DATELINE – DC SPJ
What’s inside
Holiday party
Reserve a spot now for SPJ D.C. Chapter Holiday Mingle Dec. 10
Mix and Mingle with members and friends at our holiday party Thursday, Dec. 10, in a private room at Gordon Biersch in downtown Washington, 900 F St. NW.
Time: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Be sure to come early – our reservation for the room ends promptly at 8 p.m.
Catch up with your chapter colleagues, toast the season and help recognize longtime SPJ members with pins from SPJ’s national office.
We’ll have a selection of hot appetizers, salad and dessert. Cost is $10 per SPJ member and $15 per non-member. Attendees will be able to purchase drinks at the bar.
Make plans now to attend and pay in advance; cost at the door will be $15 per SPJ member and $20 per non-member.
Honoring longtime members
Congratulations to several members of our Chapter for their long and loyal ties to SPJ.
Among those celebrating 15 years with our organization are: Billy Abshaw, Ira R. Allen, Hazel Becker, Mike Cavender and Shayla E. Shrieves.
Those commemorating 20 years of involvement are: Maura Kelly Lannan and Dennis Redmont (who is now living in Rome, Italy, but remains affiliated with the Washington, D.C., Chapter.)
Those with 25 years with SPJ include: Carol E. Bennett, Irwin Chapman, Charles R. E. Lewis and Donna Marie Nelson.
Our duo for 35 years is Steve Geimann and Timothy F. Schick.
For 40 years, we salute Jane Ann Wilder
For 50 years, we salute Henry Wieland Jr.
We appreciate their participation throughout the years in SPJ! Our national membership office honors those with special longevity anniversaries with a pin.
For any of those able to attend the Chapter’s Holiday Party on Dec. 10, chapter President Julie Asher will make the presentation. For those unable to attend, the pins will be sent in the mail.
Want to judge national Mark of Excellence journalism contest entries?
Can you share your journalism expertise by drawing on your years of experience to help judge the student journalism — print, television, radio and online — submitted for SPJ’s annual Mark of Excellence competition?
Volunteer judging will begin around Feb. 1-8, 2016, with a couple of weeks to complete it.
The judging is done online – and you’re being asked now because your commitment is needed by Dec. 10, so that judges’ contact info can be entered into the judging platform and passwords assigned in preparation for the entries to be assigned to judges ahead of when the actual judging starts.
We’re in Region 2, but you’ll be judging student journalism from another region. Amy Fickling, coordinator for Region 2’s participation this year, needs as many judges as possible to commit – even if a few might end up being alternates – as it’s hard to predict how many entries will eventually be submitted. For 2015, all those who volunteered were much needed and duly assigned several categories each, so don’t hesitate to step up if you can fit this into your busy schedule.
Most all categories have a large (student enrollment of 10,000 or more) and a small (under 10,000) subsection. Examples of these categories: Newspaper Breaking News Reporting, Newspaper General News Reporting, Newspaper Sports Writing, Newspaper General Column Writing.
The radio, television, online and magazine categories all compete against each other (i.e., no distinction between large and small). Some categories within the newspapers also have no distinction, such as editorial writing and sports column writing. Also being judged are photography, photo illustrations and editorial cartooning.
This is a great opportunity to get experience with online judging, if you haven’t tried it yet. It’s also a window on how well our journalism education programs are preparing students for the professional world.
All past judges are invited to help out again (and will be asked individually)! New volunteers welcome!
Contact Amy Fickling by email at the chapter account (spjdcchapter@gmail.com) to let her know of your interest or to suggest others who may be interested in judging. Please indicate categories you think you would prefer to judge. Put “MOE call for judges” in the subject line.
Here is a link to national SPJ’s page with all the details (including categories and submission guidelines) about the Mark of Excellence competition, a guide to selecting preferred categories: http://www.spj.org/a-moe.asp
Oldies but goodies
Voice of America visit
Back on April 14, the SPJ D.C. chapter held a mid-day program at the Voice of America to take “An Inside Look at Foreign Reporting From the USA.”
Nafisa Safarova, who is a reporter at VOA and an SPJ D.C. board member, spearheaded the organization of the program, which drew more than 30 SPJers to VOA headquarters on Independence Avenue, not too far from the National Mall.
