Convention Focuses on Black Clout in the Media

African Americans should not rely on Hollywood film studios to advance the image and economic status of blacks, TV producer Keenan Ivory Wayans told a gathering of journalists in the opening session Wednesday of the 15th annual convention of the National Assn. of Black Journalists at the Century Plaza Hotel.

“We need to build our economic base through black corporate America,” said Wayans, producer and star of the irreverent Fox TV program “In Living Color.”

But Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said major entertainment companies also must change the way they operate.

“The responsibility must rest with studios who have the power and the money,” Katzenberg said. “We must take it upon ourselves to change the way we do business and to create opportunity.”

The comments reflect in part a response to a report by the Beverly Hills/Hollywood chapter of the NAACP that there are fewer executive opportunities for blacks in the entertainment industry than there were 10 years ago.

Wednesday’s panel, “Blacks in Hollywood,” attracted about one-third of the 1,500 conventioneers and featured none of the fireworks that punctuated a similar discussion at the NAACP conference last month at the Los Angeles Convention Center. There, some panelists charged that racist practices have kept black Americans from key positions in the entertainment industry.

At the outset of Wednesday’s forum, moderator Barbara Rogers, a reporter for KPIX-TV in San Francisco, told the audience, “We want this to be a positive dialogue. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask tough questions, but we don’t want this to be a session that generates more heat than light.”

Mike Medavoy, chairman of Tri-Star Pictures, acknowledged some trepidation about appearing on the 10-member panel. He quipped that colleagues warned him he was “headed for a firing squad,” but he felt it was important to attend.