Amy Ellis Nutt of the Star-Ledger of New Jersey was our guest on a recent episode of Studio SPJ.

 Nutt talked about her story “The Wreck of the Lady Mary,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in April. The 20-page special section told the story of the sinking of a scallop boat off the coast of Cape May that left six dead.

 She also discussed her new book “Shadows Bright as Glass” which tells the story of a man who suffered a brain trauma that led him to become an artist.

Nutt talked about the day she learned that she had won her Pulitzer in this excerpt from the broadcast.

“Honestly it was a complete surprise. In this day and age, I think that’s unusual.

“We had sort of received word that I was not a finalist. It’s something that’s not made public, but newspapers have a way of finding out these things.

 “And so it was my belief that I was not even a finalist. I wasn’t even thinking about it that day. That Monday was supposed to be a day off for me because I worked on the weekend.

 “So my editors had to trick me into coming in. There was a publisher’s meeting and I was thinking, my God, what’s going to happen? Are there going to be more cutbacks?

 “So if you’ve seen any of the photos or videos I was wearing sneakers and a hoodie.

 “Q: I thought that was basic Star-Ledger gear.

 “A: Well, you know, sometimes it is for me, on Fridays and weekends it’s very dressed down for me. But I was just coming in for the meeting. Then I was going to go back home.

“ So it was a tremendous surprise and exhilaration. They had called my family unbeknown to me so that both my parents and two of my sisters and a brother-in-law were there, which was just marvelous. It was wonderful for the paper.”

 The Oct. 1 program was sponsored by the New Jersey pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

To hear the entire 30-minute broadcast, go to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/spj/2011/10/01/studio-spj-with-amy-ellis-nutt

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Amy Ellis Nutt of the Star Ledger in Newark, N.J. will be the featured guest on the next edition of SPJ Radio on Saturday, Oct. 1 at noon Eastern.

Nutt will talk about her career and her new book, “Shadows Bright as Glass” which tells the story of a man whose damaged brain drives him incessantly to create art.

In April, Nutt won the Pulitzer Prize for feature reporting for “The Wreck of the Lady Mary” a 20-page special section about the mysterious sinking of a fishing boat off the New Jersey coast in 2009.

Nutt has been a staff writer at The Star-Ledger since November 1997. She also is an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

For more about Nutt, visit her website.

This half-hour program is sponsored by the New Jersey Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. SPJ member John Ensslin will serve as moderator.

Studio SPJ is an Internet Radio program that features conversations with journalists.

For more about the series, visit SPJ’s Liner Notes blog.

To listen to the program live or later as a podcast, visit this link:

To call in live during the program, call 347-857-2441.

A life and death tale of mountain climbing will be the topic of our next episode of Studio SPJ on Saturday, Aug. 20th at noon Eastern.

Our guests will be Jim Davidson, a climber and science writer from Fort Collins, Colorado and Kevin Vaughan, a reporter for The Denver Post.

They are the co-authors of the recently published book “The Ledge – an Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier.”

The book tells the story of a 1992 incident in which Davidson and fellow climber Mike Price were trapped deep inside a glacial crevasse.

This episode of Studio SPJ is sponsored by the Montana Pro SPJ chapter. Chapter President Ian Marquand will serve as moderator.

Studio SPJ is a series of conversations among journalists on interesting topics. 

For more information on the program, visit SPJ’s Liner Notes blog at:

http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/linernotes/

Here’s the link to listen to the program live on Aug. 20:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/spj/2011/08/20/st-udio-spj-the-ledge-a-survival-story

To dial in during the live broadcast with a question call 347-857-2441.

Karen-Lee Ryan

Studio SPJ recently featured an interesting discussion on how to use social media tools to better cover and report natural disasters.

Our guests included Rick Smith of the National Weather Service in Oklahoma City and Karen-Lee Ryan of the Tennessean in Nashville.

Here’s an except in which Ryan explains how her newspaper used YouTube by posting a news video of a flood and got dramatic results in terms of viewership.

