So as SPJ’s brand-new Region 3 director, I recently learned I’m half in charge of a journalism contest called The Green Eyeshade Awards.

I know what you’re thinking: That’s great, Koretzky, because there just aren’t enough journalism contests out there.

This one is regional (covering 11 southeastern states) and old (62 years and counting). Last year, it got nearly 500 entries. That’s good news, because the entry fees pay for all sorts of groovy SPJ programs, including my favorite, Will Write for Food.

But a handful of categories brought in exactly zero entries. Some were so specific, it wasn’t a real surprise – like “Public Service in Newsletter Journalism.”

But others were big and broad: “Illustrations” and “Magazine Graphics.” And none of the graphic-design or photo categories hit double digits. Example: “Magazine Feature Photography” got two entries.

Why? Because our website sucked last year. It looked like this (click to embiggen)…

…until I redesigned it last weekend.

Now this may sound shallow to some – when I talk design to many SPJ leaders, they smile dismissively – but looks matter. Graphic designers (and I’m one, sorta) aren’t going to enter a contest whose website looks like shit any more than a print reporter will spend cash entering a contest whose site is littered with misspellings and run-on sentences.

The Green Eyeshade Awards aren’t exactly racking up entry fees in the online categories, either. I think crappy design is a big reason why.

I’m an editor for a national personal finance site, and based on last year’s Green Eyeshades site, my boss wouldn’t fork over $40 to enter the “Best Blog” category.

So who’s to blame here?

Not my Green Eyeshade predecessors. They got jobs and lives that don’t involve graphic design. (Whereas I work at home and have no life. Or friends.)

This isn’t just about the Green Eyeshades. When I talk to other SPJ chapters who run contests, they report huge drops in the traditional print categories, as daily newspapers stop paying the entry fees for their ever-shrinking staffs. Those chapters report little progress luring online and design entrants. That’s because they don’t know how.

So no one’s really to blame, but I know who really needs to fix it.

SPJ National has a clean-looking site (which you’re on right now) and a graphic designer on staff. But chapter leaders and even RDs seldom have the skills, money, or time to get their own contest sites redesigned.

SPJ HQ needs to offer free design work for RDs and chapter presidents. Yes, I’m asking HQ to take on more work for the same pay – as we’re all doing in these crappy economic times. This isn’t an esoteric request, either. Contest money is often the only cold, hard cash chapters have for programming. And without programming, there’s no compelling reason to join SPJ.

As chairman of SPJ’s new Blue Sky Committee, I’m going to make this one of my proposals to the SPJ president in January. I’ll explain it more on the Blue Sky blog next week. But if you got any ideas or insults until then, email me.

Dear SPJ regional conference director:

So, are you having fun yet?

If you’re like me, you agreed to organize your region’s conference because you wanted to book mind-blowing speakers. But you didn’t realize the job – and it is a job – would bog you down with mind-numbing tech like setting up a website and a PayPal account.

Well, now you don’t have to.

In 2009, I took charge of the Region 3 conference in sunny South Florida. I built a 12-page website in Dreamweaver and set up a PayPal account linked to my chapter’s bank account. What a giant pain in my ass that was.

But now my pain is your gain…

PAYPAL FOR ALL

These days, you gotta offer online registration and payment. But setting up a PayPal account is much harder than using one. So here’s some advice: Don’t bother. Use ours.

For our 2009 regional, SPJ South Florida opened a PayPal account. We still have it. We’re offering it to any conference director who’s interested.

We’ll handle the back end and generate reports for you (so you can be assured we’re not ripping you off). Whenever you want, our treasurer will cut you a check for whatever your owed at the moment. You’ll pay the usual PayPal fees, but we won’t charge you anything extra.

Why is SPJ South Florida being so friendly? Well, besides just being nice folk, we have an ulterior motive: We want SPJ National to offer this convenience next year. If we can prove how easy it is, then maybe it happens.

Speaking just for me, I believe the national board and headquarters staff should handle as many of the boring logistics as possible – so our members have more time to do the fun, creative stuff. That’s how you boost both membership and morale.

