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2007 Convention Recap
Professional Development Programs
There's something for everyone in this year's schedule. Check out a list of the many workshops we're offering, and check back frequently for information about sessions, speakers and dates and times.
Friday, Oct. 5
Click to see the lineup for:
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday
8:30 - 9:30 a.m.
Planning Campaign Coverage
Location: Columbia B, Ballroom Level
Description: Some issues are national and will be covered by the reporters on the “bus.” But every community has issues that are important to its residents - jobs, economic development, agriculture, education, transportation - that may not get national attention. This session will discuss how editors and their reporters can identify the issues they want to pursue as part of their campaign coverage and develop strategies for focusing the candidates and news consumers on those issues.
Moderator: Rick Berke, assistant managing editor for news, New York Times
Speakers: Jake Schlesinger, The Wall Street Journal; Tammy Haddad, executive producer, Hardball; Kathy Kiely, Washington bureau, USA Today
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Tammy Haddad, MSNBC
Award-winning broadcaster Tammy Haddad recently was named Vice President, Washington for MSNBC, overseeing political and election coverage for the network from MSNBC's Washington office. She also serves as Executive Producer of "Hardball with Chris Matthews."
Haddad is one of the original creators and the longtime Executive Producer of "Larry King Live." Haddad left CNN in 1993 for NBC's "Today" show, where she worked as a Senior Broadcast Producer. She then moved to David Letterman's Worldwide Pants to launch the late night talk show, "The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder," for CBS.
In addition to her extensive work in television, she has a variety of start-up experience including the Fox News Channel, "Larry King TNT Extra" for TNT, "The McLaughlin Group," and the re-launch of the daytime show, "Maury Povich."
Kathy Kiely, Congressional Correspondent, USA Today
Kathy Kiely has been a Washington correspondent since 1981 and congressional correspondent for USA TODAY since 1998. A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Kiely claims to have been a political junkie since discovering free doughnuts at polling places where she hung out with her grandmother, a local ward heeler, every Election Day.
Nonetheless, she attempted to deny her political addiction by majoring in English literature at Princeton, where she graduated cum laude in 1977. After finishing college, Kiely went to work for her hometown newspaper, The Pittsburgh Press, where she covered politics and other news. She was chosen to help cover the Democratic and Republican national political conventions in 1980 mostly, she claims, because her editor could not operate the new-fangled portable computers. In between typing and transmitting her editor's copy, she was allowed to write some of her own.
Kiely has joined the boys and girls on the bus for at least a portion of every presidential campaign since then. In between, she has covered Congress and the White House, and overseas assignments have taken her to Europe, Asia and South America.
America's Changing Demographics: Immigration, Aging Baby Boomers and New Regional Divides
Location: Columbia C, Ballroom Level
Description: The recent backlash against proposed comprehensive immigration reform, coupled with the interest of both political parties in courting the growing Hispanic vote point up how America's rapidly changing demography has made it difficult for politicians, the business community and the public at large to adapt. In his presentation, William Frey shows that the nation's population is changing dramatically as a result of three major engines: (1) the immigration of new minorities; (2) the aging of the baby boomers toward seniorhood; and (3) a "middle class flight" from expensive coastal areas. In so doing, he discusses how these demographic mega-trends are shaping the "demographic personalities" of the nation's regions, metropolitan areas, central cities, suburbs and exurbs in fundamental ways. This affects how residents in different parts of the country both react to, and absorb these changes. Frey's presentation utilizes recent data from the Census Bureau' s mid-decade American Community Survey and population estimates, as well as his own projections of the future.
Speaker: William H. Frey, The Brookings Institution and The University of Michigan
Climate Change Affects Every Beat
Location: Yorktown, Ballroom Level
Description: Global warming is the biggest environmental story of the 21st Century so far, and journalists need to be prepared to cover it. Now that you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth and heard Al Gore talk about global climate change, what do you do next to prepare yourself to cover this story? Where should you look for story ideas? Hear how global warming might affect transportation, land use, agriculture, international trade, population shifts, and other policy areas you may cover.
Speakers: Larry E. Evans, managing editor, Daily Environment Report; Michelle Moore, vice president for policy and public affairs, U.S. Green Building Council; Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions, Pew Center on Climate Change
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Larry E. Evans, managing editor, Daily Environment Report
Larry E. Evans has been covering environmental news since he wrote about the South Coast Air Quality Management District as BNA’s Los Angeles correspondent in the early 1980s. Before that assignment, he covered the workplace safety and health beat in Congress and at the Department of Labor. For many years, Evans was responsible for a network of 100 correspondents through the United States and in 46 other countries as BNA’s chief of correspondents. Since 2001, Evans has been the managing editor of the Daily Environment Report and the International Environment Reporter.
