NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Well-known Washington writer and commentator Fred Barnes will be one of four keynote speakers at the inaugural Baptist Press National Student Journalism Conference in Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 27-29, 2001.
The three-day conference will feature keynote addresses, panel discussions and workshops led by some of the nation’s top evangelical Christian journalists, photojournalists and broadcasters, said Will Hall, vice president for news services of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee.
“This conference will be a great opportunity for Baptist student journalists to network with Christian journalists working in both religious and secular media,” Hall said. “We want to let our Baptist students know that you can be a Christian and be a successful journalist, too.
“This is going to be a first-class conference,” Hall said. “We’ve invited some of the best and brightest journalists to not only lead seminars, but spend one-on-one time with our student journalists.”
The conference will be held at the Southern Baptist Convention building in downtown Nashville, Hall said.
In addition to the conference, Hall announced the creation of the Baptist Press Excellence in Journalism Contest. The contest is open to all Baptist college and university student newspapers, yearbooks and student newspaper websites.
The contest will recognize individual achievement in student writing and will be judged by a panel of professional journalists.
A call for entries and registration for the conference will be announced at the first of the year.
Joining Barnes as keynote speakers will be Will Norton, dean of the school of communications at the University of Nebraska; Tom Kennedy of the Washington Post; and Cynthia Williams, news anchor at the NBC affiliate in Nashville.
Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard and host of the “Beltway Boys” on the Fox News Channel. From 1985-95 he served as senior editor and White House correspondent for the New Republic. He covered the Supreme Court and the White House for the Washington Star before moving to the Baltimore Sun in 1979.
Barnes has appeared on “Nightline,” “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation” and the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”
Barnes graduated from the University of Virginia and was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.
For additional information on the conference, call (615) 782-8615.
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