The visitors took a tour of the VOA studios, which was followed by a briefing by its executive editor and some of its correspondents.
“If we don’t have credibility, we don’t have an audience,” Masood Farivar, who is VOA’s Washington-based chief of its Afghan service, told the group. “If we don’t have an audience, we don’t have impact.”
“We select stories based on news values, not on whether or not it sells,” he added.
An Afghanistan-born writer, journalist and book author, Farivar was previously with Pajhwok Afghan News and was a Knight Fellow at Stanford University.
Another speaker was Sonya Green, who manages a team of 48 writers/editors/producers who program the radio, television and Internet news, features and entertainment for an audience of 25 million people in Africa, in the English language.
“Africans are very interested in the African-American population in America,” she said.
She noted that VOA’s structure “is very similar to the BBC.”
Steve Redisch, executive editor and chief operating officer of VOA, also spoke to the SPJ D.C. group. He supervises daily operations and activities of VOA’s news, programs, language services, broadcast operations and Internet departments. Prior to coming to VOA, he served as CNN’s Washington bureau chief and executive producer for the network’s White House correspondents.
“We are not beholden to commercial interests,” Redisch said.
The multimedia broadcaster is funded by the U.S. government, but “I have never been told (or) ordered to cover a specific story in the eight years I’ve been here,” he said.
“We are protected….from influence from Capitol Hill or the White House,” Redisch noted.
He added, “It’s somewhat of an oxymoron to be called a government journalist.”
VOA’s audience is 163 million a week, and news and other information is broadcast in about 45 languages.
–Michelle Goldchain
Authors outline alternatives to traditional book publishing
Citing her frustration with traditional book publishing, Nell Minow told a room full of authors and would-be authors how she took matters into her own hands.
Minow, an attorney who writes about corporate governance, executive compensation, movies, media and popular culture, said that in 2012 “I was writing my fifth or sixth book and was complaining to my dad about how disorganized [publishers] were. He said: Why don’t you start your own publishing company?”
The result is Miniver Press http://www.miniverpress.com/, an “author-friendly” micropublishing company that Minow said is about to publish its 30th book. It specializes in print-on-demand and e-books about culture and history.
Authors who work with Miniver Press retain copyrights and “I split royalties 50-50,” she said. “I found you really can publish very cheaply. You don’t have to sell many books to get your money back….I can publish a book for under a hundred dollars, valuing my time as zero.”
Minow and Thomas B. Allen spoke on “New Options for Authors in the Changing Book Publishing Game,” at an event co-hosted by the D.C. chapter of Society of Professional Journalists and the American Society of Journalists & Authors. The program was held at The Fund for American Studies.
Allen, the author of more than 30 books, told the audience that in the current climate, large traditional publishers “aren’t quite sure what to publish and writers aren’t sure what to write” but some small publishers and university presses are finding ways to fill niches.
He said his book about Joseph Smith, “The First Mormon Candidate,” finally found a home at a small publisher. Another of his books, “Declassified: 50 Secret Documents that Changed History,” was published jointly by the National Geographic Society and the International Spy Museum.
Minow told the audience that anyone who wants to try their hand at self-publishing can create their own company on Amazon’s Createspace (https://www.createspace.com) for just $10. (Other companies offering self-publishing services include Lulu, Virtual Bookworm and Booklocker.)
She often hires someone through Fiverr (https://www.fiverr.com/) to format books “for a fraction of what Amazon charges” and to design covers. Fiverr is an online marketplace for graphic, writing, translation, business and tech services that start at $5.
When it comes to marketing a self-published book, Minow said “never, ever, ever, ever” pay for a review. Instead, for a fee to NetGalley (https://www.netgalley.com/), an author can have digital galley proofs distributed to book reviewers, journalists, librarians, professors, booksellers and bloggers.
“The best promotional money you can spend is to hire high school students to write individual pitches” to bloggers who write about the book’s subject.
She recommended creating a Facebook page and using Twitter to promote a self-published book. Also, “start forming relationships. Get on people’s lists. …I encourage my authors to be on online communities” that have an interest in the book’s subject.
