Such was the case over the weekend when the executive board of the Society of Professional Journalists met at it annual summer gathering and faced down an agenda item listed under new business as item “e. The Helen Thomas Award.”

The issue before us was whether we should retain Thomas’ name on our lifetime achievement award in light of her ridiculous and offensive remarks regarding Jews, saying they need to leave Israel and return to homelands of Germany, Poland and the United States. Those remarks cost her a job and disenfranchised her from a number of people and organizations with whom she was associated. Those remarks came in late spring. What SPJ would do wouldn’t be decided until late July in New Orleans.

From the day she uttered her now-famous words, the press wanted to know SPJ’s stance. Let me correct that. Some wanted to know. Most wanted to tell us. Because I felt this organization needed to carefully and judiciously consider this issue, I said from Day One we’d not rush to judgment. But the public did and so did some of our members.  A number of you weighed in on the issue in the weeks leading up to the board meeting and your voices were compiled and available to the board before the meeting.

Most of you provided thoughtful comments. Some made threats to leave the organization if we moved to change the award. Some chastised us for thinking someone so caustic and bigoted should have her named aligned with such an honorable journalism group.

Initially, a motion was made not to change the name and it received a second. What I’d call and very respectful and professional discussion ensued. Everyone had something to contribute. The executive board considered sending the matter to a vote of the full board. There was talk about a resolution before the October convention where sitting delegates could cast the deciding vote. After sharing views for nearly an hour and reflecting on it more personally over lunch, the board decided to take no action, and as such, the award is unchanged. But, as I see it, no action denies Thomas any votes of support from SPJ exec board members.

Personally, this was a tough call.  When I initially considered her remarks, I immediately fell into my First Amendment defense posture. SPJ has spent more than 100 years defending free press and free speech issues. How, after a long-established commitment, even in support of gravely offensive language, could we turn our backs on our principles to punish Thomas for her insensitive comments?

But, the more I thought about it, the more I opened up to other perspectives. As president elect Hagit Limor (an Israeli-born Jew whose father escaped from Germany and survived the Holocaust) said “this isn’t just about free speech rights. It’s about rewarding this kind of language and behavior.” In short, she can say what she wants and be defended, but she doesn’t have to be rewarded with such an important award.

Had Thomas said all black people should go back to Africa, there’s a very good chance this decision would have been made a lot sooner and with a different outcome. I feel confident in saying that.

Many who defended her name on the award made convincing arguments that our award speaks to her work as a journalist, not her personal views, and it’s unfair to throw out five decades of stellar professional journalism over this one incident. The award bears her name and lifetime achievement because it reflects the body of her long and illustrious career. And, quite honestly, that’s a valid argument and I respect it.

In the end, the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award was moved to “old business.” But dealing with bigotry needs to reflect a “new business” mentality. SPJ has three foundational missions – free press, ethics and diversity. If we are to live up to our mission of promoting diversity, it seems counterproductive to allow these very types of words and thoughts to be associated with our organization and, in part, define us. Regardless of her lifetime of achievements, Thomas needs to be mindful that her remarks have no place among people and her brethren whose obligations are to truth and fairness.

That is why as this portion of the 111th session of Congress winds down to the August recess, SPJ needs to make an all-out push to get SB 448, The Free Flow of Information Act, passed. We can’t leave this to chance. Not any more.

If it were up to me and most of our 8.000 members, we’d have one. But, it’s far from my control and that is why a last-minute push is so vital. And, as a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, your voice needs to be heard in the next two weeks.

Last week I visited Capitol Hill and left personal letters on the desks of 22 U.S. senators asking for their support of SB 448. Some of the senators who got my letter are already backers, some aren’t so sure. Key members on both sides of the aisle have letters from me.

We are closer now than we’ve ever been. Our push this time is to get floor time and a full senate vote. Our belief is we have the votes to pass the measure, we just need to convince key members that this is worthy of being introduced.

This week, I will be writing a guest op-ed piece that headquarters will make available to the media by week’s end. My hope, ambitious as it may sound, is to see it in print, the web or delivered on air in all 50 states. My goal is 100 media outlets. If you work for a media outlet and are a member of SPJ, you can do us a great service by working to get this printed or aired at your paper or station. Or get it on your site and bolster it with blog posts. However we do it, we need to get our voice out there to these senators before they go to recess.