“Not a lot of folks knew that Nashville was underwater. It somehow didn’t make it into the national media. There were a couple of other big national stories going on.” Ryan said.

“And we had exclusive footage inside the Opryland Hotel. And that is where a lot of people who’ve been to Nashville – they’re familiar with Opryland.

“And so when we put a video out there showing Opryland Hotel under ten feet of water and inside the rooms and public spaces suddenly we saw on Google that “Opryland Hotel flooded” became a search nationwide.

“And that’s actually how a lot of people found out that Nashville was having flooding.

“So we used YouTube and that video ended up getting more than 500,000 views in a couple days and rose to the number one video on YouTube.”

You can listen to the entire podcast of this program by clicking here.

This program was co-sponsored by the Arkansas and Oklahoma pro chapters of SPJ.

Tune in to a very timely episode of Studio SPJ on Saturday, June 25 at noon Eastern when the Arkansas Pro SPJ chapter hosts a discussion of how to cover natural disasters using social media.

During the recent series of catastrophic floods and tornadoes, many reporters have turned to programs like Twitter to help them explain and tell breaking news stories in the wake of disaster.

Guests for this program will include Karen-Lee Ryan of the Tennessean in Nashville, who coordinated social media coverage that was part of their Pulitzer-nominated work on local floods.

Our other guest will be Rick Smith of the National Weather Service in Oklahoma. He moderates the NWS Twitter account for his offfice and has dealt with everything from tornadoes and flooding to snow and ice storms.

The half-hour program will be hosted by Kelly MacNeil of public radio station KUAR in Little Rock and president of the Arkansas Pro chapter.

To listen to the program live or hear a podcast later, click here.

To take part in this conversation, dial in about ten minutes after the program begins by calling 1-347-857-2441.

Studio SPJ is an ongoing series of conversations on topics of interest to journalists, hosted by various SPJ chapters.

Denver journalist Bill Briggs was our guest on the May 14th edition of Studio SPJ when he talked with Ann Augherton about his new book, “The Third Miracle – an Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery and a Trial of Faith.”

The episode, which you can hear by clicking on this link, was co-sponsored by the Virginia and Washington DC pro chapters of SPJ.

The book describes how the Catholic Church vets miracles and candidates for sainthood, as told through a specific case involving an Indiana man who suddenly recovered from a serious eye problem.

In this excerpt, Briggs describes an interesting moment that occurred while he was interviewing the man’s eye doctor, who was skeptical that any miracle had occurred.

“One of the most chilling moments to me…while I was reporting this was I was sitting in this doctor’s office and I said, ‘Why did you participate in this trial and talk with these sisters?’”

“And he said, well you know, the foundress (who was the person they were trying to elevate to sainthood and the miracles are needed to elevate somebody to sainthood) she has this sort of dominance over the town still in Terre Haute, Indiana.

“Her presence is really felt and the sisters really are part of the community – Mother Theodore is her name – I just felt like I had a responsibility to at least go and talk with them.

“And he spins around in his chair and says, ‘In fact – there she is.’ and he points out his window and there’s this statue of Mother Theodore that sort of gazes into his office 24/7, which I just thought was so ironic.”

How do you vet a saint?

That will be one of the topics coming up when Denver journalist Bill Briggs is our guest on the next episode of Studio SPJ.

Briggs will discuss his new book “The Third Miracle – An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery and a Trial of Faith” during a live Internet radio broadcast on Saturday May 14 at noon Eastern.

Ann Augherton, a former SPJ Region 2 director and managing editor of the Arlington Catholic Herald, will serve as moderator of the 30- minute program which is co-sponsored by the Virginia and Washington DC pro chapters.

Here’s a link to the blog site that hosts the program.

To dial in during the live broadcast with a question, call 347-857-2441.

Briggs writes for MSNBC.com where he writes about business, travel and heath. He has previously worked as a reporter for The Denver Post, The Financial Times, The Miami Herald and the Nashville Banner.

