NINA spring newsletter

NINA's spring newsletter is here. It includes announcement of our April 24 Spring Conference at NIU-DeKalb:

In a challenging time for newspapers, journalists should find ways to embrace the change surrounding them. What you do to stay current can help you advance, if not save, your career.

This is the message three speakers will bring April 24 at the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association’s spring conference in DeKalb, part of the association’s 2009 theme, "The New Basics."

Two seasoned journalists and the dean of Northern Illinois University’s College of Business will lead a panel discussion about how journalists can make themselves stand out in today’s environment.

Ray Long, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, will talk about how he uses social-networking Web sites to promote his work, while Barbara Vitello, a reporter for the Daily Herald, will explain why her move from the features desk to the courthouse has made her a more valuable asset to her newspaper.

Denise Schoenbachler, dean of the NIU College of Business, will bring a business perspective to the conversation about adapting to an uncertain career path.

Long is a reporter in the Chicago Tribune’s statehouse bureau in Springfield. Long joined the Tribune in 1998 and previously ran the capitol bureau for The Associated Press. He has also worked for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Peoria Journal Star. Long has received numerous reporting honors and was most recently inducted into the Bill Miller Public Affairs Reporting Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois at Springfield, where he is a 1981 graduate of the PAR master’s degree program.

Vitello is a legal affairs writer covering Cook County courts for the Daily Herald, where she has worked since 1997. Vitello also has served as a theater critic and features writer for the paper. Vitello holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in communication from Northwestern University in Evanston.

Schoenbachler holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Kentucky, and has taught at NIU since 1992. She won the NIU Marketing Department’s Excellence in Teaching Award for six straight years. After four years as the department chair, she has been dean of the College of Business since 2006. Her academic research interests have included privacy issues in marketing, and the role of the sales force in new product development.

Re-reading a favorite

This remains one of my favorite pieces of journalism from the past few years. I just read it again tonight and loved it even more than the first time. It has so much to say about our culture, about true beauty and the need for us all to slow down and listen. If you haven't seen this before, it's worth your time.

And here's the video.

Emotion in Seattle

A very poignant video here, from the staff of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Register for Poynter event in Chicago

Forwarding an e-mail from the Chicago Headline Club ...

RSVP deadline nears for Saturday's Poynter workshop

The response has been overwhelming, but you have until noon Friday to reserve a seat at a special interactive workshop: Ethical Journalism in a Digital World. The respected Poynter Institute is coming to Chicago to present a unique workshop, usually available only on its Florida campus.

The Chicago Headline Club is sponsoring the workshop with the help of Loyola University's School of Communication and SPJ-Loyola Student Chapter.

WHEN: 1-4 p.m. Saturday, March 14
WHERE: Beane Hall, on the 13th floor of Loyola University's Lewis Tower, 820 N. Michigan Ave. (Entrance is to the north, on Pearson Street.)
HOW MUCH: Free for Headline Club members, $25 for nonmembers, $5 for students. Join Society of Professional Journalists/Chicago Headline Club and be admitted free. Payment will be accepted at the door.
RSVP: By noon Friday; call (312) 553-0393 or e-mail chc.kathy@gmail.com

Robert M. Steele and Al Tompkins, two Poynter ethics and multimedia applications experts, will lead the workshop that will explore the increasing use of digital information and the possible pitfalls.

Local journalists joining them include: Wes Bleed, news director for WGN-AM; Nicole Dizon, news editor for the Chicago bureau of The Associated Press; Steve Edwards, acting program director for WBEZ-FM; Ron Gleason, director of news and programming for WBBM Newsradio – 780; Jeff Kiernan, CBS 2’s new news director; Anne Swaney, executive producer, online operations for ABC 7 Chicago; Norm Parrish, night editor for the Chicago Sun-Times; Frank Whittaker, vice president of news and station manager of NBC 5; and Don Wycliff, former public editor of the Chicago Tribune.

Steele and Tompkins will involve the audience of journalists, bloggers and students in an interactive discussion of privacy and copyright issues, documentation of research, video usage, Twitter and Facebook and how to maintain credibility and integrity across all platforms. The workshop will be interactive so that participants can join in on discussions, case studies, role-playing and other exercises.

Why some artists are starving

Here is today's celebration of free expression on the Internet. Note: "Free" does not mean "good."

