Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is coming to the University of Memphis on March 25 as the featured speaker for the annual Freedom of Information Congress, which is sponsored by the U of M’s J-school and student SPJ chapter. Read the attached press release for more info.
News release on FOI
I pay a lot of attention in my day job to what’s happening in the changing news ecosystem, as some call it. Jan Schaffer, executive director of J-Lab, is one of the people I pay attention to. Her outfit funds new journalism startups, a lot of them so-called “citizen journalism” efforts. She’s dropped that term in favor of a new one — new media makers. Anyway, when she speaks, I try to listen. Here’s a link to a USC Annenberg story about a speech she gave there recently: http://www.annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/100224Schaffer_Post.aspx
I encourage you to click on the link at the bottom of the story to her full prepared remarks. You’ll be enlightened and provoked.
To attend the Region 12 Spring Conference in Knoxville. The East Tennessee Pro chapter is hosting the annual professional-development and networking shindig. You can find out more by going to the following:
Web site for conference information in Knoxville: http://etspj.org/?page_id=1493
Registration: http://etspj.org/?page_id=1552
Let’s congratulate the Northwest Arkansas Pro Chapter’s new officers. And give a thumbs up to the chapter’s new social media efforts.
President: Ray Minor, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers
Vice President: Kevin Kinder, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers
Secretary/Treasurer: Katherine Shurlds, University of Arkansas Journalism Department
Social Media Chairman: Christopher Spencer, Ozarks Unbound, an online news magazine
Membership Chairman: Marci Manley, KNWA
Katherine had this to say about Christopher Spence: As seen by our new position of social media chairman, we’re trying to be very multimedia. Please encourage everyone to visit/become a fan of Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (search for it). Christopher knows a lot about social media and he’s posting lots of stuff journalists are interested in, not just folks in our chapter.
Way to go NWA!
Region 12 SPJ’ers,
Here’s an alert from Indianapolis. Let’s get busy and get those contest entries in.
Here’s an update from Indianapolis:
The deadlines for two of our most distinguished awards contests are right around the corner.
Mark of Excellence Awards Deadline: Wednesday, Jan. 27.
With just one week to go, make sure the excellent students you work with know they can enter their work for the MOE awards contest. The general rules
Sigma Delta Chi Awards Deadline: Friday, Feb. 12.
The exceptional professional journalists in your life also deserve to be recognized. Please share with them the general rules
And one of the best parts of this year’s contests is that participants may submit their entries online
LONG MESSAGE ALERT!!!! But trust me, it’s worth it J
We only have a couple weeks remaining in 2009, and you know what that means: 2010 is upon us. I’m not talking about the year 2010. I’m talking about our goal of increasing membership by 2,010 in the coming year. If you missed the November announcement regarding the membership campaign, it is pasted at the bottom of this message.
Over the next 12 months, please do your best to recruit new members at every turn. In the process, however, don’t lose sight of those who are already in your ranks. It may surprise you, but the real key to building membership is keeping the ones you already have. Need proof? Did you know that SPJ gets about 200-300 new members every month! That’s 2,400-3,600 a year. Yet, our membership is sliding. This is because we are losing members faster than we are signing up new ones. Given the state of the industry and economy, this is understandable. But we must refuse to accept it. If we simply retain the members we have, but continue to bring in new folks at the same rate, we would hit our goal with ease!
One of the best way to retain (and recruit) members is to provide them with programs and services they find valuable. Below is a sample of program ideas from chapters around the country. These ideas were gleaned from the reports that regional directors recently completed after speaking with chapter presidents. Hopefully you had a chance to speak with your RD.
Lastly, don’t forget to tout SPJ’s advocacy efforts to new and current members. Many folks, including those who may be leaving the profession, still feel very strongly about the First Amendment and the vital role a free press plays in our democracy. It’s why many of us entered the profession. And because it is illegal for SPJ to use grant money for legislative and lobbying actions, membership dues are the main source of funding for our advocacy efforts. Without your members’ dues, it would be impossible for SPJ to fight for public records across the country. It would be impossible for SPJ to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill for a federal shield law. It would be impossible for SPJ to speak out against corrupt governments, within our boarders and abroad. So, the next time you hear one of your members tell you they aren’t renewing because they are leaving the profession, ask them: Do they no longer feel that a free and open press is vital to a well-informed public? Do they still believe in the important role journalists play? Explain to them: SPJ is more than programs and mixers. We are the leading voice of journalism. We help make our democracy better. Their continued membership, even if they are leaving the profession, is the only way we can continue that never-ending fight.
Off the Soap Box and onto the programs.
The D.C. Pro Chapter recently established a freelance group that meets monthly. They recognized that one of the fast growing segments of journalists is freelancers, and allowing them to connect with other freelancers through the chapter is a service that no other group in the area is providing. Does your chapter have a lot of freelancers? Better yet – does your chapter have a lot of “prospective” freelance members? Thanks to chapter president Andy Schotz for this idea.
