SPJ @ 100
Last Friday, April 17, 2009, the Society of Professional Journalists celebrated its centennial anniversary with events on the campus of DePauw University in Greencastle IN, where it began.
In Meherry Hall, where founders originally announced the beginning of Sigma Delta Chi, a journalism fraternity, SPJ's venerable initiation ceremony was solemnly re-enacted by the officers of the organization. There are reports that some student chapters still use this initiation ceremony.
In addition there was a panel discussion by experienced veterans on the future of journalism, a presentation by the author of a book about a journalism pioneer, and a keynote address by Jane Pauley. It was a memorable afternoon and evening, attended by a number of distinguished Indiana and national journalists, including a number of past presidents and a number of winners of the Wells Memorial Key, SPJ's highest honor.
The centennial was conducted with
full recognition that journalism is in the middle of a historic change in the basic model of the news business. No one knows what the next model will be but everyone believes that journalism still has an important role to play because people depend on accurate, timely information. Someone called it a visionary period, a time when visionaries are inventing new models of collection and distribution.
"If newspapers go down, corruption will go up," said one of the panelists, Ken Paulson, president of the Freedom Forum and former editor of USA Today, in recognition of the critical watchdog role of the news media.
"What does a journalist mean for society?" asked Karen Dunlap, president of the Poynter Institute. "It's disseminating information for the public good."
When the question and answer period came, the first question was, "How do we get people to pay for news on the internet?" Which is one of the biggest unsolved riddles of journalism's current time of dilemma. There's no clear answer yet, but a confidence that an answer will be found.
"We have not completed our journey, we are not done," said SPJ's current president, Dave Aeikens, in brief remarks at dinner. "Our responsibility is to continue to do that those who came before us did," he said.
The final word about news came from former NBC Today anchor Jane Pauley, who noted that viewing The News Hour on PBS was a priority for her, while viewing the commercial network news reports was optional. "I hope Jim McNeil never retires," she said. "One way the news media can get its niche back is to get straight again and not compete with entertainment."
SPJ's centennial events were webcast live online, are being archived at
spj.org. For my photo album of the afternoon, click on the photo of East College above.