Keep titles specific and easy to remember, Minow advised. For example, one of the first titles Miniver Press published was “Bessie Coleman: Pioneering Black Woman Aviator” by John B. Holway. The title was designed to give potential readers a number of effective words to put into a search engine when looking for the book.
Miniver Press prices most print books at $12 and most e-books at $2.99, Minow said. The $2.99 price tag is the lowest an author can charge to receive royalties through Amazon.
The program’s moderator, Pat McNees, provided links about publishing on her website: http://www.writersandeditors.com.
—Stephenie Overman
Scholarship Recipients Speak
The five college journalists pursuing their studies with scholarship assistance from our chapter report they are seriously engaged in studies and activities at their respective institutions that are helping broaden their experience and appreciation for the work they hope to pursue upon graduation.
In letters to the SDX D.C. board that have been shared with chapter leaders, the students also said the financial assistance they receive through our foundation is helping make reaching their goals a lot more realistic and less tense on the financial front.
Here are some excerpts from recent notes from the SDX D.C. Scholars for 2015-16:
Bianca Burns, senior, Howard University
I am currently completing my first semester of senior year at Howard studying Broadcast News, with a minor in Electronic Studio. While maintaining a 3.8 grade point average and 16 credit hours, I hold positions on and off campus. I am the Web Content Director for the university’s student-run radio station WHBC 96.3 HD3, Brand Image Manager of Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity, Psi Tau Chapter and Web Content Intern and contributing writer at WHUR 96.3.
This year, I have been awarded numerous new opportunities to excel and expand my knowledge as I work toward my final semester and May 2016 graduation. This week, I have my first spring internship interview with NBC Universal, and I will be attending my university’s job fair in hopes of scheduling more interviews for upcoming weeks. After securing my final internship in spring, I plan to begin my career in a digital media content department of a radio or television company. I truly enjoy journalism and all aspects of web content, so with numerous media outlets becoming online entities, I have the unique opportunity to combine both of my interests as a career.
Jenna Spoon, junior, The George Washington University
This school year has been incredible. I have continued my interest in journalism in the following ways. I am taking three courses in the School of Media & Public Affairs. My favorite course thus far is Media Law. This class is essential to take because I need to know my (rights) as a journalist when I am working in a newsroom. When you know what is protected under the law, you can advocate for yourself and for your mission as a journalist.
Also, I am enrolled in Broadcast News Writing. In this class, we focus on composing broadcast scripts, photos and videos. I apply what I learn in the classroom to my work as the News Director at WRGW District Radio, GW’s student-run broadcast station.
Kate Magill, junior, American University
As a junior at American University this year, I chose to expand my academic experience by spending the fall semester studying abroad in Rome, Italy at John Cabot University. While at John Cabot, I have been immersing myself in the culture by exploring new areas of the city on a daily basis, learning Italian at my university, and taking classes that focus on Roman history. As a print journalism major, I am also gaining new skills this semester by taking an “Intro to Photojournalism” class that uses Rome as the backdrop for telling visual news stories. It is an excellent opportunity to see the city while developing my skill set.
This past summer I also worked to gain new experience by working as an intern in the health care news department at Bloomberg Bureau of National Affairs in Arlington, Virginia. The internship was a wonderful learning opportunity in which I was able to write about complex health care topics for a national audience and cover hearings and other events on Capitol Hill. As an intern for Bloomberg BNA, I was treated as a regular staff member, writing stories on tight deadlines focusing on Medicare and Medicaid health care policy and legislation introductions.
I was also able to experience the excitement of being at the Supreme Court steps when the Affordable Care Act case decision was announced; the day stands out as one of the highlights of my internship. Working at Bloomberg BNA expanded my reporting skills and areas of interest and helped me to develop a wider professional network of journalist colleagues.
I am hoping to build on this experience in the upcoming year when I return to Washington, DC. I will be returning to American University for the spring semester and continuing to work toward my journalism degree by taking classes in the School of Communication. I also plan to return to the student newspaper The Eagle; I hope to take on the position of Managing Editor for News. The position would give me the opportunity to guide the overall direction of the news department and allow me to gain more practical journalism experience, specifically for an online platform.
