The Pittsburgh Black Media Federation loves to share.
Share their endless years of knowledge with high school students who are interested in the journalism field.
Share with the public a variety of professional development and education programs that have been well-received and well-attended.
They even shared their first-place finish with the Southern New England Association of Black Journalists (SNEABJ) for the National Association of Black Journalists’ Professional Chapter of the Year Award in 2015. Both organizations tied for first place.
This year at the NABJ convention held in New Orleans, PBMF was in no mood to share. They won the 2017 Professional Chapter of the Year award outright, making history by winning the award undisputed for the first time ever.
“This award as chapter of the year is the result of hard work by the entire organization,” said Pittsburgh media personality Chris Moore, founder and co-director of the organization’s Frank Bolden Urban Multimedia Workshop. “But most of all, I credit our current leadership with the vision that made this honor possible.”
“PBMF tied the (SNEABJ) for the chapter of the year title in 2015. We were appreciative to be in that chapter’s company, and respect its accomplishments,” said Tory N. Parrish, PBMF president. Parrish called this year’s award, presented Aug. 9, an “even more historic moment for us because it was the first solo victory and it was a testament to our chapter’s veteran and new leadership’s dedication, as well as that of general members, to the mission of PBMF.”
The Baltimore Association of Black Journalists and SNEABJ were the other two finalists for this year’s award.
In 2016, PBMF hosted a media diversity summit at Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation, and included the release of the federation’s own study on local media diversity. The long-standing group also held its 28th annual Robert L. Vann Media Awards, which recognized excellence in journalism coverage of African American communities and issues, along with its 33rd annual Bolden Multimedia Workshop, which provides media-related instruction to local high school students.
“People of color, especially Black journalists, are underrepresented in media,” Parrish told the New Pittsburgh Courier in an exclusive interview. The multimedia workshop’s mission is to “inspire (the high school students) to pursue a career in media.”
Some students in the program who didn’t enter a media-related field inform Parrish that the skills acquired in the workshop greatly helped them in their current occupations.
Parrish said the yearly multimedia workshop is open to students of all ethnicities.
Other 2016 accomplishments, according to a news release provided by PBMF, included presenting or co-hosting a 15th anniversary panel on 9/11’s impact on media coverage, an event about changes to right-to-know laws, a panel on transferring ideas and writing skills to book publishing, and a discussion on media coverage of water issues in Flint, Mich.
Parrish told the Courier she ran for PBMF president four years ago because “I thought that I would be able to bring some fresh ideas to the organization, and I greatly respected the veteran members who had worked so hard for years to continue PBMF’s mission.”
Those ideas included the organization becoming more “transparent with everything we do, from accounting, to how we make decisions about programming,” she said. “I also wanted to put a full board in place; a stronger board makes a stronger organization as a whole.”
She also created quarterly programs that provided information on mobile technology, social media, and tax preparation for journalists.
Parrish’s tenure as president ends Dec. 31. “I’m so honored to have been along for this fantastic ride with such a wonderful group of people.”
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