It’s been three weeks since my last post, and a lot has happened in SPJ and the journalism world in that short time. Here are a few highlights:

Earlier this week, we lost journalism legend Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post. He inspired an entire generation of journalists and took editing to a new level. He will be missed. Here is a nice piece in The Washington Post remembering his contributions.

SPJ Georgia and regional director Michael Koretzky fought for and supported George Chidi, a freelance journalist in Georgia, after Thomas Owens, a candidate for DeKalb County commissioner, sought a temporary protective order and filed an application for a warrant on stalking charges against the journalist. The protective order and application were both dismissed, upholding the First Amendment and helping to protect Chidi’s right to do his job. Thanks to SPJ Georgia and Koretzky for fighting on Chidi’s behalf.

SPJ, the Student Press Law Center and 18 other organizations sent a letter to education leaders to renounce the actions of the Neshaminy School District in Bucks County, Pennsylvania for punishing student journalists and their adviser for refusing to use the term “redskins” in the Playwickian, a school publication. Principal Rob McGee suspended the journalism adviser for two days without pay, removed the Playwickian editor from her position for a month, and the newspaper was fined $1,200, the cost of the June edition which omitted the Native American mascot name.

In other SPJ news:

The membership committee, led by Robyn Sekula, is working on a master plan to outline its goals and strategies for the coming year. The committee also named its October Volunteer of the Month – Lee Anne Peck of the University of Northern Colorado. Congratulations, Lee Anne!

The SPJ international journalism community, led by Carlos Restrepo, is also working on a master plan, breaking its work into three primary goals and subcommittees. More on that once the community has had time to review and comment on it.

The journalism education committee is publishing a book in January titled “Still Captive? History, Law and the Teaching of High School Journalism.” The project is the result of three years of research and a survey of nearly 250 Journalism Education Association members in 47 states.

The ethics committee continues to be busy, educating others on the revised Code of Ethics, preparing supplemental materials for SPJ.org and speaking on ethical issues. Check out this post from ethics chair Andrew Seaman on the ethical reporting of Ebola.

The awards and honors committee, led by Andy Schotz, has been working with Abbi Martzall, SPJ’s awards coordinator, to review our awards criteria and make recommendations for changes. Sarah Bauer, the committee’s co-chair, is coordinating the swaps for local and regional SPJ chapter contests. If she hasn’t already, she’ll be contacting awards coordinators in the near future to plan for swaps for next year’s contest season.

The Generation J committee, led by Claudia Amezcua, has been working with her committee on its plan for the year and will be working with secretary-treasurer Lynn Walsh and past president John Ensslin on the recommendations made by the futures task force in June. Two goals for Gen J this year are to broaden the committee’s mission to include journalists at all career levels and to partner with other committees to offer training opportunities via joint Google hangouts.

Led by SPJ past president David Cuillier, the FOI committee has been hard at work, developing a blogging and tweeting strategy for the committee to handling breaking FOI news and to be proactive on FOI issues. For FOI resources, check out the FOI page on SPJ.org.

At SPJ headquarters, staff has been busy on many fronts, including planning for EIJ15 (yes, already!), sending out new ethics posters and bookmarks, working on affinity partnerships to offer additional benefits to our members, and developing communications strategies for how and when to communicate with the public and other media organizations.

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Phoenix on behalf of SPJ where I talked to ASU journalism students about how to get started freelancing and get those first critical clips. I also met with SDX president Robert Leger and had a fun evening with SPJ members of the Valley of the Sun Pro chapter where we celebrated some local journalism and PR successes and talked about what’s next for SPJ in the year ahead. I’ve also been working with communications staff at HQ to create an outreach plan to help promote our communities. Up next: a visit to Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington, finding a volunteer to help support our communities, and planning our January executive committee meeting.

I am sure I have omitted a letter SPJ signed onto or committee projects and, if so, I apologize. The omission is unintentional, but email me so I can include it next time. As always, thanks for your support of SPJ. If you have questions, concerns or ideas, you can email me at SPJDANA @ GMAIL.COM.

Like many in SPJ, I have Google Alerts set to deliver links to any stories that mention the Society of Professional Journalists. Here are a few of the more interesting items I’ve come across lately.

First, kudos to the Hofstra chapter of SPJ for hosting a very timely program called “Journalists and Police: Why can’t we just get along?”

Here’s a link to a story and video on the program in the Long Island Report.

I liked the fact that the program provoked discussion between journalists and a representative of a local law enforcement agency.

In light of the recent series of arrests and detention of journalists covering “Occupy” demonstrations, I believe this kind of dialog will be helpful to preventing such incidents going forward.

I also found this New York Times column by Michael Powell. What was especially troubling was the detail on how New York City police used press credentials to cull reporters and photographers from the crowd, removing them to a distance where they could not see what was happening.

A tip of the fedora also to the Middle Tennessee SPJ chapter, for being part of a successful effort to obtain release of court files and help shine a light on an interesting case that had called attention to international adoptions. The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press has more on the story.

I find there’s a lot to be thankful for in the efforts that individual SPJ chapters are engaged in.

I’m also thankful for some recent good news. For the first time in a long while, our membership numbers are running ahead of last year’s totals.

It’s too soon to call this a trend, but it’s not too soon to do something about it.

Next week, Membership Chairwoman Holly Edgell is organizing an effort to call lapsed members and try to get them to renew. A similar effort proved helpful last year. We call it the Calling Corps.

Holly could always use a few extra volunteers who would be willing to make about five phone calls in this effort. If you would like to help, please contact Holly this week at dateline.belize@gmail.com.

You’ll be making a difference by helping SPJ stay strong so we can continue in the kinds of efforts I’ve highlighted here.

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It was with sadness that I read about the recent death of Robert Estabrook, who joined SPJ in May 1939.

Mr. Estabrook was a former publisher and editor of the Lakeville Journal in Connecticut and a former Washington Post editorial page editor. In 2008, he became part of the Connecticut SPJ Hall of Fame.

Here is a link to a story on the chapter website about his remarkable life and career.