Former Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi will deliver the 2024 Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture and U.S. Rep. Yvette C. Clarke (D-NY) will be recognized with this year’s Everett C. Parker Award, the United Church of Christ’s Media Justice Ministry announced today.
The annual breakfast and awards ceremony will be held at 8 a.m. on Tuesday September 24 at First Congregational United Church of Christ, 945 G Street NW, in Washington, DC. The event will also be livestreamed.
Farhi recently retired after a 35-year career as a staff writer at The Post. During his last 13 years at the paper, he covered the news media. Previously, his beats included the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and presidential campaigns. Since leaving The Post at the end of last year, his articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. A former contributing editor to the American Journalism Review, he is now supporting Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism as it produces its annual “State of Local News” report.
Rep. Clarke will be recognized with the Everett Parker Award, given to an individual whose work embodies the spirit and mission of the late Rev. Parker, who founded the UCC Media Justice Ministry in 1959. More specifically, Clarke will be honored for her leadership in working to save the Affordable Connectivity Program — ensuring that households in underserved communities were able to afford the internet service needed for work, school, and healthcare services. Clarke pressed the FCC to re-adopt Equal Employment Opportunity data disclosure requirements. She serves as co-chair on the House Multicultural Media Caucus, and has sponsored thoughtful ground-breaking legislation, including the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which would require companies to study and fix flawed computer algorithms that result in inaccurate, unfair, biased or discriminatory decisions that impact Americans. First elected to Congress in 2007, Clarke represents New York’s Ninth Congressional District, centered in Brooklyn.
Ticket information and more details about this year’s lecture, including the livestream link, will be available at https://uccmediajustice.org/Parker-lecture-2024/.
About the UCC’s media justice ministry and the Parker Lecture
The UCC Media Justice Ministry is the media justice arm of the United Church of Christ denomination, which includes about 4,600 congregations and more than 700,000 members. Rev. Dr. Parker was inspired by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to reform television coverage of the civil rights movement in the South. The advocacy of OC Inc., UCCMJM’s predecessor, resulted in the establishment of the right of all American citizens to participate before the FCC and the FCC being compelled to take away the broadcast license of the pro-segregationist television station WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss., in 1969 for failing to serve the public interest.
The Parker Lecture was created in 1982 to recognize the Rev. Dr. Parker’s pioneering work as an advocate for the public’s rights in broadcasting. The Parker Lecture is the only program of its kind in the United States that examines telecommunications in the digital age from an ethical perspective.