Judi Greenwald, Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Judi Greenwald is the director of innovative solutions for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Greenwald has over 20 years of experience working on energy and environmental policy. Before joining the Pew Center, she worked as a consultant, focusing on innovative approaches to solving environmental problems, including climate change. She also served as a senior advisor on the White House Climate Change Task Force. As a member of the professional staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, she worked on the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the 1992 Energy Policy Act, and a number of other energy and environmental statutes. She has been an environmental scientist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and an environmental engineer and policy analyst at EPA.
Michelle Moore, U.S. Green Building Council
As vice president for policy and public affairs for the U.S. Green Building Council, Michelle Moore is the council's bridge between its mission to lead the transformation of the built environment toward sustainability and its outreach initiatives, with specific emphasis on marketing, communications, and advocacy programs in local, state, national, and international forums. Programs under her stewardship include the council's climate change commitments such as its membership in the Clinton Climate Initiative, the National Green Schools Campaign, and the launch of USGBC's green homes initiative. Moore joined USGBC in 2004 following the successful sale of BlueBolt, a tech start-up she helped to launch. Her prior experience includes leadership roles with Interface Inc. and statewide political campaigns in Georgia.
Wow! That Tape is Good
Location: Columbia A, Ballroom Level
Description: What goes into a killer audition tape and what should you make sure NOT to put on it. How long should it be? How you can make your package more compelling? What about your “look”?
Speakers: Kenn Venit, president, Kenn Venit & Associates, Hamden, Conn.; Steve Kalb, instructor, University of Connecticut
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Kenn Venit, president, Kenn Venit & Associates, Hamden, Conn.
Kenn Venit is a former news “talent” and news manager who has been a media consultant for 25 years. He is not an agent, but has helped hundreds of news professionals by serving as a mentor, advisor, coach, and/or “therapist.” Kenn teaches broadcast performance and journalism courses at Quinnipiac University and a First Amendment course at Southern CT State University.
A member of SPJ since 1964, he is the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the Boston-New England Chapter of the National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences and the Emerson College Radio TV News Directors Association Chapter.
Kenn has a bachelor’s degree in radio-TV-film and a master’s degree in communications, both from Temple University.
Building Your Freelance Business
Location: Concord, Ballroom Level
Description: Many writers go freelance expecting to be able to sit in their house, create stories, and watch the money roll in. The truth is, good writing is just one component of a successful freelance business. To make it on your own, you need to understand marketing, accounting, technology, and more. In this workshop, experienced freelance writers will show you how to develop a business that will let you pay your bills (and perhaps more). The speakers will give examples of their own freelance businesses, offering tips from the trenches of their home offices.
Speaker: Sally Lehrman, independent journalist
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Kim Kavin, Freelancer
Kim Kavin has been a full-time freelancer since April 2004. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, she spent more than seven years as a newspaper writer and editor before transitioning into magazines and eventually going freelance. She now works in magazines and multimedia alike, with her freelance work including photography and website content development. Kim has also published five books, including a newly released freelancer tool called The Everything Guide to Magazine Writing.
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
The Race Beat
Sponsored by The Gannett Foundation
Location: TBA
Description: Retrospective but hopefully instructional and enlightening session looking at how the civil rights movement was covered 40 years ago and what lessons there might be for contemporary journalists.
Speaker: Hank Klibanoff, author, “The Race Beat”
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Hank Klibanoff, author, “The Race Beat”
Hank Klibanoff, co-author, with Gene Roberts, of "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of A Nation," is Managing Editor for Enterprise at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Hank worked previously as a reporter for six years in Mississippi for The Daily Herald, South Mississippi Sun (now the Sun-Herald) and the Greenville Delta Democrat Times. After a year backpacking in Europe and the Middle East, he joined The Boston Globe for three years.
He then moved to The Philadelphia Inquirer where, over the next 20 years, he worked as a city reporter and as a national reporter based out of Chicago before serving in a variety of editing positions, including business editor, Sunday editor and deputy managing editor.
Paid and Played: The Ethics of Using Video News Releases
Location: Columbia A, Ballroom Level
Description: Corporations and the federal government have used video news releases to get their messages into TV news broadcasts, which often mask the source and bias of the information, intentionally or not. Find out how and why TV news stations have used this footage in their broadcasts, sometimes passing it off as their own reporting. Is there a legitimate reason for VNRs? Should the FCC regulate their use? You'll want to hear this discussion, as both a journalist and a citizen who relies on newscasts.