Click on a picture to advance.

Baseball and newspapers

On ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike" show this morning, host Mike Greenberg compared newspapers to 8-track tapes and the phonograph and said that very soon, all newspapers will be gone. He was reacting to the TIME story (see yesterday's post), which today is being disputed because it was a thinly sourced report from 24/7 Wall Street. It was picked up by TIME and published online only.

Co-host Mike Golic chimed in that when younger people want news, they just go to Google. I wanted to reach through my car radio and shout, "You really don't get it. Without newspapers, there IS no Google news!"

First: The Greenberg comment strikes me as ignorant of all newspapers except major metros. We as an industry used to promote the newspaper as the lifeblood of a community. I think that's still true in most small- to midsized communities, and I don't think it's practical yet to assume an online product would have the same impact or reach. A few newspapers may fail, and soon. Most will not.

Second: The Greenberg comment scares me -- not because I think it's true, but because of the pop-culture traction he helps give the idea that newspapers are going away soon. (Think of that "Simpsons" episode where Nelson mocks a print journalist: "Ha ha! Your medium is dying!") Newspapers' disappearance very well could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if we let stand the notion that only the old and uncool read newspapers.

Remember the mid-1990s, when baseball was supposedly dying? It was too slow-paced, too old-school. Kids weren't playing it anymore. The sports magazines and talk shows did a lot of hand-wringing. Pro wrestling: Now that was what young people wanted to watch.

Then, a few things happened. First, Cal Ripken. Then a resurgence of the Yankees. Then a host of new, retro ballparks. Then, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire (yeah, yeah, I know) and the tieback to Babe Ruth and Roger Maris. Fantasy baseball. ESPN and DirecTV and the ability to watch any game, anywhere.

Underneath it all, baseball changed the way it marketed itself. It highlighted its new-era stars, but it also celebrated its rich history, its connection with the past.

From my little corner of the world -- a college newsroom -- I've seen the baseball resurgence. Eyes widen when we talk about baseball records, or lineups from 20-30-40 years ago. Students hang on every pitch of spring training games. That doesn't happen with other sports. Yeah, we all know about steroids and out-of-control salaries, but it hasn't ruined maybe the best game ever invented. There's something signifcant about watching the same game my father and grandfather watched, talking about the same records, wondering if the Cubs will ever win anything. Younger generations have figured it out.

I wonder if newspapers could experience a similar renaissance. Could we as an industry sell ourselves on being old-school? On being a little slower-paced, and a lot more thorough? On connecting a community with its past? On the fact that we're not putting our heads in the sand when it comes to technology, but we're also not giving up on a product that's still vitally important to its readers? What if the newspaper industry collectively marketed itself, as baseball did? What if we created public-service ads that show what America would look like without newspapers?

(Part of me wonders if we'd even be having this conversation had our industry not made the disastrous decision to give away most of our content for free online.)

In short, this conversation is about us. Why don't we lead it, instead of reacting to often-uninformed opinions that are unfortunately shaping our future?

Ten on death watch

I'm almost afraid to look lately when TIME magazine writes about the newspaper industry. Here's the latest, a list of "The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America." Well, the 10 big-city papers, anyway. The Sun-Times is No. 7, unfortunately.

Interesting that the magazine says many of these papers may go to online-only. I wonder what kind of news operations that would pay for. Or, if that would leave open the door for a print product to return when the economy improves.

New teeth for FOIA?

Many papers over the weekend wrote about the new efforts to revise and strengthen Illinois' Freedom of Information Act. The Chicago Tribune called it "a microcosm of a broader quest for more open government at every level in Illinois."

Among the changes would be a deadline of five business days for government to respond to FOIA requests (it's now seven); bigger penalties for violators; and a push for records to be provided electronically when available. Here's the bill. And working on behalf of the good guys is Don Craven, legal counsel for many Illinois newspapers.

My cynical side says this is Lisa Madigan making friends in the media as a prelude to her run for governor, and that the changes being touted might get scaled back before anything is finalized. But, what's right is right. Now that this effort is very public, it's time for Illinois editorial pages to push these changes as a huge step toward reform. We all want a better-informed public and an increased atmosphere of openness at all levels of government in Illinois. This seems like a path in that direction.