I would also encourage journalists to consider this a prime story. I, and other SPJ officers and legal counsel, can make ourselves available for interviews in the coming weeks to get the story more play.

SPJ isn’t the only journalism organization in the coalition supporting this law and I don’t know what other leaders are telling their members, but I can tell you that 8,000 journalists hitting pressure points in the next two weeks will be hard to ignore. SPJ will be acting and doing so decisively.

There is no room for chance, so please do your part.

To many, Byrd was the state’s saving grace when it came to appropriations. Yes, many outsiders referred to him as the “King of Pork,” a badge he wore with honor. I understood years ago that Byrd’s lasting gift to the state was all of the projects federal dollars could buy. Without Byrd’s clout West Virginia would be hard pressed to have the highway system is does. The same can be said for its medical centers and health care, schools, airports, buildings, bridges and the vast number of businesses.

But, this isn’t about Bob Byrd the appropriator. It’s about Bob Byrd, the defender of the Constitution and the best friend the First Amendment could ever want. I’m proud to say, as the president of SPJ, that my U.S. senator was a stalwart for press rights.

The past two years I had paid visits to his office on Capitol Hill to seek his support for the federal shield law to protect reporters’ sources. In frail health even then, I met with his legal aide who assured me that the senator was 100 percent behind our efforts to protect sources coming forth and reporting government misdeeds. He once told me in an interview back in 1992 that he admired the press and saw us as freedom fighters who served as the watchdogs on government. To his dying day, Bob Byrd held the Constitution sacred. Pity the person, special interest group or lobbyist who dared play fast and loose with our Founding Fathers’ governmental framework. Pity anyone who tried to undermine the press.

To me and many West Virginians, Byrd was larger than life. Yes, it became somewhat embarrassing to have his name on so many buildings and highways, but consider this: In the 147-year history of our state, no one is more associated with West Virginia than Robert C. Byrd. Maybe no one ever will. His legacy in the senate is second to no one.

The sum of his work will endure for decades in our state. But bridges and roads will give way, building will be replaced and jobs will come and go. Someone, certainly not of Byrd’s stature, will be asked to step in and help West Virginia gain its share of the federal appropriations. I’m not so worried about that.

Replacing Senator Byrd as a fervorous defender of the Constitution and champion for First Amendment rights will be more difficult. Today, there seems to be more of an inclination to skirt constitutional rights than to embrace them. For that reason, the whole nation needs to mourn his loss.

We will miss United States Sen. Robert C. Byrd, but more importantly, we need to replace him. For our Constitution’s sake.

I still remember that Monday morning in October, 2003 when officials from the Morgantown, W.Va. city fire department walked into our newsroom with a search warrant wanting photos taken over the weekend of a ruckus group of students celebrating a football victory.

What they were looking for were more than 400 photos taken by our three staff photographers during the melee that followed a West Virginia University win on that previous Saturday. Fires were set in dumpsters and couches were ablaze. Hoping to use our images to identify as many culprits they walked in armed with the warrant.

I managed to stall the search warrant because the photographers were away from the office and the computers were password sensitive. The fire officials were not hardnosed about it. They didn’t want to carry out entire computers, but they could have. They left and said they would return. Our lawyer intervened and using the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 we successfully quashed the search warrant and even talk of a subpoena. Cooler heads and legal minds prevailed.

But in the last two months, we’ve seen what police, bent on strong-arming newsrooms, can do in the name of their brand of justice. In April the student newspaper at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. was stormed by police and a search warrant-wielding prosecutor looking for photos of JMU students who might have been involved in a riot after a festival in that city. They took the nearly 600 images from The Breeze and were unrelenting until a number of First Amendment lawyers from the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C. and support from the Society of Professional Journalists impressed upon them the Privacy Protection Act was violated and their actions were illegal.

Most recently, Guam’s KUAM suffered in intrusion into its newsroom by police officials armed again with an inappropriate search warrant. These police forced everyone from the newsroom and reportedly scoured all the desks and materials in search of a lone piece of paper.

