Broadcasters in training
The National Association of Broadcasters Educational Foundation has sent off 19 more graduates of its Broadcast Leadership Training program to conquer the industry. Among the Class of 2002 was Serena Ferguson Mann (l), who runs the TV system at the University of Maryland. With her at the graduation ceremony (l-r): NABEF's Chuck Sherman; Diane Sutter, head of the BLT program; and NAB President Eddie Fritts. Now in its second year, the BLT program is an intensive course in broadcast management and finance aimed primarily at boosting women and minorities into the ranks of owners and top managers.
Celebrating Dunne
Connie Chung, who last Monday hosted a New York soiree to promote today's debut of her show on CNN, attended an earlier gathering to congratulate Dominick Dunne (r) and Court TV President Henry Schleiff (second from right) on the celebrity journalist's new show on Court TV. Power, Privilege and Justice
entered the crime-and-punishment network's schedule last Wednesday at 10 p.m. The Dunne party drew other media types, including Chung's husband, Maury Povich (l), Regis Philbin, Dick Cavett, Don Hewitt, Cynthia McFadden, Maurice DuBois and Dan Abrams.
Field trip
As the Emma L. Bowen Foundation Student of the Year, Niena Drake (l) a 2002 graduate of Columbia College of Chicago and now a weekend field producer at WFLD(TV) Chicago, had a chance to meet FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and other Washington communications policymakers. The foundation, funded by communications companies, partners minority students with media outlets in a five-year internship program (last year of high school through college). That only two of the six nominees for Student of the Year could make the award ceremony last Wednesday turned out to be a testimonial to the program: Their absences were due, for the most part, to their presence in newly gotten industry jobs.