Lexie Schapitl, junior, University of Maryland
I am taking classes in intermediate multimedia journalism, feature writing, the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, American fiction and educational statistics. To gain reporting experience, I work as a staff writer covering
political advocacy and diversity for The Diamondback, the University of Maryland’s independent student newspaper. I am responsible for attending weekly beat meetings, pitching story ideas and writing 2 to 3 news articles per week. I also volunteer for the production crew of “Maryland Newsline,” the Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s award-winning student-run news broadcast. I have had the chance to floor direct the show, and operate cameras, teleprompter and VTR.
In addition, I am involved with UMD’s chapter of Society of Professional Journalists, attending general body meetings, participating in fundraisers and going to social events. This summer, I interned with the digital and social media department of WABC-TV. There, I worked with producers to maintain and update abc7ny.com, the website of New York’s ABC 7 Eyewitness News. It was my first time working in online journalism, and I really enjoyed learning about how a news website comes together and the role digital media plays at a broadcast network. It was so rewarding to put a post together from scratch – from writing up a story, to creating images and cutting video – and see it on the site. It was also exciting to watch breaking news unfold in the newsroom.
Next semester, I am planning to participate in UMD’s Capital News Service program, serving as a multimedia reporter in the Annapolis bureau, and I hope to intern either in Washington D.C. or New York City in summer 2016.
Brittany Cheng, junior, University of Maryland
My life has been a lot less stressful since Sigma Delta Chi generously awarded me a scholarship for my junior year of college. The scholarship has greatly eased the burden of this fiscal year’s honoraria budget cuts at my college newspaper, The Diamondback, on me. As such, I’ve been able to continue to devote time in its newsroom, where I am online managing editor and help transition our publication into a digital-first news source. We’ve already been tremendously successful in our first month seeing our digital page views increase by nearly 8 percent from the same period a year ago and gaining 1,000 new Twitter followers over the summer, and I hope to see this growth continue.
It has also allowed me to explore different avenues of journalism. While I completed my second copy editing internship, at USA TODAY, this summer, I decided to take an unfamiliar route this fall. I delved into working four days a week for Capital News Service (cnsmaryland.org), a student-run news wire service through the Philip Merrill College of Journalism. I work for Studio C, the College Park bureau, where we create data visualizations,
interactive graphics, infographics and more. You can find a compilation of our projects at cnsmdgraphics.tumblr.com and my portfolio of CNS work at brittany-cheng.tumblr.com. My background is in editing, but CNS has expanded my horizons about everything journalism has to offer, not just in written form.
Next semester, I’m planning to sign up for JOUR400: Media Law, JOUR328A: Web Analytics for Journalists and JOUR328D: Building Journalism’s Next Disruption, a course on product development that meets at The Washington Post. I’m also applying to some visual design internships in newsrooms for the spring and the summer, as it might be my last chance to see if I like something better than copy editing or reporting.
As you can tell our Scholars are a class of which we can be proud. They are very appreciative of our embracing them and supporting their aspirations.
Magill expressed succinctly what her fellow scholars said of the SDX D.C. scholarship aid:
“Thank you all for your dedication to helping students such as myself pursue their professional and educational goals.”
–Reggie Stuart
It was a treat to see a pre-release screening of “Truth,” a Sony Pictures Classic movie abou
t the story that brought about the end of newsman Dan Rather’s tenure at CBS News, then see the former “CBS Evening News” anchorman himself take a seat on the stage and talk a bit about what the audience had just watched on the big screen.
Rather said that though he is still busy working full-time as an investigative reporter, there’s little time to dwell on CBS’s stance on what happened with that story. But “there is no denying the facts and the truth of the report,” he told the audience, a majority of it millennials, including the movie’s screenwriter and director, James Vanderbilt.
Cate Blanchett’s character, Mary Mapes, is really at the center of the action in the docudrama, which has a little of the thriller tone to it, perhaps due to Robert Redford’s turn as Rather. It was hard — for me, at least — not to think of a younger Redford as Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward in “All The President’s Men,” the Watergate movie that sold me on going into journalism, or as Joseph Turner in “Three Days of the Condor,” in which the CIA employee went to The New York Times at the end of the film to expose an upper echelon CIA insider plot to manipulate world oil markets.
