" Committed to the Cause:
A Salute to NABJ's Presidents"

Merv Aubespin
1983-1985

Essay  by Michel Marriott

Merv Aubespin has spent a lifetime defying the odds, summoning, seemingly at will, a compelling spell of vision, compassion, persuasion and energy to create possibilities where few would have dared to imagine  them.

Not surprisingly, a hallmark of Aubespin's term as NABJ president  (beginning with a narrow election victory over a highly favored candidate)  was significantly raising the profile of the organization, greatly expanding its membership while lending it a more prominent presence in  national and international arenas. In a sense, NABJ became truly  progressive under Aubespin's guidance and careful consensus building.

In short order, Aubespin established the organization's first national office. It was housed in a modest space in the building that was home to  The Courier-Journal, the regional newspaper based in Louisville for which  Aubespin has worked more than 30 years as an artist (long ago he had  designed NABJ's familiar logo), reporter and administrator. He even hired  a part-time secretary to do clerical work and answer NABJ's telephone, simple yet essential tasks for an organization being transformed from a  relatively small, insular group into a large, professional one.

To further mark and ensure that transformation, Aubespin worked with  NABJ's new treasurer, Thomas Morgan III, to hire the organization's first  financial auditor. He stepped up the publication cycle of the NABJ  Journal, turning it into a quarterly. He also traveled 100,000 miles, visiting, as he said, "every chapter I could and going everywhere I was  invited.''

The founder and twice-president of the Louisville Association of Black Communicators was, as he is still fond of saying, creating NABJ "family."

To this day thousands of young journalists affectionately refer to the gregarious, bespectacled man with a friendly round face and silver hair as  "Uncle Merv." He remains a popular mentor and college lecturer.

Almost right away, and not without controversy, Aubespin began forging  visible alliances between NABJ and the organizational and corporate leadership of mainstream media. All the while he tried to allay fears of  members troubled that NABJ, which was largely founded to challenge white  media to open its newsrooms and boardrooms to black journalists, might be  getting too cozy with those better kept at arm's length.

His strategy, he recalled recently, was sound: "I wanted to get white  media leadership to involve itself in NABJ so it could establish some relationships and we could all be less confrontational."

As a result, he said, "For the first time white editors and news directors and white media leadership - with their financial resources -  came together with NABJ and its mission.''

Supporters and critics agree that NABJ was forever changed by the infusion of white media interests and money.

At Aubespin's first NABJ convention as president, in 1984 in Atlanta, the gathering had grown to 1,000 participants. That amount was three times the attendance of the New Orleans convention the previous year and included 750 black journalists. And the scale of workshops and receptions,  some of which were underwritten by major corporations, had grown decidedly  grand. In some ways downright opulent.

And NABJ had become a news story, heavily covered by local and national press.

In 1984 David Hawpe was among the first large wave of white editors  invited to attend an NABJ convention. Hawpe, who was then managing editor of The Courier-Journal, remembers feeling apprehensive about openly  participating in the meeting of black journalists.

"I really didn't know whether it would be viewed as appropriate for me to be there,'' he said. But in the end, he looked to Aubespin and "like it's been true so many times with my relationship with him, I had to trust  his judgment and I went.''

Hawpe was hardly alone. The newsroom and corporate leaders of such  publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal also were present.

Hawpe, now a vice president with the Courier-Journal and director of  its editorial page, said his involvement with NABJ that began with  Aubespin has provided an opportunity to meet many African-American journalists from all over the country.

"My horizons have expanded in all directions in terms of knowing  people, really knowing them, so I could call them up and talk comfortably  with them, share concerns with them and seek advice from them,'' he said.

The new relationships often worked both ways.

Aubespin gained influence in the mostly white American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), leading to new programs, such as its minority job fair and the "flying short courses" that practically parachuted newsroom professionals into predominately black college classrooms for  short, yet intense instruction in the ways of American journalism.

Walter Middlebrook, an associate editor for recruitment at Newsday and  an NABJ board member under Aubespin, recently remarked: "Merv was probably  the first populous president of NABJ. He brought a lot of disparate factors together under his watch.''

And Aubespin proudly notes that his board, composed of many members who did not vote for his presidency, was able to make NABJ decisions without a  dissenting vote.

"He has an uncanny ability to make people feel comfortable, relaxed, and then he strikes with his agenda,'' Michael Days, deputy managing  editor of the Philadelphia Daily News and a former board member, said of  the Aubespin's leadership. "He's a motivator.''

Aubespin's personal history is a journey in continually pushing himself  as well as others to achieve, to make a way even when there did not appear to be a way.

Born in Opelousas, La., Aubespin in 1958 graduated from Tuskegee University in Alabama. Shortly after, he moved to Louisville to teach  industrial arts at a junior high school in a poor section of the city's black community. He landed a job at The Courier-Journal as a staff artist in the fall of 1967.

When race riots erupted in Louisville the following summer, editors  desperate to cover the violence looked for someone who could enter the  scene and report what he saw with relative safety. At the time the newspaper's reporting staff was all white and some had been threatened in  the city's riot-torn sections. Without training or a journalism background, Aubespin volunteered, and reported back what he observed.

In 1971 he attended a special minority journalism program at Columbia University in New York to further establish and refine his reporting and writing skills. The next year, Aubespin became a staff writer at the  newspaper, covering a variety of local beats, including civil rights and public transportation. In 1981 he was a key participant in conceiving and completing an award-winning, weeklong series that detailed the state of  life for blacks in Louisville.

In 1985 Aubespin became The Courier-Journal's associate editor for development, responsible for staff development, recruiting and operating the newspaper's intern program. In recent years he laid the groundwork  that led to the creation of the American Copy Editors Association (ACES)  and was named to the Kentucky Journalists Hall of Fame.

Aubespin has also been a frequent lecturer and guest faculty member for such groups as the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the Institute  for Journalism Education (IJE). And he has helped lead groups of journalists throughout Africa and Central America as part of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Considering his years as NABJ president, Aubespin said he "feels good, very good. What it has always been about with this organization is not forgetting why we formed. The bottom line remains jobs, training and promotions."

Michel Marriott is a reporter for The New York Times' Circuits section. He is also a winner of a NABJ Outstanding Achievement Award in 1981 for his work on the series "Being Black in Louisville: A Dream  Deferred."

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