MAY 2008 NEWS UPDATE
Here’s a summary of actions taken by your national board of directors at its May 3 meeting in Indianapolis:
- Approved charters for three chapters – Florida A&M University in Tallahassee; New England School of Communications in Bangor, Maine; and a Wyoming Pro Chapter in Cheyenne.
- Put an end to publication of The Journalist, the yearly, glossy magazine started a few years ago as a potential revenue source.
- Discontinued the New America Award, which recognized journalism in ethnic media, as a stand-alone award and authorized headquarters staff to explore options for continuing the award as part of the SDX awards.
- Authorized the executive director to try to find another sponsor for the Journalism Education Series that was started last year with MarketWire as the sponsor.
- Amended the policy on non-media sponsors of SPJ’s annual convention. The amended policy makes it easier for headquarters staff to market sponsorships to non-media companies, a necessity I feel in light of the tightened purse strings of media organizations.
- Accepted a proposal from the Dart Society (a nonprofit group of journalists who cover violence) to involve that group in the 2009 annual SPJ convention. Dart will provide up to 10 programs for the convention, 40-60 attendees and a cash sponsorship. SPJ will include Dart members in its convention hotel room block and send SPJ officials to Dart’s banquet.
- Dart marks its 10th anniversary next year; SPJ marks its 100th.
- Approved the spring conference programming option I mentioned in two earlier e-mails.
- Tabled action on a proposal to eliminate annual reports for professional chapters. The proposal as presented put the board in a sort of Catch-22 position, in my opinion. I’ll break it down further later in this update.
- Decided we could “live with” language defining a journalist in the proposed federal shield law IF the alternative meant no shield law. The law’s chief supporter in the Senate, Republican John Cornyn of Texas, apparently is unwilling to budge on the definition. The board directed SPJ president Clint Brewer to arrange a meeting with Cornyn to explain why most board members object to the definition. Keep an eye on developments.
The proposal involved these steps:
- Repealing Article V, Section Four of SPJ’s Bylaws that requires the annual reports.
- Establishing a policy that would require Regional Directors to make telephone contact with each chapter in his or her region on a monthly basis. RDs would use those contacts to collect information on membership, finances, programming, requests for assistance, etc., and file reports about same with HQ.
- A voluntary awards program would replace the chapter of the year awards and star ranking system that currently are based on the RDs assessment of the chapters’ annual reports.
The rationale for doing away with the annual report requirement in the Bylaws? Chapter review is a process that should be set by policy not set in stone in our governing documents. The repeal also would eliminate an inconsistency that exists between professional and campus chapters.
The rationale for a policy requiring monthly contact by the RDs? A monthly process would allow timely reaction if a problem exists as well as provide continuous sharing of topical and timely ideas.
Further, such contact would create a personal connection between local chapter leaders and the RDs, and might spur more activity by the chapters.
We tabled the matter to give staff and the RDs time to develop a fully formulated proposal that could be submitted to the membership at a convention. Bylaw changes require a vote of the membership, and the board felt there were too many questions about the system that would replace the bylaw.
I believe that completes my report(s) from the board meeting. Hope everyone is doing well.
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May 7, 2008
Fellow journalists,
Check out this story http://www.thedmonline.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&uStory_id=c9cff97e-54e8-4993-8ff1-9baa5902cca3 on the University of Mississippi newspaper website.
The Ole Miss SPJ chapter used a grant from national SPJ to bring independent video journalist Josh Wolf to campus to speak on the need for a shield law and the importance of protecting sources and our work from being used as a tool of the government.
Wolf, you may remember, spent 226 days in jail after refusing to yield to police and prosecutors the video he took during a demonstration that ended with a policeman injured and a vandalized police car.
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MARCH 2008
2008 SPRING CONFERENCE
I wish more of you could have been in New Orleans March 28-29 for the joint Spring Conference of Region 12 and Region 8.
We had about 130 students and professionals from the six states that make up the two regions, but I had hoped for a lot more.
While the purpose of these conferences is to provide training and networking opportunities, we all know that for many students, the highlight of the weekend often is receiving a Mark of Excellence Award for work published or broadcast in the previous year.
Too bad several schools that had winners either sent no one or only a couple of representatives.