Yes, there is just something about getting to the truth that is invigorating.
Mapes was a CBS producer who worked closely with Rather for many years. Her memoir “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power” was the basis for the screenplay.
The story involved George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard — in particular questions about preferential treatment and long periods when he was AWOL. Rather told the audience that “those who didn’t want us to get that deep into those facts attacked us on the documents” — the facts being that George H.W. Bush’s influence got W. into the Guard as a way to keep him from having to go to Vietnam, and that once he was in the Guard, he essentially disappeared for a year. He said that Mapes in the film makes the point that everyone who was critical of the story was focused on the conspiracy and intrigue surrounding how the story was backed up “instead of on the fact that Bush went AWOL.”
In a scene that probably seemed comical to the skewed-younger crowd, the “oh-no!” moment involves Microsoft Word in an intersection of media and technology in 2004.
Vanderbilt said that the impact of the “Internet at the time of this story” was what fascinated him about it. The documents CBS had about Bush’s service might have been written in Word, which would not have been available at the time the documents were originally created in the 1970s. Stacy Keach is terrific as Bill Burkett, who attested to the veracity of the documents he provided, but later admitted he lied about where they’d come from.
“We made a mistake,” Rather told the audience, “but we did get to the truth. The story was true, it remains true.”
All the years he worked at CBS, Rather said, there was a wall between the news and the corporate entity, so the news coverage could flourish no matter what the corporate side believed about the issues. But he has observed that from the late 20th century into the 21st century, Americans have seen the “corporatization, trivialization and politicization” of the news. Before this happened, he said, “news was seen as a public service — but that view has evaporated.”
Rather apologized on air for the mistake about the documents in the Bush story, but the story itself was never retracted by CBS.
At the end of the film, the team of reporters, researchers and editors who worked closely with Mapes and Rather lose their jobs. The frustration is palpable. It’s good to watch a visual representation of the sense of purpose journalists feel when they know they’ve fought a good fight in seeking truth and reporting it.
–Amy Fickling
Trivia note: The Oct. 14 screening was at the U.S. Navy Heritage Center on Pennsylvania Ave. In the hallway leading into the auditorium are photos of Lone Sailor Award winners — given to “Sea Service veterans who have distinguished themselves, drawing upon their Sea Service experience to become successful, in their subsequent careers and lives, while exemplifying the core values of Honor, Courage and Commitment.” Among the winners are SPJ D.C. Hall of Famers Austin Kiplinger, Ben Bradlee and Brian Lamb, CNN founder Ted Turner, and former presidents George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon. Journalism, politics and military service just don’t stop intersecting.
A dialogue on fact checking
Beware that moment when a story is “too good to check,” Pierre Thomas, senior justice correspondent for ABC news, told journalists at a session at Excellence in Journalism 2015 in September.
That’s a point when the facts really must be checked, he said, because “if it sounds too good, it may not be true.”
In the same session, CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl described some frustrations akin to those most reporters face. Producers and correspondents work hard on researching a story for the show, she said, but when it goes before the panel of people who decide whether to continue with it, half the time it falls flat.
The two nationally known correspondents were given awards at September’s EIJ15 by the Radio Television Digital News Association. They appeared at a session prior to the award ceremony to talk to journalists about their work and reporting philosophy.
Stahl said although some things in journalism may have changed, the basic work at 60 Minutes has not and she is still doing the kind of reporting she did when she got there decades ago.
She did say that, in general, journalists aren’t given the time to think and to find other sources on a story.
Thomas said reporters still need to use old school tactics, including developing sources.
Asked about talking to anonymous sources, Thomas said many of his sources cannot be named publicly and Stahl said many stories cannot be told without anonymity.
As for their advice to young journalists, Stahl said, “Read everything.”
And she said to remember that confidence is everything.
She also said young journalists should work harder than they think they can: “The secret to becoming a journalist is doing it over and over again.”
And Stahl urged, “Get a job where they actually will let you do a story.”
Thomas said you may have in your mind “that one story will make your career, and that is not true. Your career will be made by your body of work.”
Stahl did say there are all kinds of reporters and different reporters have different strengths and weaknesses. “Sometimes you are weak on something and you work through it. Or you decide you cannot do it.”
