During this year’s 2013 Homecoming Celebration for alumni and friends, the department of journalism and mass communication (JOMC) at North Carolina A&T State University will present a town-hall summit on Friday, Nov. 1 that will examine how accurately the media have covered civil rights, human rights and race-related issues in 2013. The first session will be from 11 a.m. -12:15 p.m.

A second town-hall summit will explore crisis communications and the role of public relations professionals and media practitioners in high-profile civil rights and criminal cases involving race and ethnicity. That session will take place from 12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Bob Butler, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, will be a speaker, along with several JOMC alumni, faculty and friends who represent the news media and public relations professions.

A reception that will follow the two sessions will honor Sandra Hughes, a distinguished North Carolina broadcast journalist who also teaches at A&T. Hughes is the recipient of this year’s Piedmont Triad’s National Conference for Community and Justice award and citation. The reception will be from 1:15p.m.-2 p.m.

In addition to Butler, confirmed speakers for the first session, Media Accuracy in Civil and Human Rights, include Kim Smith, Ph.D. and Vanessa G. Cunningham-Engram, Ed. D., J.D, who teach in A&T’s journalism department; Cassandra Wynn, an A&T alumna and journalism professor at Johnson C. Smith University; Kerry Charles, anchor, FOX 8, and president of the Triad Association of Black Journalists; and Dexter Mullins, an A&T graduate who is a digital news producer for Al Jazeera America.

Confirmed speakers for the second session, Crisis Communications in Civil Rights, are Shawn Jackson, an A&T graduate who currently is an intern with Edelman, the global public relations firm based in Chicago; Denada Jackson, an A&T alumna and owner of Bella Roca PR & Events in Charlotte; Irish Gaymon-Spencer, an A&T alumna and owner of The Spencer Group Inc. in Greensboro, N.C.; and Ricky Clemons, a public relations professor at A&T.