I understand how tight money is right now for universities and news organizations, but the Spring Conference contributes to the health of not only SPJ, but of our careers. The conference gives journalists and would-be journalists a space to share ideas and build relationships. For those who can’t make the trip to the SPJ national conference, the Spring Conference is a way to get something meaningful from their SPJ membership.
Perhaps the programming for this conference didn’t offer enough of the cutting edge for some students and pro members. Programming chair Kathleen Wickham worked hard over the fall and winter to solicit programming ideas. The response was adequate but not stellar.
Still, I felt Kathleen and the rest of the conference planning group put on a program that was worth the trip, especially since it was in New Orleans.
Samir “Mr. Magazine” Husni, keynote speaker at the conference luncheon, highlighted the importance of giving our customers interesting content in the competitive climate faced by news organizations today.
Dr. Larry Lorenz, dean of the Loyola University New Orleans School of Mass Communications, opened the conference the morning of March 29 with a strongly worded talk about the future of journalism.
More than a dozen students participated Friday evening in a review of portfolios by professional journalists and journalism professors from Loyola. Afterward, roughly 50 conferees enjoyed a New Orleans-style buffet reception.
On Saturday, two panels focused on covering disaster and humanitarian crisis. One used a Texas State University project involving “Doctors Without Borders” as a model for preparing to cover humanitarian crises. The other featured journalists from New Orleans who critiqued the media’s response since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Veteran journalists James Gill, columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and Curtis Wilkie, Cook Chair and Overby Fellow at the University of Mississippi, provided insight into digging beneath the public persona of public figures in a session titled “Rascals, Renegades and Rapscallions.”
Another panel delved into how media covered the story of six black Louisiana high school students who were charged with attempted murder after beating a white student in the wake of simmering racial tension in the town of Jena. Panelists included Craig Franklin, the associate editor of the weekly Jena Times; Nichole Hutcheson, a reporter who covers culture and social issues for Florida’s St. Petersburg Times; and Sandy Davis, a reporter for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La.
Other panels included discussions of plagiarism and online journalism, challenges to open meetings in Tennessee and access to court records in Louisiana, and the tension between online journalism sites’ First Amendment responsibilities and their search for revenue to support their journalism.
I’ll provide fuller reports on some of those sessions in a later update.
I’ll conclude with this: It takes a lot of volunteer effort and a lot of money to put on the Spring Conference. There are some in SPJ who question the value of continuing the effort and spending the money. I’m not one of them, but the regional directors who serve on SPJ’s national board will be discussing the future of Spring Conferences at the spring board meeting in May. We will consider ways in which the conferences can be restructured to provide those who attend the most rewarding experience and yield the best results for SPJ.
If you have ideas about what can be done to make the Spring Conference better and entice more journalists – student and professional – to attend, let me hear from you at salbarado@spj.org.
Your comrade,
Sonny Albarado
Region 12 Director
February 2008
Hard to believe the middle of February is almost here. Twelfth Night is a distant memory, the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras have rolled out of town and the National Day of Chocolate Consumption (otherwise known as Valentine’s Day) is almost here.Another big occasion is just over the horizon — and, no, I’m not talking about Easter. What’s coming is the annual regional Spring Conference. This year, Region 12 and Region 8 have combined forces to host a joint conference in New Orleans. Loyola University’s SPJ campus chapter and the university’s Department of Mass Communication are our site hosts. [snip agenda of conference-ja]From the University of Mississippi
Michele Bright
Ole Miss SPJ chapter reporterThe University of Mississippi’s SPJ chapter hosted a roundtable discussion Jan. 29 titled “Minimizing Harm, Issues of Diversity” after a controversy erupted between student media and the public following the publication of a cartoon in the Daily Mississippian, the campus newspaper, that featured a teddy bear named after the Islamic prophet, Mohammed.The image, considered offensive to the Islamic faith, started a discussion about what level of self-censorship should journalists practice in order to minimize harm.