Thomas reminded the session attendees that a primary skill reporters need is listening.
On former anchor of NBC News anchor Brian Williams’ suspension for inaccurate statements, Thomas said he never takes joy in another reporter having a bad day. Instead, he thinks of the saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Thomas also said, “At the end of the day, it’s about the work.”
—Kathryn Foxhall
Summary of the national convention by Andy Schotz, Region 2 director
Some news from the national election and the business meeting at Excellence in Journalism 2015 in Orlando:
The election results were:
- President-elect: Lynn Walsh, unopposed, 682 votes
- Secretary-treasurer: Rebecca Baker had 508 votes, defeating Jason Parsley, who had 215 votes
- Vice president of campus chapter affairs: Sue Kopen Katcef, unopposed, 660 votes
- At-large director: Bill McCloskey had 459 votes, defeating Alex Veeneman, who had 260 votes
- Campus adviser at large: Rebecca Tallent, unopposed, 638 votes
- Student representatives (two seats): Kate Hiller, with 545 votes, and Monica Dottage, with 336 votes, were elected. Dustin Ginsberg was third with 35 votes.
- Region 2 director: I (Andy Schotz) was unopposed, 103 votes
- Region 3 director: Michael Koretzky, unopposed, 61 votes
- Region 6 director: Joe Radske, unopposed, 32 votes
- Region 10 director: Ethan Chung had 34 votes, defeating Don Meyers, who had 28 votes
- Region 11 director: Matt Hall, unopposed, 82 votes
- Region 12 director: Amanda Womac, unopposed, 32 votes.
More than 770 SPJ members voted, or 11 percent. This was the highest voter turnout under the one member, one vote system.
At the business meeting, delegates passed resolutions:
- Commemorating the lives of WDBJ-TV journalists Alison Parker and Adam Ward, who were fatally shot during an assignment
- Commemorating slain journalists worldwide
- Supporting the need for legal protection for student journalists and advisers
- Urging Congress to reform the Freedom of Information Act
- Advocating for the release of police body-worn camera footage
- Criticizing excessive information control by public information officers
- Criticizing free-speech zones and speech codes, which are common on some college campuses
Delegates also debated a resolution submitted by Region 3 Director Michael Koretzky, calling for the Society of Professional Journalists to be renamed the Society for Professional Journalism. Delegates voted 54-47 to send the proposal back to the Resolutions Committee to be redrafted and reintroduced next year.
You can follow Andy and Region 2 activities on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SPJRegion2 or at Twitter at @spjregion2.
By any name, organization should focus on serving the profession
For a moment at the SPJ Business meeting during EIJ 15, it seemed as though it was 1988 all over again, 1973 all over again, and even 1969 all over again. These sudden bursts of nostalgia were prompted by a resolution before the meeting to consider a call for a bylaws change mandating a change to SPJ’s name yet again.
It’s been nearly been two decades since I was a delegate to an SPJ Business session. About the last business item I expected to see after all this time was a call for a name change. I guess history really does repeat itself.
My second national SPJ convention (actually then it was an SDX convention) was in San Diego in 1969. I was the delegate for the Evansville (IN) pro chapter. Two big issues before that convention then were a call for a name change, and amending the bylaws to admit women. The question of admitting women was adopted. The issue of then-SDX’s name remained in limbo.
What we call ourselves, and what we are was debated in SDX as early as the 1930s. According to the timeline on the history page of the current SPJ website, the issue came up again in the 1940s. By 1960, the delegates to that year’s national SDX convention finally decided SDX would cease being a fraternity and instead become a professional society, but the Greek letters hung on.
Many older members had affection for SDX and for the organization’s fraternal beginnings, which were reflected not only in the name, but in the initiation ceremony, which even long after the designation of SDX as a professional society, remained, with all its fraternal trappings. My old Journalism 101 professor and former national SDX president, the late Charles Clayton (1951-52), had little use for changing the name or admitting women.
Between 1969 and 1973 our identity crisis continued.
