Business Focus
Briefs
Wortham becomes second
woman deputy treasurer
iffale Treasurer Richard Moore has announced
that Pam Wortham has accepted the position of
deputy state treasurer and director of the Financial
Operations Division for the Department of State
Treasurer. Wortham is only the second woman to be
named a deputy treasurer in the history of the
Department of the STUt# Treasurer.
As chief financier officer for the department,
Wortham will oversee the state's banking operations
as well as departmental accounting and fiscal opera
tions.
"After an exhaustive search, 1 could not be more
pleased to elevate one of our own, Pam Wortham,"
Moore said. "We have officially broken the glass
ceiling in a department historically dominated 4>y
men."
Moore appointed Janice Burke the first female
deputy treasurer in 2003.
WSJS wins awards
WSJS has again been recognized as having the
"best newscast" in North and South Carolina, by the
Electronic News Association of the Carolinas
(HNAC).
In the awards handed out June 12 in 'Charlotte,
WSJS News swept the Radio Division 1 "best news
cast" category, winning both first place and silver
awards. The winning news
Darryl Hunt
casts snowcasea coverage ot
breaking news, for an ice storm
on Feb. 17, 2003; and the Dec.
24. 2003, release of Darryl
Hunt from prison after the
Winston-Salem man served 18
years for a murder he did not
commit.
WSJS News also won first
place in the "spot news" cate
gory, for its Christmas Eve
coverage of Hunt's release.
In U/C1C Mot./c
won first place in the "political/election" category,
for its Nov. 4, 2003, coverage of area municipal
elections.
WSJS News also won two other silver awards at
the annual ENAC Convention. One was in the "gen
eral news" category, for coverage of President
Bush's visit to Winston-Salem on Nov. 7, 2003. The
other was in the "feature'.' category, for a story pro
duced on a December snowstorm.
ENAC is one of the nation's largest regional
news organizations. The contest was open to broad
casters in both North and South Carolina.
Women's conference is June 26
On Saturday, June 26, at 8 a.m., -Carolina Pinna
cle Studios will host "The Spirit-Filled
Woman... Renewed in Body, Soul and Spirit"
Women's Conference. The event, sponsored by Pin
nau^Ministries of Yancey ville Inc., will take place
on^pnd stage B, 336 W. Main
Street in Yanceyville. and all |
women are encouraged to
attend.
"We are so blessed to have
the anointed women of God
who are speakers and round
table facilitators for this year's
conference," said event co
chair Dale Blackwell-Coons.
Other co-chairs for this
event include Minister Helen
Styles of Burlington, N.C. irving
There will be a precious
time for fellowship with worship and praise before
the opening session at 9 a.m. Prophetess Kimberly
Turner from Dallas, Texas; Minister Gloria Irving
from Durham,. N.C. : and Dr. Mildred Thompson of
Collinsville, Va., will be ministering as well as oth
ers. The roundtable facilitators are Anne Watling
ton, Alecia Walker and Minister Latasha Blackwell.
Patti Currie and the Belview Praise & Worship Team
will minister in music.
Registration will begin at 8 a.m. Praise and wor
ship will take place at 8:30 a.m. with the program
running from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Registration is
$15, which includes lunch. For more' information,
call (336) 694-4767 or go to www.carolinapinna
clestudios.com.
Radio executive Launa
Thompson dies at 52
CHICAGO (AP) - Launa Thompson, station
and sales manager of WGCI-AM, Chicago's top
rated music station, died Sunday at age 52 after a
brief illness.
Thompson, who was hailed by the Chicago Sun
Times as one of the most powerful women in Chica
go media, was also manager of WVAZ-FM and the
gospel station WGRB. the former WGCI-FM. All
three are Clear Channel stations.
"This is a sad day for all of us in the Cliar Chan
nel family," said John Gehron, regional vice presi
dent of Clear Channel Radio.
The three stations grossed more than $38 million
in 1999. and Clear Channel estimated that Thomp
son and her staff had generated more than $200 mil
lion in sales revenue in the eight years since she
became general sales manager of WGCI in 1996.