If you’re interested, email mkoretzky@spj.org.

AN APP FOR THAT

How cool would it be if your regional conference had a smartphone app just like the national Excellence in Journalism convention did in New Orleans?

A company called Guidebook offers a small-scale mobile app that really works. How do I know? I’ve messed around with it, and I’ve quizzed a company rep at length.

I organize a college media convention in Manhattan, but it’s too big to take advantage of the free app, which limits the number of downloads to 500. But if your conference has less than 500 attendees, this could be perfect. And it’s a breeze to use.

The Guidebook website says the free app was only available till Sept. 30, but I can get that extended for you. If a number of conference organizer desire the app, we can hit up Guidebook together in one fell swoop.

Email me if you’re interested.

EASY WEBSITES

Last year, some regional conferences used a free website called Eventbrite to promote themselves and register folks. It’s not a bad way to go. But it’s also not the easiest on the eyes. And it doesn’t give you much room to blog about your amazing events in advance, much less cover what’s happening.

So check out what the Asian American Journalists Association did with an equally free Tumblr site for its national convention this year. If you’ve never tried Tumblr, it’s simple to use and easy to update.

Of course, if you’re working a large regional conference that partners with an active chapter, this isn’t a problem. Check out Region 1, which is the first to have its website go live and really has its shit together – thanks to the Press Club of Long Island. But if you don’t have that kind of support, check out Tumblr or Eventbrite.

A PRETTY SCHEDULE

The problem with Eventbrite and Tumblr is that the list of all your sessions is confusing if you have them running on tracks – which means two or more sessions are presented at the same time.

Sched takes care of that in a very appealing way.

Basically, Sched makes a color-coordinated flowchart of your sessions. It’s easy to scan, and getting more info is just a click away. Check out what the Texas Tribune Festival looked like. Cool, huh?

Since Sched is free, even the excellent organizers in Region 1 could use it – just plug in the sessions and then link to it from your homepage.

So that’s every pair of shoes in the place. Hope it helps. Any questions, holler.

Earlier this month as the SPJ National Convention in Washington, D.C., I ended my third term as Region 3 director. After six years, it was time to step down. Your new regional director is Darcie Lunsford, real estate editor at the South Florida Business Journal. Darcie has done great work with the South Florida Pro Chapter. I leave you in capable hands.

I’ve so enjoyed meeting and working with all of you over the last six years. I am fortunate to have such a wonderful SPJ family. Please don’t hesitate to contact me for anything and do stay in touch.

After three terms (six years) on the SPJ board of directors, I’m stepping down as Region 3 director. I’m excited to announce this year’s candidate: Darcie Lunsford, current president of the South Florida Pro Chapter and real estate editor for the South Florida Business Journal. I’ll be leaving Region 3 in very capable hands.

Read more about Darcie and the other candidates for SPJ’s national offices online.

Please take a moment to read this posting from George Daniels at the University of Alabama on his experience at the Ted Scripps Leadership Institute:

The Scripps experience was just what I needed going into my first full school year as the campus chapter co-adviser here at the University of Alabama.  I’ve been so focused on the logistics of getting the chapter off and running that I missed the “bigger picture.”

Scripps gave me a “big picture” view of what we do at the local level. That’s not to say that making sure we have by-laws and programs planned and fliers posted aren’t important tasks.  But, the impact that we should be having in our area is not nearly where it could be. When you talk with other chapters at an event like the Scripps Leadership Institute, you see that.

The Scripps Institute also gave me a “big picture” view of SPJ at a national level. In talking with other chapter leaders from as far away as Alaska, I could see much more clearly the nationwide challenge we have in areas of ethics, freedom of information, diversity and journalism professional development.

Best of all, I came back with some great ideas to implement locally when the school year starts. In particular, I picked up a strategy for involving freshmen officers on the executive committee. The members of the “SPJ street team”  will bring their enthusiasm to the campus group while also working the streets to recruit other students to get involved. At the same time, they’re able to be groomed to be officers in future years. I hope to present the “street team” concept to my chapter officers as we meet this month.

