NABJ Honors CNN's Janet Rollé with Annual Media Professional Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 16, 2012) - The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announces the selection of Janet Rollé, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for CNN Worldwide, as its 2012 Pat Tobin Media Professional Award Recipient. The award recognizes a public relations, advertising, or marketing professional that has had a distinctive impact in the media realm, which has resulted in positive media coverage of the black community, thus improving the media landscape.

"NABJ is proud to honor Janet Rollé. She represents the very essence of this award; the behind the scenes force helping to create on-air successes," NABJ President Gregory Lee Jr. said. "Rollé is one of our industry's brightest stars. We are delighted that we have the opportunity to recognize her contributions."

Rollé oversees the positioning and promotion of CNN's multiple networks and services, including CNN, CNN.com, CNN International, HLN, CNN.com/Live, CNN Mobile and all other CNN services.

CNN's New Odd Couple

Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer

Photo Credit: Art Streiber/CNN

Have you checked out CNN's new prime time offering, "Parker-Spitzer?"  The program wrapped up its first week on Friday night and already, some question how long the show will last.

For those of you who don't know, "Parker" is Kathleen Parker, the conservative Washington Post columnist; "Spitzer" is Eliot Spitzer, the liberal disgraced former governor of New York.

I watched half of the debut show last Monday, and was less than impressed.  Not so much because I think they don't have personalities-- they do.  But, they didn't appear to have mastery the TelePrompter, their crosstalk was often awkward and I didn't like the small table they sit at, almost on top of each other.  I also wasn't very interested in what they were discussing. Here are the "Opening Arguments" from Monday's show.

CNN anchor goes from covering a news story to becoming a news story

Don Lemon, left, urges John Campbell III, Gabrielle A. Richardson and Gary A. Foster Jr., supporters of Bishop Eddie Long, to keep an open mind about the sexual allegations against Long. (From Richard Prince's Journal-isms) Watch Video Clip

CNN's Don Lemon said "it just came out" during an interview he was doing on the Bishop Eddie Long scandal. Over the weekend, Lemon admitted, on-air, to three young members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and his national television audience, that he was the victim of a pedophile at the age of 6.

On the surface, a brave revelation which drew many messages of support to Lemon. I feel for Lemon and any person who has endured the pain a pedophile inflicts on a young mind; a young psyche. But I question the journalistic wisdom of revealing that personal secret while doing his job.

Lemon told Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute's "Journal-isms" blog, "It was unplanned and I am human. There was no agenda behind it." That is certainly possible, but in the more than 20-years that I spent working in television news, on the local level, I never had a deep personal secret spontaneously fly out of my mouth, while on-air, related or unrelated to the subject matter being discussed.