The trade publication Radio Ink recently named
Thompson as one of the most influential African
Americans in radio.
Woman sues over credit score firing
Illl \S\(X IATED PR I ss
NEWARK, NJ. - Pharmaceu
tical giant Johnson & Johnson has
been accused of racial discrimina
tion by a black woman who said she
was denied a position as a paralegal
because of her credit rating
Brenda Matthews filed a com
plaint recently with the federal
Equal Opportunity Employment
Commission in Newark. In it. she
says she was offered a job as a legal
assistant in the company's patent
office in October 2003, only to have
the offer rescinded after a credit
check.
? Lawyers for Matthews, 27, of
Newark, assert that blacks historical
ly have had fewer opportunities to
obtain credit and that using credit
among hiring criteria amounts to
racial discrimination. Matthews'
lawyers, who include Bill Lan Lee. a
former assistant U.S. attorney gener
al for civil rights, say there are no
data linking credit ratings to job per
formance.
Johnson & Johnson issued a
statement in which it declined to
comment on the allegations.
The statement did say that
"Johnson & Johnson has entered
into an arrangement with the EEOC
for the prompt resolution of such
employment issues and
looks forward to resolv
ing this matter to the sat
isfaction of all
involved."
The statement also
said Matthews had
applied for a job it
described as a "tax spe
cialist^ position involv
ing the timely payment
of fees necessary to
maintain Johnson &
Johnson's global patent estate."
A separate lawsuit pending
against Johnson & Johnson in U.S.
Bill Lan Lee
District Court in New Jerseycharges
that the company s poli
cies artd practices have
kept black and Hispanic
employees out of execu
tive positions. Compared
with white workers, the
suit alleges, blacks and
Hispanics receive lower
salaries and fewer merit
increases, cash bonuses,
stock awards and stock
options.
The suit involves three
plaintiffs and seeks designation as a
class action. The company has
denied the allegations in the lawsuit.
N.C Division of Tourism
The burgeoning skyline of the city of Charlotte.
Bright Lights, Best Cities
Magazine names Charlotte one of best towns for blacks
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Black Enterprise recently
revealed its 2004 list of the Top
Cities for African-Americans to
Live, Work and Play.
The top picks were culled
from more than 4.000 interactive
surveys completed on
www.blackenterprise.com and by
editorial staff evaluations. Survey
respondents placed a high priori
ty on income earnings potential,
cost of living, housing prices and
entrepreneurial opportunities.
When BE first published the
list in 2001, four of the top 10
cities were in the South. This
year seven out of 10 are below
the Mason-Dixon Line. Five out
of 10 have a black mayor, and all
have a black population of at
least 25 percent. Eight of 10 have
a cost-of-living index that is less
than the national average.
Seven cities have returned to
the list in 2004, while Philadel
phia, Chicago and Detroit have
fallen off the list. Newcomers are
Nashville, Tenn.; Birmingham.
Ala.; and Columbus, Ohio.
Atlanta, Ga? ranks as the No.
1 city for African-Americans,
driven primarily by entrepreneur
ial opportunities, earnings poten
tial and cultural activities. Future
job growth is strong at 23 per
cent, and Atlanta is home to a
high number of black-owned
businesses. African-Americans
make up 61 percent of Atlanta's
population.
Washington. D.C., ranks as
the No. 2 city. Sixty percent of
African-Americans who consti
tute the city's total population
are among the nation's best edu
cated and highest paid. It has the
second lowest black unemploy
ment rate, 7.6 percent, of the top
10 well below the national aver
age of 10.2 percent.
Dallas. Texas, returns to the
best cities list at No. 3, up from
No. 8 in 2001 . Dallas placed third
among the top 10 cities in median
household income for black fam
ilies, future job growth and black
high school graduation rate.
Nashville. Tenn., ranked No.
4. with a low cost of living as the
city's biggest draw. Only Hous
ton and Memphis have lower
cost-of-living indices.