The Chicago Headline Club recently launched a Media Training Institute to train journalists to work in multimedia. The training began in October and was conducted over three Saturdays, ending in December. When most chapters do training of this sort, they provide a steep discount for members. This is a huge member benefit, and many folks will join SPJ on the spot to take advantage of the discount. And current members will renew to keep the price discounts for all chapter programs. Thanks to chapter president Beth Konrad for this tidbit.
The Louisville Pro chapter conducted a program with the Louisville Bar Association on the First Amendment vs. the Sixth Amendment. About 50 people attended, with 60 percent being lawyers. Did you know that non-journalists can join SPJ as an Associate? The national dues are $90. Do you think there are any lawyers in your area who might have an interest in getting involved in your chapter? Which brings me to another quick point: When contemplating member recruitment efforts, think outside of newsrooms. Freelancers, lawyers, those working in non-traditional media jobs (such as alumni magazine staff, online journalists, those working for non-profits), etc. If they don’t fit the criteria of a “journalist” encourage them to join as an Associate. Shout-out to chapter president Steve York for sharing this great idea.
These three ideas only scrape the surface of some of the great programs going on out there. If you know of others, or want to know of others, drop me a note and I’ll do my best to share them.
I apologize for the long note. If you made it this far, I commend you. And I promise the next one will be shorter.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions. And remember, we are always here to help.
Joe Skeel
Executive Director
Society of Professional Journalists
2010 IN 2010
On Jan. 1, SPJ will launch its “2010 in 2010” campaign. As the name suggests, we want to recruit 2,010 new members during the upcoming year. To make this campaign fun, we have decided to turn it into a chapter contest.
Here are the contest guidelines:
1. We will have three categories: large chapter, small chapter and campus chapter.
2. You should recruit new members at every opportunity…awards, professional development programs, mixers, in the hallway, at the park, in the bathroom, etc. Just ask!
3. Anyone from your area who signs up during the year (Jan. 1 – Dec. 31) will automatically be awarded to your chapter. Meaning, someone doesn’t have to sign up at a chapter event for you to get credit. We are going to assume that your chapter has spread the word and people came to us because of your great work.
4. We will track the results at HQ, but provide regular updates so all can see how the contest is going.
5. Membership applications and payment (mailed or online) must be received by Dec. 31, 2010 HQ to be counted.
6. To up the ante a bit, we will count new AND renewing members. After all, it doesn’t do us much good to sign up 2,010 new members if we lose 3,000. In addition to recruiting, we need you to focus on meeting the needs of those already in your ranks, and showing them value of SPJ.
The chapters who finish in the top three in each category will win:
1st place – three complimentary convention registrations for 2011 (no travel or meal costs included). A $555 value.
2nd place – two complimentary convention registrations for 2011 (no travel or meal costs included). A $370 value.
3rd place – one complimentary convention registration for 2011 (no travel or meal costs included). A $185 value.
Our hope is that you will all accept this challenge in the spirit that is intended. We simply ask that you do your best to help restore our ranks. We know everyone can’t win. And if you come across a program or idea that is successful, please send it along so that we can share it with other chapter leaders. We want you all to do well!
Joe Skeel
Executive Director
Society of Professional Journalists
Sigma Delta Chi Foundation
3909 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN 46208
(317) 927-8000, ext. 216
Call for entries, 60th Green Eyeshade Awards,
a Society of Professional Journalists competition
PRESS RELEASE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
SARAH PRICKETT, awards administrator: sprickett@arkansasonline.com
SONNY ALBARADO, SPJ Region 12 director: salbarado@arkansasonline.com
JENN ROWELL, SPJ Region 3 director: rowell83@gmail.com
LITTLE ROCK — The Green Eyeshade Awards celebrates its 60th year in 2010 and invites journalists from 11 southeastern states to submit their best work in one of profession’s oldest regional journalism contests
The Green Eyeshade Awards honor excellence in professional journalism across several media platforms — newspapers, magazines, radio, television, photography and online.
Entries must have been published or broadcast in calendar year 2009 and created by journalists working in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or West Virginia.
The deadline for entries is Feb. 19, 2010.
Members of Society of Professional Journalists are eligible to enter the Green Eyeshade Awards for $40. The nonmember fee is $60.
Complete contest rules and an entry form can be found at www.greeneyeshade.org. You can also find the rules and categories on the Region 12 blog (http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/region12/).
The Atlanta Professional Chapter of SPJ started the Green Eyeshade Awards in 1950 to recognize journalistic excellence in the southeast. Regional directors for the Society now administer the competition. Proceeds fund SPJ activities in Regions 3, 12, 2, 4 and 5.
Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry, works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists, and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.
Contact Awards Administrator Sarah Pricket at (501) 399-3638 or sprickett@arkansasonline.com for more information.
The University of Arkansas-Fayetteville journalism department sponsored a forum at the beginning of the month that warrants your attention. What follows is the piece written by Christopher Spencer, a former reporter for The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas who started up the online magazine Ozarks Unbound after the newspaper laid him off earlier this year.
Text of the story follows. The link is here:
By Christopher Spencer
Ozarks Unbound
For decades, newspapers created information monopolies throughout most of the country.
New challenges and challengers on the Internet are tearing into newspaper’s financial bottom lines and competing as news sources, destroying those old monopolies, said Gordon Witkin, managing editor at the Center for Public Integrity.
