The director of public affairs for Kentucky Educational Television, Renee Shaw, will be the featured speaker for the Christian County Chamber of Commerce’s 135th annual dinner meeting on Thursday, June 20, at the James E. Bruce Convention Center.
Shaw began her career with KET in 1996. She produces and anchors the nightly news program “Kentucky Edition” and leads KET’s reporting on the General Assembly and coverage of elections and state policy issues.
A native of Portland, Tennessee, Shaw earned a bachelor’s degree at Western Kentucky University, where she studied broadcast journalism and political science. She also earned a master’s degree at WKU.
Early in her career at KET, Shaw worked on the public affairs program “Comment on Kentucky” with print journalist Al Smith, the former Russellville newspaper publisher and a co-founder of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
In a 2023 interview with the Portland Leader newspaper, Shaw explained her approach to broadcast journalism.
“Working at KET gives me the chance to do public service journalism, which is what I believe in,” she told the newspaper. “It’s my job to inform — in an age of disinformation — by reporting the truth. But I also engage diverse points of view. My ‘Hippocratic Oath of Journalism’ is to connect common experiences — to bridge our divides.”
Shaw is the recipient of numerous awards for her work at KET, including three regional Emmy awards. She received the Governor Martha Layne Collins Leadership Award in 2022, and she is a member of the Western Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni and the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
In a Facebook post, the chamber said the annual dinner meeting is “where we celebrate the key accomplishments of the past year, look ahead to the future, and continue our mission to improve the business climate in our community.”
Individual tickets for the annual meeting are $80 for chamber members and $100 for non-members. Additional details, with prices for couples and tables, are available online. The meeting begins with a reception at 5 p.m. and the dinner and program at 6 p.m.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