My congratulations also to the East Tennessee Pro Chapter in Knoxville, which won a $500 grant from SPJ to help fund the chapter’s planned FOI month program in March 2008. Sonny Albarado
NEWS FROM EAST TENNESSEE PRO CHAPTER The Region 12 pro chapter of the year for 2006 continues to stage some strong programming. On Nov. 29, it sponsored a workshop on shooting video for the Web. Chapter president John Huotari reports that about 40 people attended: “Most were print journalists, but we also had television and radio reporters, University of Tennessee students and faculty members, public relations professionals and a blogger. “Among other things, the three panelists at the workshop gave tips on lighting, editing, framing shots and using a microphone. And they said it can be relatively easy and inexpensive to add videos to a Web site using software and Web sites like Microsoft Movie Maker and YouTube. “Former national SPJ president Georgiana Vines, one of our board members, said it was one of the best programs the chapter has ever put on. And one panelist, online editor Jigsha Desai of the Knoxville News Sentinel, enjoyed the workshop so much that she signed up for SPJ. “At the workshop, Desai said reporters at her paper use video cameras that sell for as little as $150.” The other panelists were Bob Legg, who teaches broadcast production at UT, and Brittany Bailey, a backpack journalist at WBIR-TV in Knoxville. For its October meeting, the East Tennessee chapter focused on ethics and the relationship between journalists and public relations professionals. The meeting was co-hosted by the Knoxville PRSA chapter. Finally, Huotari did his part to support openness in government when he used his November column in the chapter newsletter “Spot News” to encourage members to attend hearings of the Tennessee legislature’s Open Government Committee, which is considering changes to the state’s 1970s-era Sunshine Laws. Huotari also spoke before the Knoxville City Council on Nov. 6, urging the council to oppose a proposal that would change the portion of the Open Meetings Act that requires public meetings whenever two or more members of a local governing body get together to deliberate public business. A state panel recommended in October changing the “two or more” standard to a quorum standard. The panel later dropped that proposal in favor of on that would require a meeting to be open when lesser of more than four members of a public body or a majority were present. Huotari also opposed this recommendation and urged his members to do the same. Way to go, John!
NEWS FROM MID-SOUTH PRO CHAPTER Lindsay Jones, chapter vice president, reports that she, secretary-treasurer Rosalind Guy and board member David Arant, a University of Memphis j-prof, met in early November to discuss ways to keep the chapter active in the wake of the departures of president Erin Hornsby and treasurer Sonny Albarado. Hornsby moved to Nashville and Albarado to Little Rock. I’ll be offering assistance to the chapter to maintain its active status.
NEWS FROM MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY Kent Flanagan, veteran AP-Tennessee chief and current distinguished journalist in residence at MTSU, has accepted the opportunity to rebuild that school’s student chapter. Kent, a member of the Middle Tennessee Pro Chapter in Nashville, is also Mark of Excellence Awards coordinator for Region 12. Thanks, Kent!
FINAL NOTES I was happy in October to meet representatives from the recently revived Louisiana State University campus chapter – Amy Brittain, Garesia Randle and adviser Tad Odell – at the national SPJ conference in Washington. And Region 12 was well-represented, with folks from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette; University of Mississippi, Mid-South Pro, University of Memphis, East Tennessee Pro, Northwest Arkansas, University of Arkansas, Loyola University-New Orleans and Lipscomb University in attendance. Thanks to all of you for your support in my re-election bid and my deep appreciation for your continued support of SPJ in word and deed. My main final note concerns chapter activity, or the lack thereof. ETSPJ and the Ole Miss student chapter are the region’s strongest. Middle Tennessee Pro, Arkansas-Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas also have been fairly active, though I haven’t gotten any news from them in a while. But we still lack viable pro chapters in Mississippi and Louisiana. I hope to change that in the coming year. Meanwhile, if you know of any pro members in those states who might be up to the challenge of reviving or creating new chapters, please forward this newsletter to them or forward their contact info to me. And now for the corrections department: My September newsletter gave an incorrect affiliation for Adina Chumley, an ex officio member of the ETSPJ board. She owns her own PR company, Chumley Communications. Also, I left off a member of the chapter’s board – Christine Jessel. That’s all the news for now. Apologies to anyone I’ve overlooked. Send me your news and I’ll include you in the next newsletter. Finally, I hope your holiday season is joyful and your new year bright!
Sonny Albarado, Region 12 Director, Society of Professional Journalists
[See earlier reports from Sonny at http://spj.org/rreport12.asp]
[updated 12/4/09]
