WASHINGTON--The Dallas-Fort Worth Network of Hispanic Communicators and National Association of Hispanic Journalists' Region 5 will hold a conference on Feb. 27-28 at the Embassy Suites hotel in North Dallas.

The two-day event will offer workshops and networking opportunities for the area's English and Spanish-language media professionals.

The conference kicks off on Friday, Feb. 27 at the Women's Museum in Fair Park with an opening reception at 6 p.m and a town hall meeting at 7 p.m. Both events are open to the public. The town hall meeting will focus on whether Spanish-language media are meeting the needs of the area's Latino community.

On Feb. 28, the conference will offer a full range of workshops. The English-language workshops include: Live Shots that Stand Out, Why You Should Be a Manager, There's More to Reporting Than Just the Metro Desk, Turning Run-of-the-Mill Stories into Hard-Hitting Investigative Pieces, Ethics in Journalism, Editing/Designing on Deadline, Retaining Minorities in the Newsroom and Selling Your Story Related to Latino Issues.

There will also be four sessions for Spanish-language media. They are: How Well is Spanish-Language Media Covering Diversity, Ethical Standards and Practices in Spanish-Language Media, The Impact of Spanish-Language Media on the Latino Community and Crossing Over From the Spanish-language to English-language Market.

NAHJ President Juan Gonzalez, a columnist with the New York Daily News, will address the conference during a speech at the scheduled luncheon.

All workshops on Feb. 28, including the luncheon, will take place at the Embassy Suites hotel at 3880 West NW Highway. The workshops will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The closing ceremony, also at the Embassy Suites hotel, will begin at 6 p.m. The reception will highlight the release of NAHJ's new stylebook for Spanish-language media, Manual de Estilo.

The cost of attendance is $40 for members of NAHJ or DFW Network members. Nonmember registration is $50 and student registration is $15. Conference registration will be accepted on-site.

For more information, visit http://www.dfwhispanic.org/nahjregion5.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Network of Hispanic Communicators, founded in 1981, is an organization comprised of working print and broadcast journalists, public relations professionals and members of the community.

NAHJ is the largest association for Hispanic journalists in the country with close to 2,000 members. Founded in 1984, the mission of the association is to increase the number of Latino journalists working in our nation's newsrooms and to improve news coverage of the country's Latino community.