Tag: journalism

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is hosting its convention in Atlanta this week from today through Sunday. NABJ president and journalist Errin Haines spoke with Atlanta Magazine's Ronda Racha Penrice about her storied career covering politics, race, and gender.

Journalism still has the power to shape the world we live in and, perhaps more importantly, shape our understanding of this place. We must hope—or perhaps demand—that Atlanta’s media can lead us to a sort of narrative renaissance.

Launched in 2017, the online publishing platform Substack has changed the game for independent writers, journalists, and creators. Diverse Atlanta creators have jumped aboard the Substack platform, sharing their takes on everything from cooking to politics. Here are five worth following: Nick Valencia News, The Half Marathoner by Terrell Johnson, Assembly Notes by Stacey Abrams, Nature’s Pharmacy by Dr. Cassandra Quave, and The Atlanta Objective with George Chidi.

Lee Walburn—one of the twin titans in the history of Atlanta magazine, along with founding editor-in-chief Jim Townsend—had a simple mantra for what made a magazine speak to readers: “Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em smarter.” He was editor-in-chief of Atlanta magazine for 15 years, longer than anyone else in the publication’s 65-year history. He passed away April 9 after battling a long illness. He was 89.

For Jobina Fortson-Evans, joining CBS Atlanta’s newsroom felt less like a career move and more like a homecoming to the city that first ignited her passion for storytelling. As a child, Fortson-Evans loved interviewing people with her camcorder. Years later, she joined the Tucker High School newspaper, which sparked her interest in a journalism career. Now she's joining CBS Atlanta’s new team.

An ex-CNN reporter turned independent journalist, Nick Valencia traveled from Atlanta to Minneapolis to report on immigration enforcement. But the tactics he saw federal agents use on protesters and press alike greatly disturbed him.

I am the first and only journalist who has been arrested and deported under the Trump administration. But, possibly, I will not be the last. And that worries me. I am still working as a journalist. My plan is to continue reporting on news from around the world. I have already done two international stories. I am a journalist, and I cannot keep quiet.

Through her editorial guidance at SoVo and GaVo, which she launched in 2010, Chris Cash taught me and others the importance of bringing our authentic selves into our reporting and the inherent value of queer people covering our own communities.

For the majority of my upbringing, I never considered myself to be any form of activist, or thought I had those qualities of leadership. But once I began my career as a journalist, I started to see how the work of social justice activists is so much more than leading protests and speaking to crowds, the actions we commonly think of as activism.

I grew up as a Northern Black during the 1960s, with the insight of a Southern Black. That’s because my parents were children of the Great Migration of the 1940s. While Dad’s family came to South Bend, Indiana, from Dell, Arkansas, Mom’s folks traveled to that same city from Palestine, Mississippi. My maternal great-grandfather was around often. Before he died in 1964 at 111, as the oldest person in the United States, he told us about his time as a water boy during the Civil War.