Witkin served on a panel Thursday titled “The Fog of New Media” exploring the current state of news media and what the future means with the growing prominence of online forms of journalism. The panel was hosted by the University of Arkansas’ journalism department.
The long-standing divide between business realities and newsroom concerns created naivete among journalists in the business of news. That naivete leaves news gatherers in a position where they now struggle with how to support themselves with their skills, said panelist Matt Waite
Waite is a news technologist at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and co-founder of a media consulting company called Hot Type. He started his journalism career more than a decade ago at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Newspapers struggle with dropping circulation numbers and dwindling advertising revenue, Witkin said. It’s time for journalists to better understand the market realities of making journalism pay.
“The underlying problem here is that those of us who are ‘Capital J’ journalists, we can’t really ignore the business aspects of any of this anymore. We were really, for decades, lulled into a false sense of security because newspapers were virtual monopolies and that meant that good journalism … good journalism made a lot of money, unbelievable amounts of money,” said Witkin.
“Truckloads of it,” interjected Waite.
Witkin continued.
“So we fooled ourselves into thinking that the corporations that owned these outlets were really interested in good journalism. In many cases, they weren’t. In many cases today, they are not. They’re businessmen. They believe that what they have is akin to a widget company. And if they are making a lot money, great. If they are not, then lay off 50 reporters.
“So we can’t ignore that anymore, we have to find ways to make this pay if the way we want to come at this business is going to survive.”
Newspapers and online news sources are still struggling with how to make the Internet pay enough to support quality journalism, Waite said.
These groups must learn to correctly value and define their audience and deliver that audience to advertisers.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette chose to pull its content behind a pay wall and requires readers to pay a subscription fee mainly as a defensive gesture to protect their print newspapers, said panelist Conan Gallaty, online director for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The Northwest Arkansas edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, along with other WEHCO Media and Stephens Media properties merged into Northwest Arkansas Newspapers on Sunday.
The Stephens Media news properties are expected to require a paid subscription online by Dec. 1.
Gallaty said the second part of the company’s online policy is to provide original and different products online. Unique sites such as 501pets.com, a Web site geared toward pet owners in central Arkansas, is an example of this.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s central Arkansas Web site is arkansasonline.com and Northwest Arkansas Newspapers are found at nwanews.com. Gallaty praised the efforts at both of his company’s sites.
“There’s a ton of free original content on that site and on arkansasonline, breaking news, photos. There’s a lot of reasons to go there beyond paid content from the paper,” he said.
One student asked the panel whether it’s still worthwhile to pursue a journalism degree.
“It’s a wonderful and a terrible time to be pursuing a journalism education,” Waite answered.
“It’s wonderful time because this proliferation of choice might also indicate a proliferation of employment opportunities. You don’t have to look at the newspaper industry and think ‘Oh boy, the newspaper industry is in deep trouble.’”
“They are just one of many now doing journalism on the web, in print, in magazines. The road is far far far more wide open for you than it was for me I graduated in 1997. My choices were pretty much the papers or find something else to do.”
The 40-hour-a-week job is quickly disappearing. The new journalism jobs reward flexibility, aggressiveness and an entrepreneurial bent, Waite said.
“If you are fighter, this is a great time. You will have a job.”
Witkin added that the number of skills that needed by a young reporter are now more broad than they were. It used to be mainly a language field with writing and editing courses dominating.
Now, web design, graphics, video production and computer science are much-needed skills, he said
Journalism professor Katherine Shurlds told the panelists that herself and others in the Baby Boomer generation came up in newspapers at a time when journalists reported the news and didn’t care anything about advertisers.
“I think that the implosion of the news print business model has shown us that maybe the complete separation of advertising and, not so much reporting, but journalism, was maybe naive and ultimately harmful. It is naive to think that you can completely isolate the people who pay the bills from the product and still survive. And that we were able to pull it off for as long as we did may be a historical accident of monopoly pricing and power,” Waite said.
That doesn’t mean writing ad copy for advertisers, he added. But editorial staff should be aware when news content draws a specific audience and learn to market that, he said.
The wall between editorial choice and advertisers shouldn’t be breached, but being more sophisticated in marketing content is necessary, he said.
A couple of blog posts worth reading on a topic near and dear to many of us.
http://codybrown.name/2009/10/25/a-public-can-talk-to-itself-why-the-future-of-news-is-actually-pretty-clear/
http://reinventingthenewsroom.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/the-public-method-of-journalism-and-other-monday-reads/#comments
Notorious in song and legend, Knoxville is home to the vibrant East Tennessee Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which is sponsoring an “Ethics Poker” night this Sunday, Nov. 1.
ETSPJ is asking you to RSVP to amanda@hellbenderpress.com for this event, which is open to the public.
That means, you don’t have to be a journalist or a member of ETSPJ, to learn about journalism ethics by playing Texas Hold-Em.
You also don’t have to know anything about poker to enjoy the educational game.
The free evening of poker — 6 to 9 p.m. — will be held at the Sunsphere, at the corner of Henry and Clinch, in K-town.
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