Moderator: Rick Rockwell, American University
Speakers: Kathleen Kirby, counsel, Radio Television News Directors Association; Jerry Dunklee, professor, Southern Connecticut State University; John Stauber, executive director, Center for Media and Democracy
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Jerry Dunklee, member, SPJ Ethics Committee
Jerry Dunklee is a journalism professor at Southern Connecticut State University. He has four decades of experience as a broadcaster and teacher. He has worked as a news reporter, news director, program director and talk show host on radio, TV and cable in New Haven, New York and Boston. Dunklee has been published in the New York Times, Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, The Communicator and Quill. Dunklee is a member of the board of directors and a past president of the Connecticut Pro chapter of SPJ. He conducts ethics seminars and writing workshops for professional journalists.
John Stauber, executive director, Center for Media and Democracy
John Stauber founded the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Media & Democracy and its newsmagazine PR Watch in 1993 in Madison, Wisconsin. He has since served as the Center's executive director and has co-authored six books including the 2003 New York Times bestseller Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq. He is an investigative writer, public speaker and democracy advocate whose leadership on controversial public issues began in high school when he organized to end the U.S. war in Vietnam and for the first Earth Day. He has begun or worked with many non-profit public interest groups.
Kathleen Kirby, counsel, RTNDA
Kathleen Kirby represents broadcast clients, including major radio and television group owners, on regulatory and transactional matters before the Federal Communications Commission. She has particular expertise in newsgathering, content regulation and First Amendment issues.
From Pulpits to Polling Places: Understanding Current Issues in Religion and Politics
Location: Columbia C, Ballroom Level
Description: Faith has become highly visible in politics at all levels, from international conflicts to local school board elections. The 2008 election year in America is already shaping up as a contest of values, from the presidential race on down. Be ready to handle the hot issues of faith, values and ethics as they crop up in often contested ways in politics. This workshop will give you the sources and resources you need to understand the key issues and players who will make a difference from the presidential race to your home turf contests.
Speakers: Alan Cooperman, The Washington Post; Kim Lawton, managing editor/correspondent, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly; Kevin Eckstrom, editor, Religion News Service
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Kevin Eckstrom, editor, Religion News Service
Kevin Eckstrom joined the RNS staff in February 2000. Prior to coming to RNS, he worked as religion editor at the Stuart/Port St. Lucie News in Florida. He was the winner of the 2000 Cassels Award for small newspapers from the Religion Newswriters Association. In 2007, RNS was named Best Wire Service by the Associated Church Press. Eckstrom is vice president of the Religion Newswriters Association and his work was featured in “Changing Boundaries: The Best Religion News Writing of 2003.”
Kim Lawton, managing editor/correspondent, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Kim Lawton is an award-winning reporter, producer, writer and editor who has worked in broadcast media and print for nearly 20 years covering religion, ethics, and culture. Lawton served as Washington bureau chief at News Network International in California until 1996. From 1992 to 1993, she produced a daily radio religion news program broadcast internationally over the UPI radio network. She also covered political news including the White House, Supreme Court and Congress for wire services and magazines. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2003 Television Excellence in Religion Reporting award from the Religion Newswriters Association. Lawton is a frequent commentator on issues of faith and spirituality, appearing on outlets including MSNBC, CNN and the BBC.
Does the First Amendment Mean I Can Print Anything I Want?
Location: Regency Foyer, Ballroom Level
Description: Find out from the premiere expert in First Amendment law for student journalists what your rights — and responsibilities — are now that courts have limited students’ rights in some states and legislatures have debated bills restoring them elsewhere. Is there a legal difference between what you print in a newspaper and what you post online?
Speaker: Mark Goodman, former executive director, Student Press Law Center
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Mark Goodman, executive director, Student Press Law Center
Mark Goodman is a lawyer and since 1985 has been executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. Each year he speaks to over 25 groups of students, teachers, school administrators and attorneys around the United States and abroad about the legal issues confronting the student press.
During his tenure at the Student Press Law Center, Goodman has received many awards for his work with the student press including a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Intellectual Freedom Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, the Louis E. Ingelhart First Amendment Award from College Media Advisers, the Carl Towley Award — the Journalism Education Association’s highest honor and the Gold Key from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Most recently, he has received the 2007 Gerald M. Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication from the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.
In January 2008, Goodman will become the Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University.
White House Press Secretaries: The Real Story
Location: Columbia B, Ballroom Level
Description: Former secretaries will recall what their jobs were like and speculate on whether they would be harder in today's digital age of 24/7 news coverage and multi-task journalists.
Moderator: Mara Liasson, national political correspondent, NPR
Speakers: Ron Nessen, former press secretary to Gerald Ford; Larry Speakes, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan; Mike McCurry, former press secretary to Bill Clinton; Dr. Martha Joynt Kumar, professor, Department of Political Science, Towson University
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Mara Liasson, national political correspondent, NPR
Mara Liasson is the national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazines All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway.