In both cases, the police were carrying the wrong legal instrument for such attempts. In both cases, prosecutors and judges who seem to spend less time with law books and too much time watching Law and Order signed off on these illegal invasions of newsrooms.

Let’s be clear at this point. Search warrants on newsrooms violate federal law and represent an affront to the First Amendment which prohibits the making of any law that infringes on the freedom of the press. And, unreasonable search and seizure on a newsroom for its reporting materials is such a violation.
What happened in Guam and Harrisonburg has to stop. The press has to fight these violations with equal parts vigor and defiance. Aggressive lawsuits to stem this type of behavior are needed to send strong messages that America’s newsrooms are not open for invasion. Powerful messages to justice officials all the way to the benches are needed to make sure this country is not being converted into a police state where overzealous prosecutors try to arm law enforcement officials with battering rams in the form of search warrants.

What happened that day nearly seven years ago in my newsroom was my first taste of how an unlawful search can intimidate and stall a newsroom. It made us think about our vulnerability when those who uphold the law twist or ignore it to their own ends.

The Society of Professional Journalists, the largest and most dominant journalism organization in the United States, stands behind newsroom leaders when their workplaces are breached and federal law is violated. These actions have to stop or we’ve undermined more than 230 years of constitutional liberties, altered our path and crippled an entire citizenry that depends on a free press.

I really enjoy meeting everyone, and having stolen moments here and there to talk about what’s happening at the chapter and regional levels of SPJ. I learn a great deal and I’m pleased to say that a great deal is going on to improve SPJ that has nothing to do with me. And, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Last week at our annual spring board meeting in Indianapolis, the national board dealt with the following:

• We welcomed new student chapters at Kennesaw State University, Texas A&M, DePaul and Central Connecticut State.
• We also granted initial approval of what is expected to be our first official international chapter in Qatar. Northwestern University’s Medill School is proposing a student chapter that could balloon to 80 members. Obviously, we are excited about the prospects of new members, new chapter and dipping our organizational toe in the international arena.
• Conversely, we agreed to hold off on revoking charters of some professional and student chapters that have been inactive for a few years. The reason is we want the regional directors to work with the Membership Committee to see if we can inject some needed infusion into them before they leave the rolls. It’s much harder to start one from scratch than to regain members.
• The Membership Committee will begin calling new and renewed members each week. A group of executive officers, Regional Directors and former presidents will make calls on behalf of SPJ, thanking the members for renewing or starting a membership with our organization.
• Additionally, the Membership Committee will be working with staff in the coming weeks to produce a variety of fliers, posters and brochure covers that are universally applicable to SPJ chapter events. The idea is that this will allow chapters to go to the website, download pdfs of a poster or flier and add their local information and print them off for upcoming events.
• The board learned of the varied relationships SPJ has established with RTDNA, CPJ, IFJ and others for the betterment of journalism. As many of you know, SPJ will be partnering with the Radio Television Digital News Association for our 2011 convention in New Orleans. Our relationships with The Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists are in the early stages, but allow SPJ to have a growing presence in the international journalism frontier. SPJ also partners with the Online News Association, the American Society of News Editors and other groups as part of its convention programming and exhibitions.
• The latest ethics book is slated to be distributed in early October, hopefully in time for the convention in Las Vegas. The book is the three-year project of the ethics committee.
• A generous donation of $65,000 from the estate of Utah’s Alexander S. Bodi to the SDX Foundation. The money was then appropriated to the Terry Harper Memorial Fund. Terry and the donor became friends in their last years and we think this is a perfect use of the money. This will allow SPJ to offer about $5,000 a year in scholarships each year for journalists wanting to attend the national convention.
•  The board agreed to extend the six-month hardship/transitional dues waiver for journalists who have lost their jobs.

All in all, this was a great meeting and a number of exciting initiatives and projects are being accomplished. I’m happy to say that SPJ is weathering the industry turmoil well and in the coming months we think we will: See membership numbers start ticking upward; Produce a healthy and exciting response to an FCC call for comment on the future of journalism; And we will finish the last of our spring conferences next week and likely surpass the 1,400 mark of journalists in attendance nationwide at our 12 spring conference.