Houston. Texas, ranks No. 5
primarily because of residents'
high satisfaction with quality of
life. Formerly No. I, Houston's
drop is due to its above average
median cost index and its higher
unemployment add violent crime
rates.
Charlotte. N.C., appears again
on the top cities list, falling two
spots to No. 6. Charlotte earned
high marks for cost of living,
diversity and economic growth.
The city is a youthful, mobile hub
for professionals (the median age
is 32.8), and future job growth is
fairly strong at 18.7 percent.
Birmingham. Ala., ranks at
No. 7. Birmingham is the least
populous city among the top 10
but has a city population that is
nearly 75 percent African-Ameri
cans. While race relations are a
concern for residents, the city
boasts the highest percentage of
African-American homeowners,
58 percent, among the top 10.
Rounding out the top 10 are
Memphis. Tenn., ranked at No. 8;
Columbus, Ohio, ranked at No. 9;
and Baltimore. Md., ranked at
No. 10.
Grant supports
black college
news service
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
NEW YORK -The Johns,
and James L. Knight Founda
tion has awarded a $200,000
grant to NABJ to support Black
College Wire, an online news
service for and about students at
historically black colleges and
universities, NABJ President
Herbert Lowe announced
recently.
The
one-year
award
will
enable
Black
College
Wire to
continue
its cur
r e n t
operation
and add
new fea
Lowe
tures to its Web site
(http://www.blackcollegewire.o
rg / ), including audio streaming
and First Amendment Watch, a
new student project that will
monitor and report on censor
ship at black colleges, Lowe
said. The grant also will fund
summer internships at black
owned community newspapers,
he said.
The Web site was launched
in September 2002 with a pre
vious grant from Knight Foun
dation.
"NABJ is happy to support
Black College Wire and link
prominently to it from our asso
ciation's Web site," said Lowe,
a courts reporter at Newsday in
New York. "Anything NABJ
can do to augment its own serv
ices and programs for aspiring
black journalists, we must and
will do. My thanks to Knight
Foundation and Black College
Wire for helping us do more for
students."
Black College Wire was
founded by Pearl Stewart, for
mer chairperson of the Black
College Communication Asso
ciation (BCCA), an organiza
tion of journalism faculty mem
bers at historically black institu
tions. The grant represents a
partnership between NABJ and
BCCA and is designed to
increase the number of African
Americans being hired as jour
See Grant on A9
Time Warner head honored
by A Better Chance group
SPI ( I \i. [O I HI CHRONIC) I
NEW YORK - A Better Chance,
the national resource for identifying,
recruiting and developing leaders
among academically gifted students
of color, recently presented the A
Better Chance Corporate Award to
Richard D. Parsons, chairman and
chief executive officer of Time
Warner Inc., at its annual awards
luncheon.
Ed Bradley. "60 Minutes" co-edi
tor and correspondent, emceed the
gala event at the Waldorf-Astoria.
As a testament to his commit
ment to public service and the com
munity, Parsons was co-chair of
President George Herbert Walker
Bush's bipartisan Social Security
Commission, and he chairs the
Upper Manhattan Empowerment
Zone Development Corp.. which was
set up to spur business development
and job creation in Harlem He is
also chairman of the Apollo Theater
Foundation and sits on the boards of
several companies, including Citi
group. Estee Lauder and the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation; arts
organizations, including the Museum
of Modern Art; and Howard Univer
sity.
Parsons has been affiliated with
Time Warner since 1991. when he
joined the company's board of direc
tors. He became Time Warner's pres
ident in February 1995 and later
served as the company's co-chief
operating officer. He became CEO in
May 2002 and chairman of the board
in May 2003.
Parsons said, "I am most honored
by this award. A Better Chance plays
a growing and increasingly vital role
in opening opportunities to the
nation's lop college preparatory and
public high schools. I strongly sup
port this organization's mission and
look forward to even more students
of color benefiting from the best edu
Sec Parsons on A9
File Rk*o
Richard Parsons shakes hand with President Bush during a
trip to the White House in 2001,