Each election year, Liasson provides key coverage of the candidates and issues in both presidential and congressional races. During her tenure she has covered four presidential elections — in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. Prior to her current assignment, Liasson was NPR's White House correspondent for all eight years of the Clinton administration. She has won the White House Correspondents Association's Merriman Smith Award for daily news coverage in 1994, 1995, and again in 1997. From 1989-1992 Liasson was NPR's congressional correspondent.
Prior to joining NPR, Liasson was a freelance radio and television reporter in San Francisco. She was also managing editor and anchor of California Edition, a California Public Radio nightly news program, and a print journalist for The Vineyard Gazette in Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
Mike McCurry, former press secretary to Bill Clinton
Mike McCurry is a partner at Public Strategies Washington, Inc. where he provides strategic communications counsel to an impressive roster of corporate and non-profit clients.
McCurry is a veteran communications strategist and spokesperson with three decades of experience in Washington D.C. McCurry served in the White House as Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton (1995-1998). He also served as Spokesman for the Department of State (1993-1995) and Director of Communications for the Democratic National Committee (1988-1990). McCurry has also held leadership roles in several national campaigns — senior advisor for Senator John Kerry (2004), national press secretary for the vice presidential campaign of Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen (1988), and spokesman and political strategist in the presidential campaigns of Senator John Glenn (1984), Governor Bruce Babbitt (1988) and Senator Bob Kerrey (1992).
Ron Nessen
Ron Nessen is Journalist in Residence at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he served as Vice President for Communications at the Washington think tank. He was Press Secretary to President Gerald R. Ford from 1974-1977. In his journalistic career, Nessen was a writer/editor at the UPI, an award-winning radio and TV correspondent for NBC News, and Vice President for News of the Mutual Broadcasting System, the world's largest radio network. He has written six books, fiction and non-fiction, and is co-author of a produced play, "The Presidents." Nessen writes frequent commentaries for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast outlets, and is a sought-after speaker on media topics. He served eight years on the Board of the prestigious Peabody Awards for excellence in broadcasting, including a year as chairman.
Dr. Martha Joynt Kumar, professor, Department of Political Science, Towson University
Dr. Martha Joynt Kumar is internationally recognized among scholars and journalists for her research on White House communications operations as well for her research on presidential press relations and presidential transitions. The New York Times referred to her as the “foremost scholar of White House communications.” She has authored or coauthored five books on the U.S. Presidency, including the standard on White House communications, Portraying the President and the recently published White House World, which examines presidential transitions and White House organization. Her fifth book, Wired for Sound and Pictures: Communicating from the White House, will be published later this year.
Larry M. Speakes, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan
Larry M. Speakes, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan, manages Marketing Strategies and Implementation for the United States Postal Service. Previously, he managed Advertising for the Postal Service, winning a New York “Addy” for the Postal Service called “Pride,” showing postal employees going about their work in the wake of the 9/11 attack. He has also served as Senior Advisor to the Postmaster General and Senior Vice President for Corporate Relations and Legislative Affairs prior to assuming his current position.
Connecting Science to Policy: Looking at Research through the Lens of Policy
Location: Concord, Ballroom Level
Description: All health research is local. Medical breakthroughs are all too often reported in terms of miracles or in terms of compelling personal stories. But before there is a “cure,” there is a federal appropriation, an NIH grant, a middle-of-the-night Part D vote. Even as reporters and editors learn how to better interpret complicated scientific studies, there is still more to stories about research that your audience should know. How much of taxpayers’ money did it cost to make the discovery and what part is reflected in consumer health pricing? What does your local research enterprise do for the local economy? How do national issues like Medicare/Medicaid affect local practices and how does political ideology affects the scientific process?
Speakers: Louis Stokes, former representative, D-Ohio; Bill Leinweber, executive vice president, Research!America; Merrill Goozner, director, Integrity in Science Project, Center for Science in the Public Interest; Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director, Disease Prevention and director, Office of Medical Applications of Research, National Institutes of Health
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Maggie Fox, health and science editor, Reuters
Maggie Fox is the Health and Science Editor for Reuters, the international news agency, coordinating health and science coverage globally for the agency. She has been with Reuters for 18 years and has covered health and science for 14 years, after covering everything from the British Royal family to the war in Bosnia. She moved to Washington in 1997 and began covering topics ranging from heart disease to cloning to AIDS. She has completed fellowships at the National Institutes of Health on genomics, at Harvard Medical School on infectious disease and at the University of Maryland on child and family health policy.