It’s a great time to be in SPJ. Just thought you should know.

SPJ issued a press release Tuesday via its ethics committee condemning ABC news for paying $200,000 to the family and attorney of Casey Anthony, the woman accused of killing her daughter, Caylee. ABC News said it paid this astronomical amount for videos and family photos it used in its coverage of the story. Insiders told me it’s a lot of pay for photos and videos and that amount was intended to secure an exclusive interview. But, that interview never happened and ABC denies they were ever trying to buy a sit-down with the alleged killer. Again, off-the-record comments to me this week suggest that’s not true. In a world where the truth seems to take a back seat to integrity, it’s difficult to say.

But, back to my colleague. Walking into the building and riding up in the elevator I explain all of this to her as best I can in the short time. She looks at me in astonishment. Without prompting she says something very profound. At this very moment I wish every network news director could see her expression and hear her as she says “Oh, Kevin, doesn’t paying for news seriously call into question the very heart of the truth?” Bingo.

She goes on, “I mean how do you measure truth when price is attached? Is there more truth as the price goes higher? This seems very disturbing to me.”

And there you have it. The very point SPJ has been trying to make. Conveyed by someone who knows nothing of journalism but is a consumer of news, she finds this problematic.

When ABC pays licensing rights (or whatever legal term or contorted euphemism they want to attach to it) for an interview, when NBC provides free plane rides to a father and his son from South America to Florida and just happens to land that all-exclusive interview in the process, it taints the very heart of what journalists do. Is a source expected to tell one version of the truth for $5,000 and another if the price is $10,000? I want to know. Certainly my colleague raises the issue.

And here’s the real question network executives have to answer: How long do you think it will take to erode your credibility with the American public if news stories came with tags like “ABC paid $20,000 for this interview”? Or “NBC wants you to know that we provided plane trips, hotel accommodations and other costs to our source on this story?” Not long. Which might explain why ABC sat on its Anthony payout for about two years until it was revealed in a court hearing last week.

I teach my journalism students the very first week that they have a duty to: 1. The Truth and  2. Fairness. Someone once told me after reading a city council story of mine that he thought I got it all right and I did a fair job of presenting all sides in a rather contentious debate the evening before. I tell my students that should be the ultimate compliment for a journalist. You got it truthful and you were fair. Remember that and everything else will fall into place. That night I never had to reach into my pocket and produce $20 bills to get it right or make it fair.

So, when I see money being passed around for interviews or gifts offered I wonder if truth and fairness are being considered or is it simply a network mentality that the only stories worth telling have to come with a price tag.

And lastly, I wonder what the more than 300 ABC employees who might lose their jobs if enough retirements don’t occur must be thinking this week knowing that they can’t keep legitimate journalists on payroll but have $200,000 to toss at a source interview.

That detail, thankfully, I spared my colleague.

It was a special moment to walk back on campus and into the journalism school building where 30 years earlier I traversed the halls as an innocent and eager journalism student, anxious to make my mark on the world.
Now, as the president of the Society of Professional Journalists, my views seem to take on added value. I’m continually asked about the future of journalism. What struck me this particular evening was that the future question came both from a student and my former reporting professor who’s been retired 15 years – journalists at opposite ends of the career spectrum, both nevertheless concerned.

What I said that evening came from a culmination of views and research I’ve been subjected to over the last six months as the leader of the largest journalism organization in the United States.
Depending on who you ask, you received different views. Those who have a vested interest in digital media want to see print go away. Those working in print make a case for their product and label Internet journalism a wasteland for truth.

Sometimes attending these conferences is a bit like sitting in an echo chamber – it’s the same voices saying the same things over and over. My problem with talking about our future is we aren’t reaching out and pulling in enough voices. I’ve been to Yale and Washington, D.C. twice and plan another trip to a Future of Journalism conference in April. No surprise the panels consists of similar names.
If these talking heads are so strident in their views as to where our profession is heading, why haven’t they come up with a solution to save our dying news products? To be sure, everyone is producing ideas but no one seems to be pushing hard to get them into place.