“The Third Miracle” tells the story of how the Catholic Church examined an Indiana handyman’s sudden and unexplained recovery from a serious eye problem in the context of a possible sainthood candidate.

Studio SPJ is a series of conversations with journalists on topics of interest to journalists.

Del Quentin Wilber

We taped a very good episode of Studio SPJ on April 23. I would say it was our best to date.

Val Hymes of the Maryland Pro SPJ chapter interviewed Del Quentin Wilber, a Washington Post reporter who has written a new book called “Rawhide Down – the Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan.”

Aside from the fact that Wilber has written an amazing book, what made the interview click was the fact that Hymes covered the assassination attempt for a Washington television station some 30 years ago. She also covered the trial of would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr.

Hymes focused her interview on the reporting methods Wilber used to get so many previously undisclosed details about the events of that day.

In this excerpt Wilber talks about how he located and interviewed David Adelberg, a surgical intern who assisted Dr. Benjamin Aaron, the main surgeon on the team that worked to save the president’s life.

“This scene is what did it for me,” Wilber said. “Ben Aaron is in Reagan’s chest hunting for this bullet, this smashed bullet that’s in Reagan’s lung just an inch from the president’s beat heart.

“David Adelberg reaches his hand inside Reagan’s chest and cups the president’s beating heart in his hand and gently nestles it aside to give the main surgeon more room.

“Think about it. This 31-year-old surgical intern was holding Ronald Reagan’s beating heart in his hand. And this room is surrounded by Secret Service agents…just surrounded…armed to the teeth…ready to pounce on anyone that makes a move on the president and this guy literally held Reagan’s life in his hand.

“That’s like one of those moments as a reporter when you’re like, “Holy cow.”

To hear the entire 30 minute program, click here.

Achenbach interview postponed

We experienced some technical difficulties during a scheduled April 22 interview with Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach, who has a new book out titled “A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea – The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher.”

We are working to reschedule this episode, which is sponsored by the Alabama Pro Chapter of SPJ. Stay tuned.

Joel Achenbach

Shortly after the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, Studio SPJ will feature an interview with a Washington Post reporter who has written a new book about the environmental catastrophe.

Joel Achenbach, author of “A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea – The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher” will be our guest on Friday, April 22 at 2 p.m. Eastern.

The book tells the story of the tragic April 20, 2010 explosion that killed 11 men and sent millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico from the huge drilling rig called Deepwater Horizon.

Achenbach started the Washington Post’s first blog, Achenblog, and has worked on the newspaper’s national Style magazine and Outlook staffs. He regularly contributes science articles to National Geographic.

A native of Gainesville, Florida and a 1982 graduate of Princeton University, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children.

This episode is sponsored by the Alabama Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journal. Chapter President Dennis Pillion will serve as moderator.

To listen to the program live or later as a podcast, go to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/spj/2011/04/22/studio-spj-with-joel-achenbach

To call into the program live with a question, dial (347) 857-2441

Studio SPJ is a 30-minute Internet radio program that features interviews with journalists.

Fred Brown

We had a really interesting episode of Studio SPJ on March 5.

Two former national SPJ presidents, Irwin Gratz and Fred Brown, had a conversation on the latest edition of the SPJ ethics book, which Fred helped edit.

The book, “Journalism Ethics – A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media” is available for order from Marion Street Press. Here’s a link to the order page.

The program was sponsored by Maine SPJ. Here’s an excerpt from their half-hour conversation.

Irwin: “Do you find that journalists are more or less ethical today?”

Fred: “I think they’re more hurried and harried today, less deliberative. And that may make them slightly less ethical.”

“But I think their basic nature, when they stop to think about it – and one of the things we hope to do with this book is let them think about it – they really want to be credible.”

“They need it to be competitive. They need to be reliable sources and ethics is very important in developing that reliability.”

Click here to listen to an archived podcast of the show.