Merrill Goozner, director, Integrity in Science Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, D.C.
Merrill Goozner is the Director of the Integrity in Science Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and health advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. Mr. Goozner joined CSPI in December 2003 after a 25-year career in journalism, mostly with the Chicago Tribune. He previously worked for Crain’s Chicago Business, the Hammond Times and the Cincinnati Post. Immediately prior to joining CSPI, he taught journalism for three years at New York University while writing his first book, The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs (University of California Press, 2004).
Mr. Goozner has won numerous journalism awards. He was a 1995-96 Michigan Journalism Fellow and a 2001-2002 Kaiser Media Fellow. His freelance work has appeared in recent years in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The AARP Bulletin, The American Prospect (where he is a contributing editor), Columbia Journalism Review, Washington Monthly, Slate.com and Salon.com among other publications. His website and blog can be found at goozNews.com.
Barnett S. Kramer, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Barnett Kramer is the Associate Director for Disease Prevention and Director of the Office of Medical Applications of Research at the National Institutes of Health. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Kramer is also a clinical professor in the Department of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda.
Dr. Kramer has extensive experience in cancer treatment studies, primary prevention studies, as well as clinical screening trials of lung, ovarian, breast and prostate cancers. He is medical officer for two large cancer screening trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute: the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, Ovarian (PLCO) Trial; and the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). He has a strong interest in weighing and reporting the strength of medical evidence and sponsors an annual Medicine in the Media Workshop to help working journalists develop methods of reporting medical evidence.
2 - 3 p.m.
Deciphering the Numbers — What Do Those Polling Results Really Say?
Location: Columbia B, Ballroom Level
Description: Polling is an indispensable part of modern political campaigns. Two polls seemingly addressing the same issue may produce vastly different results, and in the hands of campaign operatives, polling data can be used to prove almost anything. Furthermore, since the 2000 campaign it has become apparent that polling is not an exact science, even in the hands of purportedly neutral entities, including the news media. It has failed to predict the outcomes of several important races. This session will focus on how reporters can evaluate the reliability of polling data they receive from candidates and other sources, and write stories that turn the data into meaningful, easily understood news stories.
Moderator: John Harwood, The Wall Street Journal
Speakers: Michael Bocian, vice president, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner; David Winston, The Winston Group; Michael Dimock, The Pew Center
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Michael Bocian, vice president, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner
Michael Bocian, Vice President at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, provides strategic advice to political campaigns, issue campaigns, and foundations. His clients include U.S. Congressmen Tom Lantos (CA-12), Bart Stupak (MI-1), Jim McGovern (MA-3), and Congresswoman Betty Sutton (OH-13), Mayors Richard Daley (Chicago) and Anthony Williams (Washington, DC), Gov. Bill Richardson (NM), Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (NM), and Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (Illinois).
In 2006, Bocian provided the polling and strategic guidance to help Betty Sutton win a come from behind victory in OH-13 before winning the general election. He helped 30-year old Alexi Giannoulias win the election for State Treasurer in Illinois and become one of the youngest constitutional officers in the history of the state. Bocian works for the DCCC, providing research and strategy that was key to helping the Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives this year, including work in OH-6 and IN-2. He has also conducted donor research to help the committee strengthen its fundraising.
He has also worked for the New Hampshire and New Mexico Democratic parties. In 2006, Bocian led the research among infrequent voters in New Mexico, helping Democrats dramatically increase turnout from four years ago. He also conducted research for America Votes Pennsylvania this year, helping Democrats defeat Rick Santorum and pick up four U.S. House seats in Pennsylvania.
Michael Dimock, Associate Director, Research — Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
As the associate director for research, Michael Dimock is principally responsible for the development of the center's research projects, including questionnaire design, project management, the analysis of polling data, and the presentation of survey results. Dimock also plays a central role in writing reports, and providing information to news organizations and others interested in polling and data analysis.
Dr. Dimock received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California-San Diego in 1996, and taught at North Carolina State University before joining Pew in 2000. His published research includes articles and book chapters on voting behavior, public opinion and survey methodology.
Diane Feldman, President, The Feldman Group
Diane Feldman is President of The Feldman Group, a highly regarded national political research firm. Established in 1989, The Feldman Group has worked with Democratic candidates from President of the United States to local school board president, and with unions, issue campaigns, initiatives and referenda across the country. The Feldman Group has helped win elections nationally and in 40 states. In 2004, Feldman was a part of the Kerry — Edwards 04 polling team. Before founding The Feldman Group, Feldman was a partner at Feldman, Lester & Associates, and Senior Associate with Greenberg Research. Feldman is a research as well as political professional. She holds a PhD in experimental psychology and quantitative methods from the State University of New York at Binghamton and has held research fellowships at Yale University and Duke University.
