Today is the last day for discount rates for “Journalism 2013: Working It Out.” Visit our web site at www.spjr42013.wordpress.com for all the details.

Lots of great panels — including one featuring staff of the Steubenville, Ohio, newspaper, on coverage of the just-concluded rape case there.

Hope to see you in Dayton April 5-6!

Check out all our great programs at www.spjr42013.wordpress.com.

(Just added to the line-up: AP South Africa correspondent Jon Gambrell, a Miami University grad, who will talk about covering the Oscar Pistorius case and other big stories from the region.)

Register today at our Event Brite site: http://2013region4-es2005.eventbrite.com.

Hurry!! Best rate for conference registration end March 22. Best rates on hotels ends March 12!

Questions? Write me at newberpg@miamioh.edu.

Hope to see you in Dayton!

According to the chapter’s blog — http://wuspj.wordpress.com/ — the WU chapter won HQ approval on Dec. 21 of last year and is already up and running with 15 members.

Congrats to President Sarah Bell and all the WU crew!

Registration starts VERY SOON at www.spjr42013.wordpress.com.

Check out our progress today!

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ATHENS, Ohio—Ohio University’s annual Schuneman Symposium will feature award-winning journalists sharing stories of how and why journalism excellence still matters despite public confidence that ranks the profession below Congress.

“With all the challenges facing journalism organizations these days, excellence as a goal may seem more and more elusive,” said Robert Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. “But given what surveys say about the public’s views on journalism, striving for excellence needs to remain a goal for all of us.”

The fifth Schuneman Symposium on Photojournalism and New Media is made possible through a gift from R. Smith and Patricia Schuneman, both graduates of Ohio University and now residents of Okoboji, Iowa.

“What we hope conferees take away from this symposium is a deeper understanding of the future of mass communication in these revolutionary times of change,” said R. Smith Schuneman.

The symposium begins Feb. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in the Baker Center Ballroom and continues Feb. 26 at 9 a.m. in the Baker Center Theater. All sessions are free and open to the public.

Leading the charge for excellence in her keynote speech is Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” and senior correspondent for the “PBS NewsHour.” Ifill and the staff of “Washington Week” shared in a George Foster Peabody Award for their coverage of the 2008 presidential election.

Investigative journalist Abrahm Lustgarten from the nonprofit news organization ProPublica will start Tuesday’s sessions at 9 a.m. by discussing myths about the energy extraction process of hydraulic fracturing. Lustgarten is the recipient of a George Polk Award for environmental reporting.

Keith Jenkins from NPR will explain how to develop a visual identity with audio. He is the supervising senior producer for multimedia and received an Emmy for NPR Music’s Project Song: Moby.

The symposium welcomes OU alum Michel du Cille, associate editor for photography at The Washington Post. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he will show how photojournalists are embracing change in digital media.

Alum Meghan Louttit returns as an Emmy Award-winning multimedia producer at The New York Times where she develops Web content for the investigations desk.

Kainaz Amaria, a former student and graduate teaching assistant in OU’s School of Visual Communication, rounds out the team of presenters. She is a multimedia producer and trainer at NPR and received a Fulbright Scholarship to photographically document her hometown in India.

“Visual storytelling is about going straight to the emotional essence of the story,” she said. “Our responsibilities as photographers are to inform and move, to connect with the viewer cerebrally and — more important — viscerally.”

For more information and a complete schedule, visit the symposium’s Web page athttp://scrippsjschool.org/2013.php.

• Finance Chair — This person will oversee fundraising efforts, assemble the conference budget, pay the bills, distribute the proceeds, etc. Kevin Smith already has a lead on possible underwriters, but more are needed. If you are at ease with numbers and good at detail work, consider this position. (And if you know where to get money, let me know!!!)
• Programming Chair — This person will help determine the theme of the conference, the panel topics and the panel members. I’ve already got ideas for a couple of possible key-noters. Nerissa Young (OU adviser and longtime R4 foot soldier) sent along a great list of possible topics to start the conversation.
• Publicity/Marketing Chair — This chair will devise a “get-the-word out” strategy, using this blog, email blasts, snail mail, etc., with the help of the national staff.
• Registration chair — This person will set up an Event Brite site for registration and push out info, working with the publicity committee, to get folks to sign up.
• Contest chair — This person will handle the MOE presentation. My colleague, Sacha Bellman, very kindly agreed to coordinate the contest. (If she asks you to judge, say yes!!) So the contest chair will work with her on presenting the awards at the April 6 MOE lunch.

Committee members are needed for each chair too.

Let me know how you can help at newberpg@muohio.edu or 513.529.5893.

BTW, once we’ve got a committee in place, I’d like to schedule one in-person meeting in December or January at UD.  We’ll coordinate efforts via email otherwise.

