Friday, September 17, 2004 8:12 PM
Karen Ocamb, a high-profile member of the Los Angeles Press Club Board of Directors and an award-winning journalist, is stepping down to devote more time to her flowering career.
At the August 2004 board meeting, which adjourned in Karen’s honor, several board members spoke about the incredible work Karen has done since 2001 to fight for public access to supposedly “open” government records and meetings, which are often wrongly and illegally restricted.
As chairwoman of the club-supported coalition known as the Sunshine Committee, Karen has spent much of her time successfully prodding the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to obey the state Brown Act and embrace open government.
A journalist with some 30 years of experience, and a veteran of CBS Network News, Karen enjoyed a truly whirlwind 2004. She put in hundreds of hours as co-producer of the club’s extremely successful gala awards banquet on June 12. She oversaw the widely praised technical production, creating the entire evening’s look and sound. Even though she was an unpaid volunteer, she also supervised a professional technical crew handled sound, lighting, video and other duction issues during the event.
On the day immediately following the awards gala, Karen was honored by Christopher Street West as its Woman of the Year for her work in pressuring government entities to follow open government rules. Christopher Street West sponsors the largest Gay Pride event in the U.S.
In granting her the award, Christopher Street cited Karen’s Sunshine work, which has included her own extensive testimony before the Board of Supervisors in support of a “Sunshine ordinance” to make government more accessible to the people.
“Karen Ocamb’s unending commitment to government transparency has been an inspiration to LA Press Club members and others throughout Los Angeles government,” said Christopher Street West. “Her energy, enthusi- am and leadership has been contagious to everyone involved. Many late-night strategy sessions and Karen’s perseverance have kept the Sunshine Ordinance issue alive.”
In August, Karen was named the first recipient of the Leroy Arons Award in Journalism from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalist Association Los Angeles chapter for her work in keeping government meetings and records open. The NLGJA will fete Ocamb at the Mark Taper Auditorium in the
Riordan Central Library down- town on Oct. 4.
The award is named for NLGJA founder Leroy Arons, former editor of the Oakland Tribune who founded the organization in 1990 after coming out as the first openly gay editor of a major national daily newspaper.
Press Club board member Jon Beaupre said Karen “has provided a model for the hardworking, take-no-prisoners kind of journalism that is scrupulously fair, but insistent on answers from those in power. She has been an inspiration for me, and in fact to an entire generation of journalists in Los Angeles.”
In 2002, Karen received the California First Amendment Coalition’s prestigious Beacon Award for her Sunshine work, which aims to pressure government to operate with trans- parency and thus improve democracy for everyone.
A member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Karen’s work appears in GayWired.com, IN and Lesbian News, as well as many other gay and mainstream pub- lications.
One of Karen’s many friends on the Press Club board, political columnist Jill Stewart, said Karen “spends long hours fighting for public access to government, and at the same time works very hard as one of the most respected gay journalists in California. As a reporter, she ferrets out information that nobody else seems to get, and her work is superb.”
Karen, a busy freelancer, told the Press Club board that her increasingly tight schedule, after several years of volunteer work for the club, made it impossible for her to continue as a board member.
However, she said, “I will continue to help when and where I can,” particularly with efforts by the Sunshine Committee.
Karen was roundly applauded by the club’s board members. Press Club President Ted Johnson, of V Life magazine, thanked her for her “many hours of work and her devotion to important issues facing journalists.”
She will be greatly missed.
