WKU News

“The Impact of Representation in Media Today,” which looks at the push in media to self-examine how minority communities are covered, is the theme of the 2023 John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series, hosted by the School of Media at WKU.

In the presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday (April 12) in the Jody Richards Hall Auditorium, three speakers will discuss their own experience of working in the business for decades and the type of problems that arise in community journalism when the news organizations do not reflect their own community.

The speakers are:

• Mará Rose Williams, Assistant Managing Editor for Race & Equity Issues at The Kansas City Star. Williams led the paper’s project in 2020 to examine coverage of Black communities throughout its 100 years.
• Kyndell Harkness, Assistant Managing Editor of Diversity/Community at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Harkness was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team that covered the protests and lawsuits following the death of George Floyd.
• Rochelle Ritchie, a media and crisis communications expert and writer. Ritchie, a WKU broadcasting graduate, who has been a television reporter and government spokesperson, often appears as a political analyst on Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN.

About the John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series: The John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series, launched in 2004 in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Gaines’ family-owned newspaper, the Daily News, has brought several award-winning international journalists to WKU.  Previous lecture participants include the Indianapolis Star Pulitzer Prize-winning team that uncovered the USA Gymnastics sex abuse cases; The Cincinnati Enquirer Pulitzer Prize-winning team that documented the addiction crisis, journalism icon John Seigenthaler and his son, former NBC network news anchor John Seigenthaler Jr.; Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts of The Miami Herald; and Chicago Tribune photojournalist and official White House photographer Pete Souza.

Contact: Jonathan Adams, jonathan.adams@wku.edu; or Ryan Dearbone, ryan.dearbone@wku.edu

-WKU-

Western Kentucky University prides itself on positioning its students, faculty and staff for long term success. As a student-centered, applied research university, WKU helps students expand on classroom learning by integrating education with real-world applications in the communities we serve. Our hilltop campus is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which was recently named by Reader’s Digest as one of the nicest towns in America, just an hour’s drive from Nashville, Tennessee.