As Gerald mentioned, I have served as a mentor to hundreds of students over the years and that’s something that I learned that from my mentor, Ernest Holsendoph. When I joined Sports Illustrated in 1970, Ernie was at Fortune but spent half of his time at Sports Illustrated, making sure that I stayed on track. And thank you Vernon Jarrett for blazing the way for a string of journalists who came out of Knoxville College. I am not calling Vernon old, but his Social Security number is one.

I would be delighted to receive this award at any stage of my career. But it is especially gratifying because you have chosen to honor me for helping revitalize the Black Press in general and our NNPA newspapers in particular. If it were not for the early Black journalists who risked their lives to fight injustice -- including my fellow honoree Frank Bolden -- none of us would be here today. And if it were not for my stepfather subscribing to the Pittsburgh Courier when I was a child in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I probably wouldn’t be a journalist today. So, while this honor is being presented to me tonight, part of it belongs to them as well.

I am indebted to Jake Oliver, immediate past president of the NNPA, and Bob Johnson, the former owner of Emerge: Black America’s Newsmagazine, for hiring me and, equally important, giving me, Flo Purnell and our team the freedom to practice first-rate journalism.

I have received dozens of honors over the years but none means as much as the one I am receiving tonight. There is nothing more rewarding than having one’s work recognized and respected by his or her peers. And from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you.

I don’t give speeches, I give challenges. And tonight, as special as it is, will be no exception. I was editor of my college newspaper when I first came across a quote that I have never forgotten: “The purpose of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” That quote made such an impression on me that I adopted it as my paper’s motto.

We’ve made a lot of progress as an organization, yet I worry that as an organization, we’ve become too soft. I fear that instead of afflicting the comfortable, we are the ones who have become too comfortable. We’ve become too accepting of the excuses our industry leaders offer and, yes, too many times the few dollars sponsors give us appears to serve as hush money -- we are far too quiet about the wrongs of our industry. Our industry sets targets year after year and misses them year after year, offering the same tired old excuses.

In some ways, it reminds me of my childhood in segregated Alabama. We would describe a liberal as a person who would see you drowning 100 yards from shore. They’d throw a life preserve 60 yards and then proclaim, “I met him over half way.”

That’s not good enough. It wasn’t good enough then and it’s not good enough now. We must re-dedicate ourselves, we must re-energize NABJ, we must get some guts – even if we have to borrow them — and muster the fortitude to say to the industry captains, we’re going to keep the pressure on you until these newsrooms look like America.

We must do this not for ourselves, but the generation of students eager to follow in our footsteps. At 2 o’clock this morning, Roland Martin, Keith Alexander and I were talking with three college students about our industry. The conversation began when a young brother from Morehouse approached me, thanked me for my comments on a panel discussion yesterday and said he was disappointed that most of the journalists he had met at the convention didn’t seem willing to speak their mind or take an unpopular stand. I told him that there were far more journalists who are willing to take a stand than perhaps he realized and proceeded to introduce him to some. We talked briefly today and he seemed somewhat relieved. And I am glad he was.

That encounter reminded me that it’s important that aspiring journalists know that we will take a stand, no matter how unpopular. It’s also important to convey to them that our role is to serve as watchdogs, not lap dogs.

Gerald Boyd is no lapdog and I am delighted that he’s here with us tonight. He was my friend long before the joined the New York Times and he’ll be my friend long after he has left. Many of you have written that the tragedy of the Jayson Blair scandal is that it ruined Gerald’s career at the Times. That’s only partly true.

The tragedy is that in order to ascend to the top of the masthead at a news organization, such as the Times, generally we have to hitch our wagon to another person, usually White, and ride to the top in tandem. Of course, the same is true in the case of a descent. If anything, we hit the bottom first.

This must change.

I hear editors and news directors talk about how they are in favor of diversity. If that’s true, then let’s bring some diversity to upper management. Let’s place qualified African-Americans in the highest positions and let Whites and other Blacks ride on their coat tails. That would be true diversity. Don’t tell me about your junior reporting program and what you’re doing to help people of color at the entry level. What are you doing to retain skilled African-Americans with experience? How many qualified reporters and editors in this room have been interviewed by the New York Times over the years, but were never hired? How many African-Americans who worked for the Times left because they were never promoted? And as good as Gerald Boyd is, others, such as Paul Delaney, should have sat in that chair a long time ago.

I am one of the fortunate ones. My move to the Black Press, first at Emerge and now at the NNPA, has provided me with some of the most satisfying experiences of my 33-year career. But I look around at my equally capable friends – Joe Davidson, Nat Sheppard, Linda Wallace, Sylvester Monroe, Betty Ann Williams and Reggie Stuart, among others – and I can’t help but notice how much the industry has missed by not fully utilizing their skills. Many of our publishers like to boast about what they’re doing to bring young people in the business, but are doing precious little to keep them from leaving the business. And until that changes, the talk of diversity is just that – talk.

And I can’t let NABJ off the hook. To say that I was surprised to be selected Journalist of the Year is an understatement. Sometimes – not always – we have not honored many of our best journalists over the years because we have simply followed the lead of White organizations and honored the same people they have selected or we have favored style over substance in some of our selections. If our awards are to mean anything, they should go to people who truly comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That should be the standard, not the exception.

Finally, I accept this award tonight on behalf of my journalism Be-Be Kids. Gerald Boyd and I designed the first NABJ chapter journalism workshop for high school students 26 years ago and that St. Louis workshop has served as the model for dozens of other workshops across the country. And some of our Be-Be Kids, such as Mark Russell of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Bennie Currie and his wife, Celeste Garrett, have not only become our colleagues, they have started their own workshops. In my professional life, nothing has been more rewarding.

Would the journalists who went through the St. Louis workshops, please stand. Will those who went through the D.C. and New York workshops stand. Will those who attended any workshop organized by a local NABJ chapter please stand. And I want my other Be-Be Kids from the Northwestern program and Howard University also stand. Those from my other programs, please stand.

This award is for you. Thank you.