John Harwood, Chief Washington Correspondent, CNBC; Columnist, The Wall Street Journal
John Harwood joined CNBC as Chief Washington Correspondent in March, 2006. He also writes the weekly Washington Wire column for The Wall Street Journal and overseas the WSJ/NBC News poll.
In 1989, Harwood was named a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he spent the 1989-90 academic year. He joined The Wall Street Journal in 1991 as White House correspondent. He subsequently covered Congress and national politics, and became National Political Editor in 1997. He has reported on each of the last five American presidential elections. He also offers political analysis on television programs including NBC's Meet the Press and CNN's Newsnight.
David Winston, President, The Winston Group
David H. Winston is President and founder of The Winston Group. His unique experience has provided him with a multifaceted view of national politics and public policy unmatched by other political consultants. Aside from his extensive work with political campaigns, Winston has also served as senior leadership staff in Congress and as a senior fellow to a prominent Washington , DC think tank. This unusual combination of political and policy experience has helped shape the manner in which Winston approaches problem solving, which has led to his emergence as one of the most trusted political and policy consultants in Washington, DC.
Winston is a columnist for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, and was the former polling editor for PollTrack of PoliticsNow, the political website for ABC News, Washington Post, and National Journal. He appears frequently on a variety of national and cable news programs, and has written for a variety of publications including the International Wall Street Journal, the Brookings Review, the Brown Journal of World Affairs and The Washington Post. He has done election analysis for Voter News Service and CBS News.
Be All That You Can Be: The Backpack Journalist
Location: Capitol B, Lobby Level
Description: Survive and thrive as a journalist in the 21st Century by learning how to tell stories in more than one way. We'll introduce you to the basics of backpack journalism. Equipment to be used as well as the challenges of balancing your workload will be discussed.
Speaker: John Strauss, news and multimedia editor, IndyStar.com, Indianapolis
Online course materials |
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John Strauss
John Strauss is a news and multimedia editor for IndyStar.com, The Indianapolis Star's web site, helping manage the newspaper's online news operation and producing video, audio and other multimedia content. He is on Ball State University School of Journalism's News-Editorial Advisory Board. Strauss is also a weekend city editor at The Star and hosts a Sunday-morning talk show on general news topics on WIBC-AM (1070), the city's news-talk station. He previously was a columnist, City Hall reporter and senior writer for the newspaper, and before that worked for The Associated Press as a correspondent, editor and manager in New York City, Tennessee, Indiana and Kentucky. He also worked in local TV as a street reporter, weekend anchor and talk show host after graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in business.
When Do I Need An Agent and Finding A Good One
Location: Columbia A, Ballroom Level
Description: A good agent is not only hard to find, but some say the search takes months, and some are less than reputable. Washington and Baltimore have some of the best, and for those who don’t reside in either city, many have multiple offices. This program would appeal to everyone from the novice to the seasoned broadcaster.
Speakers: Kenn Venit, president, Kenn Venit & Associates, Hamden, Conn.; Paul Davis, senior vice president, Foundation for American Communications; Steve Dickstein, attorney, Dickstein & Scutti, Philadelphia, Pa.
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Paul Davis, senior vice president, Foundation for American Communications
Veteran broadcast journalist and news administrator Paul Davis is Senior Vice president, Foundation for American Communications in Pasadena, that provides journalists with educational training on complex issues in the news from energy economics, science and law to health care cost reporting.
Davis spent nearly 13 years as News Director at WGN-TV, Chicago, which also serves a North American cable audience by satellite. For three of those years, he was also news director of WGN Radio and oversaw the development of separate, award-winning radio and TV news departments. During his tenure, WGN-TV won awards and honors for its coverage of breaking news, investigative reporting, features and documentaries, including Emmy's from the Chicago Television Academy and Lisagor awards from the Headline Club. In 1990, WGN-TV received the RTNDA Paul White award for documentaries.
During his years with WGN, the 9 p.m. news was expanded to an hour and was one of the nations highest rated prime-time newscasts. He also created an hour-long highly rated Midday News and started Chicago's first Weekend Morning News. In 1990, he established a Washington Bureau for the Tribune stations (Tribnet) and was its first President.
He is one of only four journalists to have served as national president of two of the nation's largest journalism organizations, The Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ, SDX).
He remains active in the industry by serving as a board member of the Los Angeles Chapter of SPJ.
Steve Dickstein, attorney, Dickstein & Scutti, Philadelphia, Pa.
