Previous visitors to the Shore Journal will recall that we have made our living in print and television news for some years. We have concluded that the best and second-best things about the news business are: 1st: the people you meet in the field; and 2nd:the people you work with.
It is a joy to meet people, and to do stories about them, but that is not our point for the moment. It is the other best thing we refer to: the people with whom we work.
People who do news have to hang around together a lot. They find themselves waiting for hours for verdicts, weather, executions and tragedies to reach a writeable conclusion, so they can go home. But, in these hours, they get to know one another, often quite well.
There is, in any business, a heirarchy, and in news it is one thing: experience. While the world may flap about the effect of talk-show hosts on the human psyche, and the comings and goings of million-dollar anchors, there is no doubt within a group of newspeople when one of their number is a journalist of some distinction. It is known, simply, by their presence. We have noted that it is this presence which enables them to be effective journalists, and is not something they "put on" when they go to work. It is a part of them.
We offer these thoughts as perspective for our welcome to Ms. Jo Campbell, an independent journalist whose article A Cool Coup, Lessons in Priorities appears in this weeks issue.
Jo Campbell is one of these people. We met her briefly some weeks ago, and she has that presence. She also has a wonderful sense of humor, as you will see in her article, and has an extensive and valuable resume which we include below.
We welcome Ms. Campbell warmly, and look forward to her thoughts regularly, as we navigate these shore waters together.
Charles Paparella
JO CAMPBELL.............BIOGRAPHICAL DATA President, ECOTOPICS INTERNATIONAL NEWS SERVICE covering the environment, alternative energy, and biointensive agriculture; their places in a sustainable society. Range: ECOTOPICS is computerized, modemized, motorized and covers environmental issues with a home base on the environmentally and economically dynamic Eastern Shore of Maryland. Typical assignment travel: Las Cruces, NM, and Lubbock, TX, for assignment on water resources management for Middle East; Los Alamos National Laboratory for assignment on Latin America Energy program. Halifax, Nova Scotia to cover CZC Coastal Zone Canada. Past: Started on hometown newspaper; Daytona Beach (Florida) News-Journal. Later had a bureau covering Washington and the United Nations for an Urdu daily in Lahore, Pakistan. Thirty years as writer/editor with U. S. Information Agency: Writing assignments in Senegal, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, including Zanzibar, plus the U.S. covering events ranging from Capitol Hill and world trade conferences to the 1984 Olympics. Member National Press Club, Center for Defense Information, National Women's Political Caucus, Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press, Washington Independent Writers, computer groups, Conservation Voters, Renew America, National Resources Defense Council. Honors: USIA for writings in Nigerian Press 1986. Jefferson Fellowship, George Washington University 1981-82. Research: sociology - selection mechanics in the workplace; psychology - impact of crime on perception of rights - resulted in newspaper series. Community service -- Chaired Prince George's County Chapter American Civil Liberties Union three years; Member, Maryland Governor's Task Force to Examine State Pension Investment in South Africa. Earlier: Vice president; American Federation of Government Employees Local 1812 -- intervenor Foreign Affairs Specialist lawsuit. Chaired Law Enforcement Practices Panel on Prince George's County Human Relations Commission. Now serving as representative of Ocean City on state Coastal and Watershed Resources Advisory Committee. Third Vice President Worcester County Branch NAACP. 126 Nautical Lane-P.O.Box 2309-Ocean City, MD 21842-8309 Phone: 410 250 3404, fax 250 4967, email jocee@aol.com