2 Vie to Become NABJ Student Rep

By Kendrick Marshall
Black College Wire

Walter Gabriel, a senior at Louisiana State University, says one way to improve the influence of black student journalists is to improve their relationships with the professionals in the National Association of Black Journalists. Mashaun Simon, a junior at Georgia Perimeter College, says he would he would work on making every NABJ student chapter stronger and getting more students involved in the process of local decision making.

The two are candidates campaigning this week to be NABJ's student representative. Student members at the annual NABJ convention, which began Aug. 3 and continues through Aug. 7, vote on Aug. 6.

Their ballots will decide who will represent the interests and needs of student NABJ members across the country for the next two years. The student members choose their representative to NABJ's board of directors. They do not vote in the other elections taking place this week to choose a national president and other leaders.

Both candidates have ambitious plans for making NABJ more relevant to student members.

Photo credit: Darryl Smith Walter Gabriel

Gabriel, 21, said that if elected, he would launch a student-professional mentoring program where eager writers would not be intimidated by the status of seasoned journalists.

"In my first convention three years ago in Dallas, so many things were moving so quickly that I couldn't keep up," he said. He also recalled an experience where no students would ask questions during a session with a prominent journalist.

A New Orleans native, Gabriel said he also wants to increase journalism students' opportunities to network at the national journalism conferences and attend their job fairs, as he did when he was a college freshman. However, he said that NABJ could do more to help students find their way and get the most out of the convention.

At this year's convention, Gabriel is reporting for the NABJ Monitor, the daily convention newspaper. He said he has had previous internships at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans and the Washington Post, and has been assistant sports editor at the LSU Daily Reveille.

He proposes creating a panel that will feature recruiters and NABJ members who can coach students on what to expect at the conferences. "Students are hesitant to approach professionals for advice because they feel that some professionals are hard to approach," Gabriel said, but journalists and students have similar issues.

Gabriel also pledged to lobby for a reduction in the price of conventions, which he contends prevents some talented students from attending, Gabriel says.

Freeman, who has known Gabriel for three years, recalled that Gabriel founded Louisiana State University's first African American newspaper and wrote about issues that were relevant to black students.

Photo credit: Darryl Smith Mashaun Simon

Simon, 26, of Decatur, Ga., proposes starting an NABJ grant program that could pay for student members to attend NABJ conventions to further their training.

Simon said he wants to see NABJ work more with high school students to instruct them on the fundamentals of the craft.

"I have benefited from this organization and now I want to give back what I have learned and grown from," Simon said. "I like helping people and I do help people on a regular basis."

Simon has held NABJ summer internships at Bloomberg News and the Island Packet in Hilton Head, S.C.. At the national convention, Simon was scheduled to moderate a workshop that discusses the role that new media will play in the future of journalism. Simon used a blog and Web site to promote his campaign to be the NABJ student representative.

This is Simon's second bid for the position of NABJ student representative. He was defeated two years ago by Caleb Wilkerson, whose term expires this year. He remained active with the association as secretary/membership chair of the Young Journalists Task Force.

"If elected I will handle this position like it is a full-time job," said Simon, who also has had an internship at the Atlanta Daily World, an African American newspaper in his hometown. "By helping young journalists be the best journalists they can be, I am receiving a blessing, I am getting something out of their success. This will give me the ability to touch more people and more lives by working with them, not just for them, and helping them to be better members and better journalists."

Angela Robinson, executive producer and host of "In Contact," a news and public affairs TV show owned by the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists, has known Simon since he was a high school student. "He is a very open-minded person," she said. "He will listen and work with anyone to embrace their needs."

Kendrick Marshall is a student journalist at Jackson State University.

Posted Aug. 3, 2005