UNITY Co-Founders Propose Conventions Every Other Year

Friday, July 25, 2008

By AMY PHAN
The UNITY News Online

Co-founders Juan Gonzalez and Will Sutton have proposed UNITY hold joint conventions every two years instead of every four.

In a statement released on Thursday, they said more people would have the opportunity to attend UNITY at a lower cost.

Sutton and Gonzalez also said they want UNITY to find more ways to fund education, in order to “produce proactive public policy positions.”

They have proposed the creation of a “UNITY publishing incubator” funded by venture capitalists. Journalists of color could then launch their own media companies to compete with the ones that have “failed to hire, promote and retain enough of us.”

Sutton and Gonzalez have also proposed a reduction in size of the UNITY board of directors.

They said their ideas will help ensure a better future for UNITY in a changing media landscape.

“We’re standing on top of quicksand, and it’s important that we quickly grab hold of each other and the nearby branches and limbs to pull ourselves out of the pit and onto more secure foundations upon which we can build a brighter future,” they said in the statement.

Executive director Onica Makwakwa said UNITY has selected preliminary cities to host UNITY 2012.

As of Thursday, the total number of registered UNITY participants was 6,665, Makwakwa said.

According to Makwakwa, the preliminary revenue for the 2008 convention was $4.3 million, not including revenue from registration fees. She predicted the total revenue would be $4.5 million, matching that of 2004.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Latest Coverage, Online Multimedia, UNITY Convention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “UNITY Co-Founders Propose Conventions Every Other Year”

  1. Stan Washington Says:
    July 28th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

    I certainly agree that the frequency of UNITY needs to be increased. Maybe every three years for now and then take another look at it. I do believe that we need to see more UNITY on the local level between members. We shouldn’t wait every four years to get together. I’m 100 percent behind the incubator idea. What we saw and heard at this conference should tell us that we can no longer rely on the mainstream media companies to hire us and to serve our communities. We have to do something different and soon.

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