What I do know is this, journalism students like the ones that evening at WVU need to expand their skill sets. That’s been proven. If you come out of college limited in your abilities to write for the Internet, shoot and edit video or navigate the landscape of social media, you are at a clear disadvantage.

When I started in the newsroom 31 years ago no one had to tell me how important I’d be if I could do a number of tasks. I thought being versatile was the way to success and it allowed me to move from being a sportswriter to a police reporter to a business writer in three years. I showed off my photography skills and my ability to hand desk duties in that time as well. The more things change the more they stay the same.
It makes no sense for someone my age to think that I can ride out this technological storm that is digital media. I’d be doing a disservice to my students and my profession by hiding and pretending it will go away. As the president of SPJ it equally makes no sense to attend these meetings and not believe that great change is before us. How we prepare for and embrace this will be our defining moment.

The future has many faces. Print, digital, social, interactive. What we have to understand is how each contributes to our information society and why. Instead of advocating one over another and calling that the path of the future it’s time to understand, value and appreciate each medium and how that fits into the overall mass communication scheme. That’s not like anything I’ve been hearing of late. Maybe that’s why conferences keep being held and nothing seems to be getting done.

If you have received that kind of question lately chances are you point to our stellar work for a free press, our outstanding ethical contributions, our work on behalf of diversity and our far-reaching and helpful professional development.

But, let me provide you with a few real-time examples of why SPJ is important and what we do invaluable in the grand scheme of protecting and improving journalism.

Here’s what SPJ has done in the last month:

We took NBC News to task for providing a very generous gift of a private jet ride from Brazil to the U.S. for a father and his son in exchange for an exclusive interview. NBC has taken exception with our characterization of this event. They said it was a simple act of kindness shown to Mr. David Goldberg and his son following a long and expensive custody battle over several years, which NBC covered extensively. The fact that NBC admitted to having done nearly 18 interviews with Mr. Goldman and that their viewers had developed a relationship with the family and viewers had come to expect this relationship via NBC means nothing when they offered him the private ride in exchange for an exclusive, an NBC spokesperson said.

We said otherwise and called it “checkbook journalism” and we contend it’s wrong. Just like it was for CNN to buy photos and an exclusive interview with Dutch passenger Jasper Schuringa who helped subdue the would-be Christmas Day plane bomber in Detroit.

The NBC story got a lot of traction and more than three dozen outlets by my last count reported SPJ’s condemnation of NBC’s exclusive buy.

This week, in a trifecta defense of the First Amendment, we threw our support behind a reporter in St. Louis who was arrested for standing on a sidewalk interviewing people and videotaping police break up a protest outside a local high school.

Steve Wagman, a veteran of the Post-Dispatch, as far as we can tell from the video and reports, did nothing more than stand his ground and defend his right to be there reporting the story. He wasn’t belligerent or in any way interfered with the police doing their job. They said differently and arrested him. SPJ backed Wagman and sent a letter to officials asking for charges to be dropped.

The next day we stood behind a group of Northwestern students who are being subpoenaed by a Cook County prosecutor who wants everything from their reporting notes to their course grades. Students in a class for the Medill Innocence Project helped gather enough evidence through reporting to show a convicted man was wrongfully charged with a crime. In return for their work, some of the same prosecutors who convicted the man are now trying to bully and discredit the students and are using strong-arm tactics to get their information and make them talk in court.

SPJ, along with a number of other media organization and outlets, took a firm stand and filed an amicus brief in the Chicago judicial system this week, asking that all charges and prosecution stop.

As if that wasn’t enough, SPJ sent a letter to Congress Tuesday calling on leaders to exercise an open-door policy when it comes to debating the health care reform bill. C-SPAN has been locked out of government proceedings and the largest financial commitment by the U.S. government in our history is being shaped behind closed doors. We adamantly protested this and called on Congress and the Administration to open the doors to the behind-the-scenes discussion and let the American public really see and learn what is taking place on this landmark legislation.

So, in a matter of two weeks, we slapped a journalism organization for an ethical transgression, stood behind a falsely accused reporter trying to cover a story, filed legal papers in support of journalism students whose work has brought them vindication from authorities and demanded more transparency in our government.