I remember the name issue came up again in the early 70s. I also remember talking to Guy Ryan, then our national president (1972-73), at a Region 1 Spring Conference in New Jersey in 1973. I suggested that a solution to the name issue might be as simple as reversing the then existing order to The Professional Journalism Society Sigma Delta Chi. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with that idea, because in 1974 we did indeed become The Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi.
However, many were not satisfied. I remember a national board meeting at which Jean Otto, our first female national president (1979-80), and soon-to-be national president Steve Dornfeld (1982-83) pressed for another adjustment to our name. One suggestion was the American Journalism Society. Ironically that was close to one of the names urged as early as the 1930s and 40s. At that time it was suggested that the professional side of our Society separate from the fraternal side and be redubbed the American Institute of Journalism, SDX.
Another suggestion advanced by Otto and Dornfeld was the Society of Journalists. I recall quipping that our initials would then be S.J. and that people might confuse us with the Catholic order, the Jesuits (their initial are S.J. for Society of Jesus). Someone joked that if people could see us party they’d never make that mistake. Having had the benefit of a Jesuit education I responded, “You don’t know the Jesuits very well.” And the debate continued.
I was on the dais as the national president-elect during the final business session of the 1987 national convention in Chicago. Late that Saturday afternoon former national president Frank Sutherland (1984-85) sought permission from the delegates to address the business session. Permission was granted and Frank promptly offered a resolution directing the delegates to the 1988 national convention to consider a bylaws change to make our name The Society of Professional Journalists. I remember giving him a dirty look and thinking, “Thanks Frank, it’s not as if we don’t have enough things on our plate for the coming year already!” I decided at that moment that with so many things to consider in the coming year (budget, dwindling membership, staffing and future leadership issues to name a few) I was not going to spend mental capital on the name question. The delegates to the next convention would do what they would do.
In 1988, as I presided over the business session in Cincinnati, the delegates determined we would henceforth be called the Society of Professional Journalists. The Greek letters would only remain in our foundation’s title.
To many the name issue may seem as just so much “inside baseball.” However, to others both inside and outside of journalism, the use of the term “professional” goes to the very heart of who we are, and in the view of at least some, may cause potential members to reconsider joining SPJ.
I recall being told over the years by other professionals, attorneys, doctors and accountants, that journalism can’t be a profession as there are no requirements for the practice of journalism. They quickly pointed out that journalism has no equivalent to a bar exam, or a CPA exam, or state medical exams that must be passed in order to practice in those fields. Thanks to a little thing known as the First Amendment, there can be no license or proof of proficiency in order to practice journalism.
Incidentally, in the 11th edition of “Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary” in the definition entry for “profession,” there is no mention of licensing or proof of ability. In the following entry for “professional,” definition 1 c (1) reads, “characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession” which might imply some sort of proof of proficiency, but not necessarily. And in fact, as part of SPJ’s mission statement reads, “To stimulate high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism,” one could argue that such stimulation does indeed meet the definition of professionalism.
As for those who think the use of the term professional deters some would-be-members, or those working in less traditional journalism fields from joining our ranks, I disagree. Those who make this claim point to a dwindling national membership as supporting that view.
That point of view overlooks the fact we altered categories many years ago to extend membership to others than those studying or working as journalists. Also, it can be argued journalism’s high point in my lifetime was the immediate post-Watergate, so-called “Woodward and Bernstein” era. Since then, interest in journalism has dropped as have the number of career opportunities in journalism. In the last 40 years, how many newspapers, magazines and other news outlets have simply folded? How many news organizations have cut their ranks, often wielding a very heavy axe in the process?
Changing our name will have little impact on our membership numbers. However, increasing focus and service to less traditional forms of journalism, or expression might. I suggest SPJ focus less on what we call ourselves, and more on how we can be a positive force in our field.
–Jim Plante
Obitua
ry
Former President Tom Simonton Dies At 83
https://spjdc.org///2015/08/former-president-tom-simonton-dies-83/
SPJ talks, Obama White House listens
Chapter Recording Secretary Kathryn Foxhall, a 2014 winner of a Sunshine Award from the national SPJ organization, has not let up on the “censorship by government public information officer” issue reporters face. She spearheaded an effort to get many journalism organizations to sign on to a letter to the White House seeking “changes to policies that constrict information flow to the public, including prohibiting journalists from communicating with staff without going through public information offices, requiring government PIOs to vet interview questions and monitoring interviews between journalists and sources,” as an August news release from national SPJ explained.