You can read more about my Scripps experience in the posting on my
BAMAPRODUCER web log.

Some of our Region 3 members went to Indianapolis earlier this month for the Ted Scripps Leadership Retreat. This program is an excellent way for new chapter leaders to learn more about SPJ while getting some awesome tips from fellow chapter leaders around the country.

I asked Ted Geltner, with the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Florida and the incoming president of the North Central Florida SPJ Chapter, to share some thoughts on his trip to Scripps Leadership Retreat.

From Ted: I did have a great time in Indy. The program was excellent, and it was interesting to meet SPJ folks from across the country and the share ideas and issues with them. It’s great to see that so many other chapters are motivated and enthusiastic about the organization. North Central Florida SPJ will be stealing ideas for events and programs from chapters big and small. We’re going to get together soon and put in place a plan for the next year based on some of the things I learned at the conference.

The South Florida Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has asked the Miami-Dade Police Department to open an inquiry into the February arrest of television journalist Michael Kirsch who had been investigating allegations against the department and its director, said Chapter President Darcie Lunsford.

A chapter committee began an informal investigation last month into the February arrest of Mr. Kirsch. The reporter contends he was assaulted and treated harshly with no provocation during a traffic stop near his home when he was off-duty with his family. The SPJ committee led by Lunsford and board members Sam Terilli, Julie Kay, Bill Hirschman and John Hopkins reviewed several documents and interviewed Mr. Kirsch.
While the committee continues to look into the matter and has requested police records, it felt there are sufficient questions meriting an official inquiry by the department.
As a result, the chapter sent a letter this month to Director Robert Parker requesting “a department inquiry into how the officer responded once Mr. Kirsch, employed at the time as an investigative reporter at WFOR CBS 4, stepped out of his automobile at the roadside.”

The letter continued, “Nobody should be subjected to detention that is not made necessary and appropriate by the circumstances and the actions of the individual. Nor should police behavior in any case degrade or punish a member of the public. Any punishment should follow charges and judicial action. Mr. Kirsch believes he was subjected to unnecessarily harsh treatment. “
The letter added, “This minor traffic stop and the exchange between the officer and Mr. Kirsch appear to have escalated beyond all reason. Even the state’s attorney appears to find the multiple felony charges against Kirsch, including assault on a police officer, questionable dropping all to a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest without violence. Mr. Kirsch is contesting this. “
For more information, contact Darcie Lunsford at dlunsford@bizjournals.com or 954-949-7523, or our website http://www.spjsofla.net/

MIAMI, May 19, 2007 – The best in Florida journalism, from heart-moving accounts of personal hardship to dogged investigative reporting on government waste and inaction, was recognized this evening at the 13th annual Sunshine State Awards dinner.

The reporting team of Debbie Cenziper and Larry Lebowitz at The Miami Herald won 2007′s top honors, the James Batten Award for Public Service, for their series House of Lies, about years of failure by a Miami-based public housing agency to build promised homes and apartments for low-income families.

The same body of work also won a first in the large-newspaper category of the Gene Miller Awards for Investigative Reporting, presented in honor of the late Herald reporter and editor.  Among small newspapers, first went to Janine A. Zeitlin and colleagues at the Naples Daily News, whose reporting on “human trafficking” took them to Guatemala for a close-up look at families so impoverished they sell their daughters.

The complete list of winners is here.  The 1,282 entries of 2006 work by writers, editors, artists, broadcasters, photographers and web producers were evaluated by professional journalists from SPJ chapters outside Florida.  The contest supports the Society’s South Florida professional-development programs and scholarships for young men and women preparing for journalism careers.

The South Florida Pro Chapter is hosting its 2007 Sunshine State Awards banquet May 19 in Boca Raton. Keynote speaker is Philip Meyer, Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of North Carolina and author of The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. Tickets are $38; $20 for students. For more information and a list of the finalists, click here.

Each year the SPJ student chapter at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., participates in SPJ’s High School Essay Contest. Students are asked to write about First Amendment freedoms and issues. Kudos to Winthrop for getting behind this great program. Read about this year’s winners here.