Carol Jenkins was a top-notch broadcast journalist for several decades in New York. She is most remembered for her nearly quarter-century at WNBC as an anchor and reporter.

Since leaving the business a decade ago, Jenkins wrote a book and started formulating a second one.

“I thought I was going to have this grand producing career,” Jenkins admits. “My timing wasn’t [good]. I started trying to do documentaries just as reality television [took off].”

But her pet project was being a founding president of the Women’s Media Center.

Always an advocate for more women in newsrooms, Jenkins had the perfect forum for her cause.

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Last night marked the first annual Women’s Media Center Media Awards at the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in midtown. Catered and cozy, the event took place in a small, packed room brimming with well-established female media types and bright-eyed J-school students, with a mic stand in the corner for awardees like Salon.com‘s Rebecca Traister, as well as hosts Gloria Steinem and WMC President Carol Jenkins. 



The evening was divided into two parts: the first honored six women in the media industry who have done outstanding work in bringing women’s issues to the forefront of media coverage; the second part cued a wag of the finger at organizations and events that shed a particularly negative light upon women in the past year. “It’s very important that we criticize when [women's coverage] is incomplete, but praise when it’s complete,” Steinem said, explaining the reason for organizing the awards this way.

In her opening remarks, Steinem also associated the media with a modern-day campfire, a place where people gather to tell stories and express themselves. “It is crucial that everyone’s stories be told…the media is our campfire,” she said. “And if we cannot tell our stories or have people listen to our stories, we feel alone.”

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Widespread layoffs, cutbacks, and collapses are forcing thousands of media professionals to find new work or re-evaluate their career paths. Fortunately, industry experts with a handle on what the down economy means for job seekers are here to help.

Canned: How to Land on Your Feet, a free career transition workshop for journalists, will take place Thursday, Feb. 19 in New York. The panel of media veterans will address how news professionals can take the next step — whatever it may be — and how recently laid-off journos can make themselves more marketable to employers.

Speakers include Carol Jenkins, president of The Women’s Media Center and former news anchor and correspondent; James E. Mulvaney, president of Tactical Intelligence Services, Inc. and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter; Spring Associates Inc. president Dennis Spring; and Ernest R. Sotomayor, assistant dean of career services at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Tickets are free, but capacity is limited, so register now to secure your spot.

–Paulina Reso

Here’s some highlights from our twitter feed from yesterday’s Time Warner Politics Summit panel ‘Women and the 2008 Election: Playing Politics with Gender – Media, Candidates and the Majority Vote’ featuring Karen Tumulty, Rachel Sklar, Carol Jenkins, Andrea Tantaros, Ada Calhoun, Tatsha Robertson, Lisa Witter. You won’t be surprised to hear that Sarah Palin was the primary topic of discussion — at one point Time‘s Karen Tumulty argued that Palin was a more “authentic” feminist role model than Hillary Clinton. Also interesting to note that this panel was held in one of the smaller rooms resulting in a standing room only situation for many of the attendees.

Tumulty: This crisis is trumping everything, almost refreshingly. These people could introduce secret families and no one would care. about 21 hours ago from web

Jenkins: Palin is campaigning at a fifth grade level. But this is the level that much of the country is operating under. about 21 hours ago from web

Sklar: We don’t know what would have happened if Palin had actually been knowledgeable and accomplished. about 21 hours ago from web

Sklar: We need to expand what we know. Instead of trying to fit someone into a box we need to expand the box. about 21 hours ago from web

Jenkins: This is the first time we’ve had to pay attention to women other than our mothers. about 21 hours ago from web

Tumulty: Not sure that Hillary is such a great feminist role model ie marry the Gov?…Plain arguably a more authentic feminist trailblazer. about 22 hours ago from web

Tumulty: Palin got a lot of people to take a first or second look at McCain, but they didn’t necessarily like what they saw. about 22 hours ago from web

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