Janis F. Kearney - Professional Career

Professional Career

Kearney was hired by the State of Arkansas in 1978, where she spent three years as a program manager for the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act program, and another six years as the director of information for the national headquarters of the Migrant Student Records Transfer System.

In 1987, she became the managing editor of the Arkansas State Press Newspaper, owned and operated by civil rights activist Daisy Bates. Three months after Janis joined the paper, Bates retired and Kearney bought the company from her. Janis published the weekly newspaper in Arkansas for five years.

In 1992, when then governor Bill Clinton decided to run for U.S. President, he hired Kearney who he had met during her years with State Government, from her role as publisher of the Arkansas State Press, and as part of the Arkansas Kearney family; to serve as director of his campaign’s Minority Media Outreach effort. Governor Clinton had taught several of her brothers during his stint as a professor of law at the University of Arkansas, and later appointed three members of the family to high-level state jobs. Janis took a sabbatical from her newspaper in 1992, and appointed her sister, Janetta Kearney, to run the newspaper during her absence. The newspaper suspended operation in 1998.