CPA

Convention Keynote Speaker Michael Bolden

By Ruby Jones

From September 21 to 23, the Colorado Press Association (CPA) will collaborate with Colorado Media Project and Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) to host its 145th Annual CPA Convention at The Curtis Hotel in Downtown Denver. News leaders, Colorado legislators, creative directors and students from around the state will convene to discuss industry trends and find ways to build resilience in Colorado’s newsrooms and businesses.

The theme for this year’s convention, “Build Back Better,” is all about overcoming challenges within the print and digital news industries resulting from social advancements, technological changes and recent global events.

Like most industries, newsrooms across America were heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, which presented unique developments in the ways in which people find and use news. The CPA Convention will provide opportunities to examine current and emerging revenue sources in order to maximize the efficacy of funding from philanthropy, events, and print and digital advertising. Attendees will also discover ways to reach new audiences and establish an environment of trust, with special focus areas including AI, democracy, and mental health.

A pre-convention summit will take place on Thursday, Sept. 21, followed by an open- ing reception with COLab. The full schedule of conference sessions and events will begin on Friday, Sept. 22.

The opening keynote speaker for this year’s event is a journalism expert with a wealth of experience using innovation to create sustainable strategies for newsrooms across the country.

Washington Post, the Miami Herald, the Northwest Florida Daily News and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He joined the executive team of The San Francisco Chronicle as director of culture and operations, where he prioritized diversity and belonging.

Increased online harassment, cultural trauma, and other workforce stress prompted Bolden to create support systems for The Chronicle’s journalists. His focus on the newsroom’s internal culture and efforts to support its editors and reporters were both an asset and an example of ethical leadership.

Michael Bolden is the CEO and executive director of the American Press Institute (API), an organization that focuses on understanding audiences, growing reader revenue, advocating for accountability in journalism and supporting transformation. With Bolden at the helm, API has helped newsrooms evolve into learning organizations by discovering the opportunity within a changing industry.

Bolden is a graduate of the University of Alabama, and was a Maynard Media Academy Fellow at Harvard University. He is currently working on his Master of Liberal Arts thesis at Stanford University, and serves on the board of directors of the Student Press Law Center, which promotes and defends the First Amendment rights of student journalists.

In his early career, he worked as a journalism lecturer at Stanford, and was the managing director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships. He also served as editorial director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

After years supporting media change agents and industry innovation, Bolden worked as an editor and reporter in newsrooms across the country, including the ames Harvey remembers when there were two Air Forces.

Bolden will open the convention with an inspirational keynote address titled, Building Back Better: Empowering local newsrooms for a resilient future. He will participate in the morning Building Bridges plenary panel along with several industry leaders who will discuss community engagement and inclusiveness as essential pillars in trust-building.

On Saturday, Sept.23, he will host the Empowering Communities of Color breakout session, along with journalist and COLab coach, Tina Griego. Bolden will discuss a Pittsburgh-based API initiative and share how the “Journalism Inclusion Index,” is being used to improve coverage of communities of color in the news.

After two full days of exciting breakout sessions, panels, luncheons and workshops, the CPA Convention will conclude with the CPA Better News Awards Dinner on Saturday evening.

News leaders and professionals across Colorado will benefit greatly from Bolden’s impassioned advice. With the guidance and instruction provided by all of this year’s carefully selected speakers, newsrooms will leave the convention revitalized and prepared to meet the needs of a changing news industry..

“One comprised us, and the other was for the whites,” explained the soon-to-be centenarian from his home in Lakewood, Colorado.

Harvey knows this as fact because he’s one of just a handful of remaining Tuskegee Airmen, a group of Black military pilots and airmen who fought not only against enemy aircraft but against overt rac ism in the same Air Force they pledged to serve.

Born July 13, 1923, in Montclair, New Jersey, James H. Harvey III was the oldest of four children born to James and Cornelia Harvey. He attended high school in Pennsylvania, where he was an outstanding stu dent, the captain of the basketball team, class president, and graduated as valedictorian.

Harvey said he never encountered much racism until he raised his right hand, swore an oath to serve and protect his country — and entered the segregated U.S. Army. Drafted in 1943, he was soon reassigned to the Army Air Corps, the predecessor of today’s modern U.S. Air Force.

Harvey will tell you in great detail that things in the military were different back then. Very different — especially if you were a Black man. “You just go with the flow,” said Harvey of how he coped. “You just go with the flow or something happens — something mysteriously happens. So, I just went with the flow.” When asked why he did, he replied, “Because I wanted to live.”

Harvey settled into military service, classified as an engi-