Foxhall now reports that “After many attempts to connect, the White House told SPJ on Friday [Nov. 6] that we can set up a meeting with Josh Earnest in early December on the restrictions on reporters, such as prohibitions on speaking to agency or other staff without going through the PIOs.” She and other SPJ representatives from around the country are working to make that happen.
She is quoted about her efforts in this November article in CJR:
http://www.cjr.org/the_second_opinion/health_reporting_obama_administration.php
Here are links to some documents and stories on the issue, courtesy of Foxhall:
SPJ 2015 Resolution on the Issue
2015 Letter to President Obama
- On August 10, 53 journalism and open government groups again asked President Obama to change policies that constrict information flow to the public, including prohibiting journalists from communicating with staff without going through public information offices, vetting and monitoring interviews.
https://www.spj.org/news.asp?ref=1368
SPJ 2015 Survey of Science Writers
- New survey sponsored by SPJ finds that science writers often face the same restrictions as other reporters.
http://spj.org/pdf/foi/science-writers-survey-report.pdf
Washington Post Story on Restrictions
- Washington Post story on lack of access cites SPJ’s surveys
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/access-denied-reporters-say-federal-officials-data-increasingly-off-limits/2015/03/30/935b4962-c04b-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html
Letter to President Obama
- July 8, 2014, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmentalists led in sending a letter from 38 journalism and open government groups to President Obama asking him to stop the excessive controls on journalists, including the requirement to go through PIOs to speak to staff members.
- The letter got extensive coverage, including an editorial in USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2014/07/14/fighting-obama-administrations-information-control/12628905/
National SPJ president quoted in The Washington Post about media backlash
- In case you missed it, SPJ national President Paul Fletcher was asked to weigh in on why the news media suddenly seems to be a hated entity, by Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi. The story appeared in the Nov. 10 issue and online here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-everyone-it-seems-hates-the-news-media/2015/11/10/acf427d8-87cc-11e5-9a07-453018f9a0ec_story.html
Steve Geimann
Former SPJ national president and longtime SPJ member Steve Geimann has been transferred to London in his work with Bloomberg.
Geimann is an editor with Bloomberg News responsible for financial coverage. He has been a reporter, editor, manager and executive for more than 30 years. Geimann has served as SPJ president and ethics committee chair. He has represented SPJ on the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, which reviews and evaluates curriculum at more than 100 universities. He has also led a task force of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications to consider changes in technology and the effect on journalism.
Geimann joined Bloomberg in September 1999. There, he has directed coverage of telecommunications, transportation and politics.
In addition to his work for Bloomberg, Geimann spent 11 years at United Press International, a Washington-based news agency, where he served as executive editor and spokesman. He also worked as a reporter for Gannett Co.’s newspapers in Binghamton, New York, for eight years, and a newscaster/reporter at radio stations in Binghamton and Syracuse, where he attended Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Geimann also served on the American Bar Association’s Conference of Lawyers and Representatives of the News Media, and the Commission on Public Understanding About the Law — a group that considered methods to raise public knowledge of the legal process.
Maura Judkis
Maura Judkis, an SDX D.C. board member and a columnist for The Washington Post, says on her social media accounts she was in Paris Friday, Nov. 13, when terrorists attacked restaurants and a theater, killing 130 people. She ended up helping with the Post’s coverage of the terror attacks. She had a byline on the main story about the attacks in the Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015, issue of the paper.
Judkis, a graduate of The George Washington University, is chair of the SDX D.C. scholarship committee, and will soon begin recruiting applicants at D.C.-area colleges to apply for the scholarships to be awarded in the spring for the 2016-2017 academic year. Up to $25,000 will be awarded to up to 7 finalists, who will be either rising juniors or rising seniors, and who have demonstrated a strong preference for making journalism their chosen profession upon graduation. Information about the next academic year will soon be updated on the SDX D.C. website: http://www.sdxdc.org/index.html
SPJ needs you! Volunteers are needed to assist with membership, communications and programs. You can contact the chapter through our website: SPJDC.org.
