Congrats To……….

………Hazel Trice Edney, who has been elected president of the Capital Press Club. It has a great history.

Her old newspaper, The Richmond Free Press, wrote thusly in its June 7-June 9 edition:

Hazel Trice Edney, a former Richmond Free Press reporter, has donned a fresh journalism hat.

Ms. Edney, who now owns and operates a Washington-based wire service and teaches journalism classes at Howard University, is the new president of the Capital Press Club, the nation’s oldest Black journalism association.

The Louisa County native and Harvard University graduate was elected May 1 to lead the 300-member group for four years.

The club was founded in 1944 when Black and female reporters were barred from the National Press CLub and other white-controlled journalism organizations.

She is currently president and CEO of Trice Edney Communications and editor-in-chief of the Trice Edney News Wire, which she launched in November 2010.

Also a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Ms. Edney began her reporting career with the now-defunct Richmond Afro-American. She was the first member of The Free Press news staff and mainly covered City Hall and the State Capitol after the paper began publication in 1992.

She left Richmond in 1998 aftger receiving a fellowship to Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she earned a master’s degree.

Her career sicne has included stints as a legislative aide to now-deceased U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and as editor-in-chief of the news service of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

Among her journalism honors, she was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame in 2009 and last year received the New America Media Career Achievement Award.

Okay! I'm Letting "The Avengers" (Movie) Go And Moving On To……

…. “The Amazing Spider-Man!” (Finally saw this trailer on the big screen last night before “MIB3,” a skippable movie unless you love those characters.) I don’t know how well this will work ( “MIB3” well? “Batman Begins” well? $100,000-in-one-holiday-weekend-like-the-“old”-Spider-Manmovies well?), but I’m now convinced this movie is going to work and, sadly, we’ll have moved on from Tobey and Co. by the time the final credits roll.

"Harvest of Empire," The Documentary

Just got back from the screening of this film (from this book) at Brookings less than two hours ago. It was great to see Joe Torres and the AP’s Suzanne Gamboa (the post-film panel moderator) again, and equally great to see the legendary Juan Gonzalez in the flesh. (Of course, I’ve raved about Gonzalez’ and Torres’ epic here and here.)

It was a solid film.  It told the story of the immigration of Latinos from the historical perspective of (the abuses of) American foreign policy. The same racial-conflict-covered-in-red-white-and-blue tone reminded me of the first set of “Eyes On The Prize.”

Because I hadn’t been paying attention, I didn’t know that if the Supreme Court decides to uphold the worst parts of Arizona’s iillegal mmigration crackdown, 14 states may follow up with their own laws. Juan Crow, as somebody said tonight.