Helen Thomas, long regarded as the Dean of the White House Press Corps, keynoted the Fair Media Council’s Folio Awards in 2009. She brought down the house with her eyewitness accounts of behind-the-scenes presidential quirks, perks and plunders. More than 600 business and community leaders, along with the New York media, gave her a standing ovation.

As editor in chief of the Chronicle in the late ’80s, I had a staff of 40 of the most talented people I’ve ever met, a managing editor who sold ad space faster than we could add pages and a newspaper that scored “All American” status by the AP — making it one of the very best college papers in the country.

As a news reporter for the Chronicle, I wrote an investigative piece that  forced the resignation of a tenured professor. The lawsuit that followed put my name in headlines, brought “sexual harassment” out of the shadows – and took years to put to bed.  Good thing I was barely 20 at the time.

 Jaci Clement with Buddy Harrelson, now of the Long Island Ducks and then of the New York Mets, and Briarcliffe College President, Dr. George Santiago, Jr. 

The night was sponsored by Briarcliffe and included signed bobbleheads of Bud.

Hamptons Television’s Ernie Schmizzi interviewing Dan Rather and Jaci Clement.

Jaci Clement earned her first byline in a daily newspaper when she was in the fourth grade. Today, she’s an award-winning communications and media expert. To find out how that happened, you came to the right place.-:)

Details below are from Wikipedia, where Jaci’s happy to have been labeled an “American media scholar,” and rather relieved to be regarded as a “living person”:

Jaci Clement is a media expert^[1] with more than 20 years experience in the communications industry. She is currently executive director of the Fair Media Council,^[2], a New York metro area media watch organization headquartered at Briarcliffe College on Long Island, New York.

She is regularly interviewed<^[3][4][5][6] on issues affecting local news and the subsequent impact on the news consumer; frequently contributes opinion pieces^[7] on the topic to a variety of publications, and speaks around the country on the importance of being a media savvy consumer. She has created a media literacy program and brought it into the classroom, believing strongly that news literacy and literacy skills must develop simultaneously to enhance children’s deductive reasoning and critical thinking abilities and, ultimately, to create a generation of world-class citizens.

Her news experience began when she was in the fourth grade, when she earned her first byline in a daily newspaper. She worked as a reporter while attending college, in addition to being a stringer for The New York Times’ education section and serving as editor in chief of her college newspaper, The Chronicle, which was highly regarded as one of the best college newspapers in the country. While still a reporter at The Chronicle, she wrote an investigative news article that forced the resignation of a tenured university professor.

Her background in reporting and editing is complemented by extensive experience working on the business side of newspapers, including internal communications, marketing, advertising, circulation and research. Prior to her current position at FMC, she was an executive with Dolan Media, based in Minneapolis, Minn., and Times Mirror Co.

She holds the title of Executive Communicator, the highest rank of distinction bestowed by the Association of Women in Communications. In 2007, she was invited to participate in a project to shape the newsroom of the future, which was sponsored by the Media Giraffe Project, a research initiative housed within the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, journalism program. She was a regular panelist on 21 Forum, a talk show produced by PBS affiliate WLIW New York. She has received the Media Advocate of the Year Award from the Long Island Association and the Distinguished Service Award from the Advancement for Commerce, Industry and Technology (ACIT).

She has served as an adjunct professor of journalism at Hofstra University, a member of the advisory board of Media Ethics Magazine, published by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a member of the board of Bethpage Federal Credit Union.

She was born in Youngstown, Ohio and received a B.A. degree in communication arts from Hofstra University.

Once upon a time, the merchants in the tiny village of Malverne, N.Y., needed a marketing boost.

So when the newspaper publisher Jaci was working for admitted Groundhog Day was his favorite holiday as a child, an idea took hold: No longer would Long Island be subjected to secondhand news coming from Pennsylvania. As home to 3 million people, Long Island deserved a prognosticator of its own!

Jaci Clement penned the tale of Malverne Mel, the estranged brother of Punxsatawney Phil. It was Mel who had the talent for foretelling the weather (and the law degree from St. John’s); Phil was a fraud who just liked the spotlight. Sibling rivalry continued until Mel was ready to come out of the shadows in the early ’90s.

With the story of Malverne Mel about to go public in the weekly paper, it set the stage for creating a publicity event unlike any other: the publisher went about getting local merchants to offer Groundhog Day specials. The paper’s marketing guy created Malverne Mel merchandise, and a sales guy who liked to sing and strum guitar went home and wrote “The Ballad of Malverne Mel.” The newspaper article served as inspiration for creating the event and that’s important to know, because it all was based on a true story.*

As early as 5 a.m. on that fateful Groundhog Day, radio and television stations throughout New York were waiting for Mel’s expert testimony. The Shadow traffic helicopter overhead the small park near the train station in Malverne, where a gazebo served as Mel’s headquarters. Local politicians showed up in tophats and long coats. School children turned out by the dozens, carrying handpainted signs that pleaded for an early spring. (OK, it looked a lot like a scene from ‘Groundhog Day,’ the movie. That was the whole point.)

Mel was covered by every local affiliate of the evening news, with radio and newspaper outlets throughout the country picking up what the official Long Island groundhog had to say about the next six weeks. (No one noticed how grumpy he was, and years went by before he actually bit anyone.)

Nearly two decades later, Malverne Mel is a tradition in the village of Malverne. And Stuart Markus still performs the ballad live every year.

First time out of the box, Mel predicted an early spring. Not surprisingly, so did his brother.

*Not really.

“Ballroom Madness” is complete and looking for a literary agency to call home. It’s the first of a series of books that would make for fabulous movies, too!

Here’s the quick pitch:
By the time she turned 31, Dani Somers’ life had gone to hell in a hand basket. Broken to the core, she found hope in creating a new life — one that would satiate the endless wants and needs of her internal guides: Inner Critic, Inner Lonely Woman and Practical Child. So she dusted off her talents and set her sights on finding herself and the destiny she was meant to live. What she hadn’t counted on was a psychic encounter that pushed her out of the newsroom and into the world of competitive ballroom dancing. From that moment on, life was never the same.

To find out more, find me: jaci.clement@gmail.com. FB: jaci clement. Twitter: jaciclement