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The daylong meeting on Sept. 30 will cover a range of issues from the international border to immigrant rights.

By University Communications
September 11, 2008

New America Media and The University of Arizona journalism department are sponsoring a summit for ethnic media groups to be held Sept. 30 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the UA's Student Union Memorial Center. Breakfast will be offered at 8 a.m.

"Strengthening Communications from the Border to the Four Corners" is a daylong conference that will enable participants to look at issues such as the immigrant rights movement, employer sanction laws, militarization of the border and strategies for improving communication between ethnic media and immigrant groups.

Speakers include Arizona legislator Kyrsten Sinema; Henry Fernandez, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; and Angela Kelley, director of the Immigration Policy Center. Representatives from ethnic media organizations in Tucson, Phoenix and the Navajo Nation as well as Utah, New Mexico and Nevada also will take part.

New America Media is a national collaboration of 2,000 ethnic news organizations, the fastest-growing sector of American journalism, according to the organization's Web site. The California-based group maintains offices in Washington and New York and has partnerships with journalism schools around the country.

The UA journalism department has a long commitment to diversity and bilingual journalism. It has published a community newspaper for the city of South Tucson for more than a quarter-century and has hosted a journalism diversity workshop for Arizona high school students for more than two decades.

In January 2008 the department was the host site for The New York Times Student Journalism Institute, an intensive training program for student journalists co-sponsored by the Times and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.