The National Association of Black Journalists decided over the weekend to pull out of next year’s panethnic Unity: Journalists of Color conference, Richard Prince’s Journal-isms blog is reporting. One practical reason: Though NABJ members amount to half of Unity conference attendees in 2008, the association didn’t share proportionately in Unity event revenues and will do better by holding a separate conference in 2012.
Unity conferences have been held every four or five years since the first in 1994. The participating groups have been NABJ, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association.
Separate meetings are held in other years, including those planned this year for NABJ, in Philadelphia, Aug. 3-7; the Hispanic association in Orlando, June 15-18; the Asian group, in Detroit, Aug. 10-13; and the Native American association, in Fort Lauderdate, Fla., July 13-17.
But the groups had planned to meet jointly next year for Unity, in Las Vegas, Aug. 1-4, 2012.