Steve Dickstein is a long-time trial lawyer in Philadelphia, having begun practicing law in 1973. The firm began its practice in entertainment law shortly thereafter while continuing to offer its other clients a full range of legal services in the litigation field. The firm maintains the highest rating of AV as judged by Martindale-Hubbell, a distinction shared by only 18% of America's rated attorneys. Steve Sheinen, an attorney and former broadcaster, joined the firm five years ago, adding depth to the firm's aggressive representation of television news, sports, and weather persons, as well as producers. The firm's television client list is small and select, representing players in markets across the country and at the networks. Dickstein and Sheinen perform a broad range of services for clients including tape critique, career stewardship, job prospecting, and contract negotiation.
Kenn Venit, president, Kenn Venit & Associates, Hamden, Conn.
Kenn Venit is a former news “talent” and news manager who has been a media consultant for 25 years. He is not an agent, but has helped hundreds of news professionals by serving as a mentor, advisor, coach, and/or “therapist.” Kenn teaches broadcast performance and journalism courses at Quinnipiac University and a First Amendment course at Southern CT State University.
A member of SPJ since 1964, he is the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the Boston-New England Chapter of the National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences and the Emerson College Radio TV News Directors Association Chapter.
Kenn has a bachelor’s degree in radio-TV-film and a master’s degree in communications, both from Temple University.
Leadership Issues and Challenges in Modern Newsrooms and Companies
Location: Regency Foyer, Ballroom Level
Description: Newsrooms and companies are seeking new talent, bold and innovative ideas and the leaders of tomorrow. Editors, executives and leaders in broadcast and print journalism will share their advice for developing leadership and management skills, and advancing through the ranks as companies transition to a new era of rapidly changing technology, distribution platforms and audiences. This session is aimed at helping reporters, producers and editors develop the skills they need to plan careers and move up in their companies.
Moderator: June Nicholson, associate director for graduate studies, School of Mass Communications, Virginia Commonwealth University
Speakers: Susana Schuler, vice president-news, Raycom; Rich Leonard, director of recruitment, Gannett
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Rich Leonard, director of recruitment, Gannett
Richard Leonard is Director/News Recruiting for Gannett. He is responsible for directing the company’s nationwide news recruiting efforts on behalf of 85 daily newspapers and more than 100 Web sites. He also participates directly in the recruitment and hiring of all executive editors and managing editors in Gannett.
Richard began his career with Gannett in 1977 as a reporter for The Journal-News in Westchester County, NY, where he became a city editor, metro editor and managing editor. From 1987 to 2001, he served as executive editor at four Gannett newspapers, all in the Northeast. He was named Director/News Recruiting in January 2001. Richard is a graduate of Holy Cross College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Mining the Freelance Market: Networking with Big Name Editors
Location: Concord, Ballroom Level
Description: How to expand your opportunities for freelance work, what editors want and don’t want, going rates, contracts, writers’ unions, liability, with an eye toward developing new opportunities to do freelancing and how to protect yourself along the way.
Speakers: George Giokas, president & CEO, StaffWriters Plus; Keith Kelly, media columnist, New York Post; Pilar Viladas, design editor, New York Times Magazine; James Bennet, editor-in-chief, The Atlantic Monthly; Laurel Touby, founder, mediabistro.com
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James Bennet, editor-in-chief, The Atlantic Monthly
Prior to becoming editor of The Atlantic Monthly in 2006, overseeing its move from Boston to Washington, D.C., Bennet covered political campaigns and served as Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times. A graduate of Yale, Bennet joined the Times in 1994 as a Resident Correspondent. During his first few years he covered New York City crime. In 1997 he was promoted to White House Correspondent and later, Jerusalem Bureau Chief. In 1996, he was named by NewsBios as a winner of one of its "30 under 30" awards given to what the media watch group considers the 30 most influential journalists under the age of 30. He has also been a political commentator for Fox News, Larry King Live, and the Charlie Rose show.
George Giokas, president & CEO, StaffWriters Plus
George Giokas is president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus which matches major news organizations, corporations and others in need of editing and writing services to its stable of 2,500 freelance writers and editors. A professional journalist since 1973, Giokas was among the top editors in charge of the business sections of Newsday/New York Newsday before founding StaffWriters Plus in 1995. He has been an investigative reporter, copy desk executive editor and an assignment editor. A freelancer himself, he currently writes a biweekly column on small business for Newsday and a column for BusinessWeek Online.
Keith Kelly, media columnist, New York Post
Veteran newsman Keith Kelly’s "Media Ink" column in the N.Y. Post is must reading for media insiders. Wooed away from the N.Y. Daily News where he also covered media, Kelly will provide freelancers with his take on industry trends, especially in the opportunity-rich metropolitan media market. Kelly, who has held high profile editorial jobs with publications such as Advertising Age, Magazine Week and Folio, has freelance credits to his career including a stint in Belfast, Ireland covering the conflict there.
