VCU Mass Comm Week Features Black Enterprise Executive Editor

By Tom Gresham

Derek Dingle, executive editor of Black Enterprise magazine and a vice president of Earl G. Graves Publishing Co. Inc., the publication's parent company, will deliver the fourth Bill Turpin Lecture in News Management on Oct. 10 during Mass Comm Week at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dingle is among the many accomplished professionals in journalism, advertising, public relations and other related fields who will appear during a week of lectures, presentations and workshops that runs from Oct. 8-12 at VCU. Each of the events on the Mass Comm Week schedule is free and open to the public.

Dingle, who will speak at 6 p.m. on Oct. 10 in the Richmond Salons III-IV of the VCU Student Commons, 907 Floyd Ave., manages the editorial direction of Black Enterprise, which reaches 3.7 million readers, and directs the program strategy of the Black Enterprise Report, a syndicated television series that promotes financial and personal empowerment for African Americans. In addition, Dingle oversees Black Enterprise Magazine's Keys to a Better Life, a radio series.

Dingle is the author of "Titans of the B.E. 100: Black CEOs Who Redefined and Conquered American Business," and "First in the Field: Jackie Robinson, Baseball Hero," for which he won an International Reading Association Award.

Dingle has also served as Black Enterprise's managing editor; as the founder, president and CEO of Milestone Media Inc., the nation's largest black-owned comic book company; and as a senior writer at Money magazine.

The Turpin Lecture in Media Management is named in memory of the late Bill Turpin, who taught media management in the VCU School of Mass Communications. Previous Turpin lecturers have included Tom Curley, president and CEO of the Associated Press; Dennis Swanson, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Viacom's TV station group; and Caroline Little, publisher and CEO of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

Also during Mass Comm Week, Alan Elsner, a Reuters veteran and the author of "The Nazi Hunter," will speak at the VCU School of Mass Communications' new international newsroom on Oct. 9 at Temple 2219, 901 W. Main St., at 10 a.m. Demonstrations of the international newsroom's features will be held at 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. – before and after Eisner's lecture.

Elsner started his journalism career in the 1970s with the Jerusalem Post and soon became Reuters' first permanent correspondent in Jerusalem. He later worked for Reuters in London and in Stockholm. He transferred to Washington, D.C., in 1989, subsequently serving stints as state department correspondent, chief political correspondent and national correspondent, until 2006. In addition to "The Nazi Hunter," a novel, his nonfiction books include "Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons," and "Guarded by Angels," a memoir of his father's experiences as a prisoner in the Soviet gulag.

Other featured events during Mass Comm Week include:

• Chet Rhodes, deputy multimedia editor, washingtonpost.com, "What Makes News Web Sites a Success?" Oct. 8, 10:30 a.m., Temple 2219.

• Michael Herring, Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney, "Free Press vs. Free Trial: Media Coverage of Celebrities in Court." Oct. 8, 7 p.m., VCU Commons Theater.

• Eric Futterman, documentary filmmaker and VCU alumnus, "African American Trailblazers," a look at Futterman's new 12-part biographical series for Virginia schoolchildren. Oct. 9, 1 p.m., Temple 2211.

• Tamsen Kingry, a VCU alumna and chief operating officer of Richmond SPCA, "Top Dog: Special Event Planning," the development of Richmond SPCA's Fur Ball fundraiser. Oct. 9, 2 p.m., Temple 1165.

• Michael Fibison, general manager for Central Virginia, Interactive Division at Media General, and David Hylton, editor of Richmond.com, "The Future of Media." Oct. 9, 4:30 p.m., Life Sciences Building Room 0155.

• Sonali Gulati, assistant professor of filmmaking at VCU, "Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night," a presentation by the filmmaker of her award-winning documentary about a call center in India. Oct. 9, 6 p.m., Richmond Salons III-IV, VCU Student Commons.

• John Milligan, professor of visual communications at Syracuse University, "Ad Workshop: Roll Out the Ideas!" Oct. 10, 1 p.m., Temple 1137.

• Jeffrey Blount, VCU alumnus and TV director who has worked on such programs as Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News and the Chris Matthews Show, "Washington Whispers," directing news coverage in the nation's capital. Oct. 10, 2:30 p.m., Temple Studios.

• Kelly Furnas, Virginia Tech's Educational Media Company; Kevin Corke, NBC News; and Tracy Schmidt, Time Magazine, "The Virginia Tech Tragedy: Lessons Learned." Oct. 10, 2 p.m., Temple 1165.

In addition, Mass Comm Week will include the annual internship fair and panels on internships, graduate school, the student-produced VCU TV/HD programming and getting that coveted first job.

For a complete schedule, visit http://www.has.vcu.edu/mac/pdf_s/mascWkProg07v6.pdf.

The School of Mass Communications is one of the largest programs in VCU's College of Humanities and Sciences with an enrollment of 1,000 undergraduate students and 130 graduate students. The school offers study in advertising, journalism and public relations.