Not a bad couple of weeks. Defending the free press and the public’s right to know isn’t just noble talk. It really takes place within SPJ and it’s what makes us a proud and effective group that has lasted 100 years and earned us more than 8,000 members.

The next time someone asks what SPJ does for journalism, start your response with “Where would you like me to begin?”

The message showed up in my email basket with a rather innocuous email label – SDX message. When you are accustomed to getting about 70 SPJ emails a day as the president, everything starts to blend together. I didn’t know this was coming. I wasn’t expecting what would open on my computer screen when I clicked on it. But, there before my eyes unfolded a marvelous animated tale.

As I sat there looking at photos of our founding fathers and watched as 100 years of Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalist unfolded before me, I got goose bumps. I felt an enormous sense of pride and a greater sense of responsibility as your leader. A lot has been entrusted to your current leadership. And, yes, when Thomas started telling her audience of how wonderful and valuable SPJ has been these last 100 years in the battles for press freedoms and in setting the highest ethics standards, I got a bit misty eyed.

We are 100 years old. There are not many journalism organizations that can make that claim. The principles we’ve coveted and have made us strong these past 100 years, will be the ones which continue to make us a force over the next century. It’s been my distinct privilege to be a member of SPJ the last 30 years. It’s my greatest honor to be your current president.

I hope you take a few minutes out of your busy day and watch this wonderful tale. I hope you get goose bumps as well and I hope you take Thomas’ advice to make a financial pledge to SDX so we can continue our missions. Thanks to Amy Posavac for coordinating this marvelous presentation.

We have so much to be proud of. We have so much to be thankful for and we have so much to protect and improve upon. Won’t you please do your part and keep our grand story alive?

Sessions, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has worked tirelessly the last 19 weeks with other Republicans to hold the Free Flow of Information Bill, S-448, hostage. Thursday, after weeks of stall tactics were exhausted and the barrage of amendments (nearly 30 total ) were defeated, the bill was moved to the full senate for consideration.

Not long after the vote, Sessions dug into his bag of political tricks and resorted to mischaracterizations, misinformation and fear mongering. His attempt is clear – unable to claim victory after nearly five months of debate, he wants to scare the people of Alabama into hating the press and stem the flow of information from the government to its people.

To characterize this bill as Sessions has done as a mechanism by which terrorists, rapists and child predators will be protected from investigators because of the press is patently wrong as is a dishonest attempt to create fear and gain support in Alabama when he couldn’t in senate chambers.

The Free Flow of Information bill provides journalists a shield from having to reveal their anonymous sources when stories of public interest are disseminated. This is not an absolute privilege and never has been. Many states provide protection for anonymous sources but there has never been such protection on a national level. 

Sessions isn’t truthful when he says that between 1994-2006 only 19 journalists were subpoenaed for their sources. A study by a Brigham Young University law professor shows that in 2006 alone, there were more than 3,000 nationwide. And the Department of Justice, which Sessions says rarely uses this legal reach, accounted for 335 in that single year.

When Sessions says that this is an imminent danger to national security and writes “the rejections of these and other amendments recklessly imperils the security of our citizens and our soldiers and leaves in place a bill that is deeply and fundamentally flawed,” he is mischaracterizing the bill’s language and its function.  National security measures have been carefully written into this bill. They’ve been there since the beginning and no journalist, compelled to come before a judge, can invoke the shield law when the information is militarily or criminally sensitive. A judge gets to apply a balancing test to determine what the public gets to know. Sessions would prefer that you get to know nothing.

When the senator contends that this doesn’t have the support of the intelligence and defense community, he is exaggerating to continue this fear mongering. Initial objects were voiced, amendments were added and this bill has the blessing of the Obama administration and letters of support exist from key prosecuting and intelligence leaders. He knows this, yet he clings to a secret covey of informants from the last administration, to tell him differently.

If information is the key to power, Sessions would have you believe that the real power in this country can never lie within its informed electorate, but must be tightly gripped by the government. Sessions has made it clear that he wants to safeguard as much government information as he can and news stories that unveil government corruption and misdeed have to remain secret.

As Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said to Sessions when the Alabama senator complained about the title of the bill, “I rather like the idea of a flow of information from the government to the public in a democracy.”