Laurel Touby, founder, mediabistro.com
Laurel Touby started her career at Working Woman, moved on to Business Week as a staff editor, and subsequently edited and wrote a column on workplace issues for Glamour. She has covered everything from travel to business to breast cancer for a variety of publications, including New York, Travel + Leisure, Self, Redbook, McCall's, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Working Mother, and the New York Daily News.
The original idea for mediabistro.com was cooked up in 1994, when Touby and a friend decided to host a mixer for media people. About 10 editors, writers, and other content creators came to that original cocktail party at Jules Bistro in the East Village. Attendees bought their own drinks and enjoyed casual after-work bonding in the company of like-minded people. The parties quickly grew, and soon Touby had 4,000 of New York's top media talent on her email list. After creating a web site in 1997 and adding features such as job listings, bulletin boards, classes, e-classes, and a freelance marketplace, Touby's business began to take off. Today, 600,000 media professionals have registered for various mediabistro.com services around the world, racking up more than 7 million page views per month.
Pilar Viladas, design editor, New York Times Magazine
Pilar Viladas is the design editor of The New York Times Magazine. She has been an editor at Interiors, Progressive Architecture, and House & Garden magazines, and was a contributing writer for Architectural Digest. She is the author of “Domesticies: At Home With The New York Times Magazine,” and the coauthor of the books “Los Angeles: A Certain Style,” and “California Beach Houses”. Viladas will provide insight on what it takes to be part of that elite corps of freelancers who regularly write for national publications.
Turn Numbers Into Words
Location: Capitol A, Lobby Level
Description: Numbers that governments, agencies and companies provide journalists aren't always the most newsworthy. The ones they don't want you to write about are often buried in a thicket of secondary statistics. This session provides techniques for isolating the key numbers, determining their news value and crafting a narrative a general reader can understand. We'll look at before-and-after stories and practice digging through press releases and city budgets for the numbers that tell the best tales.
Speaker: Jerry Hart, trainer, Bloomberg News
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Jerry Hart, trainer, Bloomberg News
Jerry Hart has been a member of Bloomberg News' 11-member training team since its inception in 2000. For the first five years, he was based in London, from where he traveled throughout Europe and Asia training news staff. He now works from Bloomberg's headquarters in New York.
Before he became a trainer, Jerry was in charge of Bloomberg's coverage of Wall Street in New York for a year, served as deputy Paris bureau chief for two years, and was senior editor for European market and economy coverage in London for three years.
Jerry worked at the New York Times business section as an assistant business editor and copy editor for a total of 10 years before coming to Bloomberg. He began his career as a metro reporter at the Miami Herald in 1968, after which he held various editing positions at papers in the Miami, Boston, San Francisco and New York areas.
He holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School, where he wrote for the school's Washington news service. He holds a bachelor's degree in mass communications from the University of Miami, where he was editor in chief of the student newspaper, the Hurricane.
Instant Gratification: Redefining Journalism in the Technology Age
Location: Columbia C, Ballroom Level
Description: Not long ago, a career in print journalism was, by definition, writing and reporting for a magazine, newspaper or some other paper and ink publication. With the technology explosion, however, the role of the print journalist is changing. Readers increasingly digest information in a whole variety of ways — some of which didn't even exist five to ten years ago — and expect news in real time, as it happens. How do we as journalists adjust? Phil Meyer, journalism professor from the University of North Carolina and author of The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age said it best: "It might take a different kind of journalism...to keep us together. For our social and political health, we need to understand enough about the business of journalism to try to preserve it in new platforms."
This session will dig into a journalist's own experiences transitioning to these new platforms — from Web sites and Webinars, to podcasts and online resources — and offer best practices for developing complete packages of content that meet the expectations of an increasingly demanding audience.
Speaker: Nick Hoover, senior editor, InformationWeek
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Nick Hoover, senior editor, InformationWeek
Nick Hoover been a technology scribe for InformationWeek since 2005, writing about networking, voice over IP and government policy before moving into the Microsoft beat at the beginning of 2007. He now also covers Enterprise 2.0 and collaboration. Prior to joining InformationWeek, Nick was a graduate student in journalism at American University, where he was a general assignment intern for the Washington Examiner and news editor of an online magazine at American. He found his reporting itch through a blogging stint he began during the initial salvos of the Iraq War in 2003. He lives in Baltimore, where he trades an occasional hour-long train ride to the nation's capitol for lower rent than if he lived in D.C.
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2008 SPJ Convention & Journalism Conference
September 4-7, 2008
Atlanta
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