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Release: THE BLACK COLLEGIAN and Black College Wire Collaborate for Second Katrina ProjectNew "After Katrina" magazine project features student journalists' inside views of the HBCUs return to New Orleans -- and of those who didn't
CYBERSPACE - January 31, 2006 -
The multicultural media company IMDiversity Inc. has announced it will produce its second expanded edition of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine since evacuating its New Orleans headquarters following Hurricane Katrina. Following up on the October 2005 issue's highly successful special supplement, "Hurricane Katrina: Views from America's HBCUs," the editors have once again teamed up with the non-profit educational and news network organization, Black College Wire to publish an expanded online/offline section featuring news from student journalists throughout America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The new supplement, called "After Katrina: Black Colleges Starting Over in New Orleans," will appear in the Second Semester Super Issue currently slated for publication in February.
and features young writers and photographers
in a collaboration with . Planned to kick-off TBC's 35th anniversary celebrations, the First Semester Super Issue was temporarily delayed after Katrina hit while staff were being evacuated and resettled away from its New Orleans headquarters, and to prepare the expanded edition. From on-the-ground feature articles to vivid photo essays, "Hurricane Katrina: Views from America's HBCUs" movingly details the experiences and feelings of displaced student journalists before and after Katrina from their personal and school perspectives. The section will also tie-into additional online coverage, photos, relief and jobs features at THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online, IMDiversity.com, and BlackCollegeWire.org web sites. The collaboration came about when IMDiversity Vice President Stewart Ikeda contacted Black College Wire's Pearl S. Stewart, a journalist and educator who had been scheduled to begin teaching at Southern Mississippi University when Katrina struck. Both organizations had been hard-hit, with many of their people displaced, but had each managed to keep publishing throughout the crisis thanks to distributed online publishing systems, and to volunteer editors and contributors working in virtual office environments. "Pearl told me of the students who had been evacuated -- who were stuck, broke, unable to matriculate," says Ikeda. "Yet, still they kept reporting, photographing, sending their stories into the Wire -- even as the waters were literally rising around them. It was the kind of dedication you might expect in professionals, not in students. We wanted to do something for them – and with them." Preston J. Edwards, IMDiversity's founder and CEO, adds that while the company wrestled with its own obstacles publishing in exile, "We had found all of our staff alive, recovering, and our company was still here. We knew we were the lucky ones – that so many others had it far worse." Among those also struggling were THE BLACK COLLEGIAN's long-time minority student audiences, and indeed some of the businesses and institutions that had been its clients – including regional HBCUs and other schools. Although the company's payroll was down, phones dead, staff dispersed, it determined it would make a direct contribution to Black College Wire to support the students, and would publish the students' stories as professional contributors. Ikeda and Stewart then met at Ohio University in Athens, where both spoke on a panel about race and class issues in the media's coverage of Katrina and Rita. Both felt it was important that news perspectives from underrepresented and underserved communities needed broader coverage, they further agreed that IMDiversity would waive its reprint fees and provide blanket authorization allowing the series to be picked up for free in other ethnic, careers and general media. The contributors and topics were selected and edited by the teachers and professionals who steer Black College Wire, including editors Richard Prince and Jean Thompson. The online edition of "Hurricane Katrina: Views from America's HBCUs" will be posted at http://Blackcollegian.com/katrina.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONSTHE BLACK COLLEGIAN, published by IMDiversity Inc., is distributed for free at Career Offices on college campuses nationwide and can be ordered for bulk delivery to campus Career Services offices. The 35th Anniversary Super Issue including "Hurricane Katrina: Views from America's HBCUs" will be available in early November. Black College Wire is a news service established by the Black College Communication Association in 2002 to promote the journalistic work of students at predominantly black colleges and universities and link those young journalists to training and employment opportunities in the field. FURTHER INFORMATIONEmployers and organizations wishing to sponsor the special edition can email a request for information to imdiversity@sbcglobal.net using the subject "TBCKatrinaSponsorship". Media or organizations seeking more information THE BLACK COLLEGIAN, IMDiversity Inc., or "Hurricane Katrina: Views from America's HBCUs" email imdiversity@sbcglobal.net using the subject "TBCKatrinaInquiry". |
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