
Contact the reporter at evie.carpenter@asu.edu
