The National Association of Black Journalists brought its 50th anniversary convention and career fair to the Marriott Marquis downtown Aug. 12-16 — the organization's first Atlanta convention since 2005 — under the leadership of a president who got her start a few blocks away.
Errin Haines, NABJ's current president, is an Atlanta native who interned at the historic Atlanta Daily World on Auburn Avenue before her career took her to the Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press, where she covered race, politics, and culture nationally. In 2020 she left the AP to become a founding member of The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering the intersection of women, politics, and policy — joining as its first editorial hire and sole reporter during a historic election cycle. She's now the publication's editor-at-large, a political contributor to MS Now, and co-host of the YouTube series "Long Play: Winning the South."
Haines traces her path back to a single ad in a printed issue of Creative Loafing for a monthly meeting of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists, which is celebrating its own 50th anniversary this year. "From my very first meeting, when I introduced myself with 'I'm a student and I'm trying to get my foot in the door in journalism,' they embraced me," she told Atlanta Magazine. A fellow chapter member tipped her off that the Atlanta Daily World hired freelancers; she walked her portfolio over to Auburn Avenue on a Tuesday and had her first published article by Friday.
She credits growing up in a "WSB TV household" — where the news played at dinner every night — with sparking her interest in the first place, watching anchor Monica Kaufman (now Monica Pearson) as one of the few Black women she saw on local television. Years later, at the Associated Press's Atlanta bureau, she was sent to cover a presidential press conference in her first week as an intern. "They put me right in the mix," she said. "A lot of the stories I wrote made the national wire."
Now, leading an organization of roughly 4,000 members back to the city that shaped her carries a particular weight. "To be here now, leading this organization ... and welcoming them to the place that raised me, that shaped me, that really made me the person and the journalist that I am, it is just such a tremendous honor and a privilege," Haines said. "What I want for every single person that comes here is that the spirit of what Atlanta is, and what we represent — the excellence, the swagger, the courage and the revolutionary spirit we have here — I want people to take that back with them to wherever they are."
Original reporting and interview by Ronda Racha Penrice for Atlanta Magazine, published August 12, 2026.