FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 28, 2003
Contact:
Carolyn Wheeler, Communications
(301) 445-7100, x110
FAX: (301) 445-7101
E-mail: carolyn@nabj.org
John Yeardwood Declared New NABJ Treasurer
of NABJ
NABJ’s executive board has declared John Yearwood the
association’s new treasurer after accepting the certified
2003 election results as final, NABJ President Herbert Lowe
announced today.
Yearwood, the newly appointed
world editor at The Miami Herald, defeated former NABJ Secretary
Gregory Lee by four votes – 262 to 258 – according
to the initial tally released after the election concluded Aug. 8 at the 28th
annual convention in Dallas.
Lee, a deputy high school sports editor at The Washington Post,
filed a formal request for a recount the next day.
As a result, the new NABJ board of directors deferred accepting
the results as official until the independent company hired
to conduct the election verified
the tally, Lowe said.
This week, the executive
board unanimously voted to add Yearwood’s name
and signature to NABJ’s bank accounts.
“NABJ is certain to benefit from John’s hard-fought election as he
works these next two years to ensure that the membership’s money is spent
prudently and the association remains stable financially,” the president
said.
In the election, members also approved a proposal to reduce
the size of the 19-member board of directors. However,
three proposals that specified how
to do so failed because none received the required two-thirds approval by
the voting membership, according to new Parliamentarian
Melanie Burney, an education
reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
An amendment that would have
required that two-thirds of a local affiliate chapter’s
membership be NABJ members also failed because it did not
garner a two-thirds vote, Burney said.
NABJ had been without a treasurer since Glenn Rice, a reporter
at The Kansas City Star, resigned on July 7, about a month
shy of completing his second
two-year term.
In a letter to the NABJ Elections Committee, Lee, who served
as secretary from 1999 through the convention, cited several
discrepancies in the electoral
process
in seeking the recount. He said they included technical problems with computers
and voting software, lack of coordination and confusion over membership
deadlines.
NABJ’s governing documents
do not provide for a recount, Burney said. But to ensure
an undisputed election, Lowe and executive board members
directed
Burney and Executive Director Tangie Newborn to investigate the matter as
thoroughly and quickly as possible.
Neither Yearwood, who until
recently was national and international editor at the Star-Telegram
in Fort Worth, nor Lee took part
in the board’s
discussion about the election, Lowe said.
In its certified report to Newborn, Votenet Solutions, of Washington,
D.C., which conducted the balloting, said it checked for
database tampering, verified
election vote counts and matched vote date and time stamps across each of
its databases before certifying the results.
“There were zero incorrectly filled out ballots and zero contestable ballots
from this election,” according to the report.
With that information, the executive board ratified the results.
Lee graciously accepted the
outcome, Lowe said. He also readily agreed to continue serving
as chairman of NABJ’s SEED (Student Education Enrichment
and Development) Committee, which among other things directs
the annual convention
student projects, the president said.
“I submitted this action not for myself, but for the members of the association
who felt they were disenfranchised from the process,” said Lee, a past
president of the New Orleans Association of Black Journalists. “… NABJ
must move forward and I will continue to serve NABJ.”
Both Lowe and Yearwood pledged to seek election and campaign
reform.
“I’m happy that the election is finally over and I can now get to
work on some of the promises I made during the campaign, such as ensuring that
members get quarterly updates on NABJ’s finances,” said Yearwood,
a past president of the Dallas/Forth Worth Association of Black Communicators. “Greg
Lee was a worthy opponent who clearly is very committed to NABJ. I’m
glad that all of us will continue to benefit from his passion for the organization.”
An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the world, with 3,600 members, and provides educational, career development and support to black journalists worldwide.
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