Thanks for considering this…. and be sure to save the date and spread the word so we can lots and lots of R4 members to Dayton in April.

Region 4 director Patti Newberry, MU-SPJ president Amanda Schumaker and MU Journalism Program Director Richard Campbell participated in Bill Keller’s public lecture on campus. (Photo by Samantha Kermode)

Bill Keller, the Op-Ed columnist at The New York Times who served as executive editor from 2003-2011, spent part of his Oct. 29-31 trip to campus reporting for a column. Among his interviewees: Profs of Miami grad and veep hopeful Paul Ryan. No telling what he’ll write up for his next column — due to appear Monday, a day before the Big Election — but it’s sure to be political. Students and faculty are both eager to see the fruits of his Oxford reporting.

When he wasn’t off working for The Times, Keller was working for the Miami Journalism Program. He gave a public talk on Monday, fielding questions about Judy Miller, WMDs, Jayson Blair, NSA, Wikileaks and more. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he talked to three classes. In between the visits and the interviews, he dined on shrimp (dinner at the Miami president’s house), noshed pizza (lunch with JRN students) and drank coffee (Starbucks was among his interview venues).

He also posed for LOTS of photos, including a series of grip-n-grins at the presidents’ dinner.

Good sport. Good guest. Gracious, generous — with thoughtful, reflective responses to every question we put to him.

Next big names on campus: First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday; traveler writer Rick Steves, Nov. 12.

[A Post-Script: Keller's column, with the headline "Republican id," focused on the conservative bent of Miami students with an extended interview with Rich Hart, an econ prof and mentor to Ryan. ]

As I settle in as Region 4 director, I’d like to clean up our roster. Can you help by sending corrections to the list below? (Many of you are getting an email on this, too, but I thought I’d back it up here with a posting that I’ll revise with  your additions/deletions.) I especially need help gathering the names and email addresses of student chapter presidents.

Pro chapters

Detroit: Walter Middlebrook, president, wmiddlebrook@detnews.com.

Mid-Michigan: Melissa Anders, president, melissa.d.anders@gmail.com.

Central Ohio: Eric Lyttle, president, elyttle@theotherpaper.com.

Cleveland: Cheryl d’Mello, president, cheryldmello@hotmail.com.

Cincinnati: Alex Coolidge, president, acoolidge@enquirer.com.

Pittsburgh: Louis Florian, president, lfflorian@yahoo.com.

Student chapters:

Eastern Michigan University: Jim Pinson, adviser, james.pinson@emich.edu.

Michigan State University: Joe Grimm, adviser, joe.grimm@gmail.com.

Bowling Green State University: Mike Horning, adviser, mhornin@bgsu.edu.

Cleveland State University: Anup Kumar, adviser, akakumar@gmail.com.

John Carroll University: Carrie Buchanan, adviser, cbuchanan@jcu.com.

Miami University: Patricia Gallagher Newberry, adviser, newberpg@muohio.edu; Amanda Schumaker, president, schumaam@muohio.edu.

Ohio State University: Dan Caterinicchia, adviser, dan.cat@gmail.com; Alexis Preskar, president, preskar1@osu.edu.

Ohio University: Nerissa Young, adviser, youngn2@ohio.edu.

University of Cincinnati: Jenny Wohlfarth, adviser, jenny.wohlfarth@uc.edu.

University of Toledo: Paulette Kilmer, adviser, pkilmer@pop3.utoledo.edu.

California State University of Pennsylvania: Todd Carlisle, co-adviser, carlisle@cup.edu; Margo Wilson, co-adviser, wilson_m@cup.edu.

Duquesne University: Michael Dillon, adviser, email to come; Sarah Blaisdell, president, blaisdell@duq.edu.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania: David Loomis, adviser, iupspj@yahoo.com.

Point Park College: Helen Fallon, adviser, hfallon@ppc.edu.

Waynesburg University: Sarah Bell, president, bel7461@waynesburg.edu.

Marshall University: Hilary Groutage-Weible, adviser, weible5@marshall.edu.

West Virginia University: Tom Stewart, adviser, tom.stewart@mail.wvu.edu.

OK, journalists: Edit me!

Recently back in Cincinnati after a brief foray into Chicago journalism, I was juggling some minor freelance assignments and child-rearing. A teaching gig for the fall of 1997 — albeit with no job security — sounded pretty good.

Sixteen years into the teaching biz — I’m now a senior lecturer in the Miami Journalism Program — I’m not sure I’ve ever properly thanked Kevin for that call. So here it is: Thanks.

Kevin, a long and faithful member of SPJ’s Ethics Committee, will do me another big favor Thursday when he lectures at my Ethics in Journalism class.  Students spent part of class on the excellent SPJ Ethics Web pages today working up questions. We’re ready for your visit, Mr. Smith.