ALUMNI PROFILE
Joining journalists
Herbert Lowe, Jour ’84, pledged to make the nation’s oldest and largest organization for journalists of color more visible. And during his tenure as president of the National Association of Black Journalists, membership rose nearly 50 percent.
By John Basil
As president of NABJ, Lowe logged a laundry list of impressive accomplishments. But one moment that stands out among all the highlights of his recently concluded two-year term as president happened in 2004, when he returned to Milwaukee as keynote speaker for the 35th anniversary of Marquette’s Educational Opportunity Program.
“As an EOP graduate, the event held a special meaning for me,” says Lowe, a native of Camden, N.J., who is a reporter for Newsday in New York. “Marquette’s been very important to my career. I went there because I thought I could get the best journalism education; I’m confident I did.”
In the past 20 years, Lowe has written for a variety of newspapers. During eight of those years, he also held leadership positions at NABJ. He was elected president on a platform pledging to make the association more visible and accessible to its members. Lowe’s administration realized that goal and, in the process, NABJ membership rose from 2,700 to more than 4,000 professionals.
“Through our Web site, we were able to communicate daily our messages of fairness and diversity, which our constituents subsequently spread on a grass-roots level,” says Lowe, who was listed among Ebony Magazine’s “100+ Most Influential Black Americans” in 2004 and 2005. “I’m gratified that people saw me as a leader who achieved what he set out to do.”
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