Washington, D.C. – Award-winning journalist Hazel Trice Edney, editor-in-chief of the Trice Edney News Wire and President/CEO of Trice Edney Communications LLC, has been elected president of the historic Capital Press Club.
Edney, a veteran reporter, who is also former editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service and BlackPressUSA.com, was elected by the CPC board April 19. She took office May 1.
“I nominated Hazel Trice Edney because she is able to be the proactive advocate for communications professionals of color needed in the DC area,” says CPC President Emeritus Derrick Kenny, owner of Bold American Marketing. “She boasts a stellar track record as a seasoned journalist and has earned numerous awards. In addition, she has the proven ability to manage a non-profit communications organization, educate young communications professionals, motivate volunteers and establish partnerships with valued corporations and newsmakers. She is ideal for this office. She has the vision, strength, integrity and faith that are needed to move CPC forward into the future.”
The new leadership team also includes First Vice President Robyn Wilkes, Director of Communications, Greater Washington Urban League; Second Vice President Sherrie Edwards-Lassister, Senior Account Manager, Campbell and Company; Treasurer Joan Davion of The Davion Group; Immediate Past President Nyree Wright, Senior Vice President, MSLGROUP Americas; and Kenny, who is also Digital Media Manager, Montgomery CountyOffice of Cable and Broadband Services.
“Newsrooms across America are shrinking. That means the numbers of Black journalists in the newsrooms are diminishing while the numbers of injustices facing African-Americans are increasing,” said Edney, who has reported for the Black Press for more than 25 years. “In addition to the destructive forces of racism in our communities, we also see its economic impact on our media outlets. This climate reveals that this organization of Black media professionals is just as necessary and just as relevant as ever. The Capital Press Club will not shrink from the front lines in the war for justice and equality for others as well as ourselves.”
It was 44 years ago that the Capital Press Club was established as the National Press Club refused to accept African-American members. As it approaches its 70th Anniversary in two years, The Capital Press Club exists to unite communications professionals of color through professional development, networking, new business opportunities and entrepreneurship, and issues advocacy. Its diverse membership of journalists, marketing, public relations, advertising and communications professionals from all disciplines is dedicated to maintaining superior standards of ethics, promoting cooperative business competition, and addressing the recruitment and retention of qualified minority communications professionals.
Biography of Hazel Trice Edney
Award-winning veteran journalist Hazel Trice Edney is president & CEO of Trice Edney Communications and editor-in-chief of Trice Edney News Wire. She is former Editor-in-Chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service and Blackpressusa.com and former interim executive director of the NNPA Foundation.
Edney is also an adjunct professor of journalism at Howard University. She has taught Reporting & Writing, Writing for the Media and the Freshman Seminar Class of Annenberg honor students. She is also the Entrepreneur in Residence at Howard’s John H. Johnson School of Communications’ CERRC (Communications Entrepreneurship Research and Resource Center), where she teaches students how to become business owners.
A native of Louisa, Va., she was the first Black woman inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. She covered Capitol Hill, the White House and national electoral politics for NNPA from Sept. 2000 to Sept. 2010, including as an investigative reporter in NNPA’s NorthStar Investigative Reporting Program.
Edney has a Master’s Degree from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she was awarded the William S. Wasserman Jr. Fellowship on the Press, Politics and Public Policy for her journalistic impact while reporting for the Richmond Afro-American and subsequently the Richmond Free Press. She is also a 2006 graduate of Harvard’s KSG Women and Power Executive Leadership program.
She was a 1999-2000 congressional fellow, sponsored by the American Political Science Association. In the nine-month fellowship for journalists, she served as a legislative aid in the personal office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
Her journalism awards also include the 2011 New America Media Career Achievement Award; a fellowship at the Annenberg Institute for Justice in Journalism at the University of Southern California; the prestigious Lincoln University Unity Award in Media for economics writing; the coveted Tisdale Award, named for crusading Black Press editor the late Charles Tisdale of the Jackson Advocate; and a string of NNPA Merit Awards, including NNPA First Place Feature Story Merit Award 1990 for her final interview with Virginia death row inmate Wilbert Lee Evans, published in the Afro.
Her professional media appearances have included the Tavis Smiley Show; CNN; C-Span, Bishop T.D. Jakes’ Potter’s Touch; The Al Sharpton Show; George on the Hill; Washington Watch with Roland Martin; Rhythm and News; the Joe Madison Show and the Washington Journal. Hazel was named “2008 Role Model” by the National Baptist Congress of Christian Education and a “2010 Phenomenal Woman” by the Phenomenal Women’s Alliance. She was also featured as a “Living Legend” on Tom Joyner’s BlackAmericaWeb.com in February 2011. In addition to building the Trice Edney News Wire, Hazel is currently writing her personal memoir. She can be reached at Hazel@triceedneywire.com or 202-291-9310.
