WS Chronicle

Trailblazing black journalists Sandra Hughes, Don Griffin and Allen Johnson will discuss their careers and much more during a Saturday, Feb. 22 panel discussion sponsored by the Triad Association of Black Journalists (TABJ).

“Untold Stories: Veteran Journalists Discuss the Evolution of Diversity in Newsrooms” will start at 11 a.m. at the Artz at the Ritz Theatre, 709 E. Washington St., in High Point. The discussion, which will be moderated by WGHP anchor Neill McNeill, is free and open to the public. The panel and audience are invited to tour the Historic Washington Street Commercial District after the event.

Johnson

Griffin

Griffin, Hughes and Johnson will discuss how newsrooms have handled diversity over the past five decades and how they themselves overcame adversity to become among the best in their field. The panelists will also take questions from the audience.

Hughes spent four decades as a popular anchor and reporter at WFMY, where she became the first African American woman in the area to host her own daily talk show. Hughes, a Greensboro native, is now a journalism professor at her alma mater, N.C. A&T State University.

One of the state’s first black television journalists, Griffin is a native of Davidson County. He was the face of  WSOC-TV’s Action 9 unit until he retired last September, one week shy of his 31st anniversary at the Charlotte station.

Johnson, a native of Greensboro, is the editorial page editor at the News & Record in Greensboro. He is one of a very few African Americans who hold such a title at a large daily newspaper. Johnson joined the News & Record in 1987 and previously led its features and sports departments. He also teaches at UNC-Greensboro, where one of his courses is titled, “Race, Culture and Media.”

TABJ announced last week that Phoebe Zerwick, a former Winston-Salem Journal reporter who is now a lecturer at Wake Forest University, has been added to the panel.

The Triad Association of Black Journalists, founded in 2010, is an affiliate chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) that represents professional communicators in Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem and surrounding areas. TABJ promotes diversity and encourages professional growth with a focus on journalists of color.

Learn more at http://www.TriadABJ.weebly.com.