Hey everyone,

Thanks for being the pilot members of our group! In order to really make this a
great place for discussions of course, we need lots more members. So please
share this group's info with your friends and colleagues who are interested in
Chicago media and journalism, whether or not they're working in those fields
themselves or not.

For your reference, the group's URL to direct people to is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/secondcitynewsies/

The email to post messages to the group is secondcitynewsies@yahoogroups.com or
messages can of course be posted on the group's site itself.

Thanks in advance for helping to make Second City Newsies a success!

Best,
Anna Tarkov
Group Moderator

One of the issues that has come up in our discussion about freedoms of the press
with public officials has been the right of journalists and individuals to
record interactions with police. Here is an item that explores this.

What do we think about this issue?

http://www.newstips.org/?p=4709&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campa\
ign=Feed%3A+communitymediaworkshop%2Fnewstips+%28Chicago+Newstips+by+Curtis+Blac\
k%29

Steve

Folks,

At the end of September, the Society of Professional Journalists is holding its
annual convention in New Orleans, and your delegates will be voting on some
important issues.

They will also be holding elections for national and regional positions.

And so, we need you to tell us what you think. That way your voice matters.

I'm attaching a link here that will take you to the amendments:

http://spj.org/proposedamendments.asp

This link will take you to the candidates' page:

http://spj.org/elecbios.asp

Resolutions will also presented on the floor of the closing business session. 
But list will be available to delegates prior to that business session at
convention. And the convention will deal with any new business from the floor.

Here's one resolution from fellow Chicago Headline Club member Ray Hanania, who
is also running for office.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

For more than a decade, the Society of Professional Journalists has presented a
lifetime achievement award it named in honor of the award's first recipient,
pioneering White House reporter Helen Thomas.

In January, SPJ's national board of directors voted to "retire" the award --
effectively eliminating it -- after Ms. Thomas expressed her personal opinions
about Israel's relationship with Palestine and its influence on U.S. foreign
policy, media and civic debate. Sadly, her comments have been presented out of
context repeatedly.

The Anti-Defamation League demanded she be fired from her job as a columnist for
Hearst. She resigned in the summer of 2010 -- and later told former national SPJ
president and Chicago Headline Club member Christine Tatum that though the
company had treated her well, it simply found it easier to force her retirement
than to deal with the inevitable difficulties of defending her.

The ADL in December also issued a statement demanding that all journalism
schools and journalism organizations rescind awards and honors they were giving
in Ms. Thomas' name. Calls and emails from ADL supporters flooded SPJ's national
offices and were burdensome for some individual national board members.

SPJ's national leaders and staff sadly caved to this kind of pressure. Perhaps
even worse is how they addressed this issue. Neither SPJ's national executive
committee nor its national board consulted with national committees about the
controversy. In fact, I question the process they followed, acting more like
politicians in a smoke-filled Chicago City Hall room.

Our leaders didn't even contact Helen Thomas to get her side of the story -- or
to inform her in a timely manner about their decision making. (You can read the
account of Christine Tatum, a former national SPJ President) of SPJ's
embarrassingly bad communication with Ms. Thomas here:
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150109540678369. She did what
journalists are supposed to do.

It's time for SPJ's members to correct the national board's poor -- and poorly
made -- decision. Dozens of SPJ members throughout the country are seeking to
restore the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award. Ms. Thomas is entitled to
her opinions, and the nation's largest journalism advocacy organization
shouldn't undermine its commitment to free speech by sanctioning her for
expressing them. In their press release announcing their decision, the SPJ
claimed they were not acting in response to her views, yet in the very same
press release, they strongly condemned her views.

Some SPJ leaders have claimed that this controversy -- and even Helen Thomas
herself -- have overshadowed this award. Future award recipients shouldn't be
burdened by these dynamics, they insist. To that, I'll say this: we have yet to
find one past recipient of the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award who said
they would refuse it if it were offered to them again today. Past winners have
said they remain proud of their award precisely because Ms. Thomas' name is on
it. They understand -- as those of us seeking to restore this award do -- that
Ms. Thomas represents a lifetime of extraordinary achievement and
professionalism in journalism to which everyone should aspire. Ms. Thomas'
opinions about the Middle East -- or the color orange -- simply don't change
that.

Finally, regardless of how you view what Helen Thomas said, or didn't say (no
one ever got her quotes right nor did any SPJ leadership ever ask her for her
side of the story -- except in an accidental casual meeting by one disengaged
board member) it is extremely clear. The current SPJ national leadership failed
to act like journalists, failed to act like responsible leaders and failed to
even get the facts rights.

I urge you to support the following resolution to reinstate the Helen Thomas
Lifetime Achievement Award:


A RESOLUTION REINSTATING THE HELEN THOMAS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
WHEREAS the Society of Professional Journalists has been awarding the Helen
Thomas Lifetime Achievement award since 2000, with the inaugural award presented
to Thomas in recognition of her long and distinguished journalism career, and
WHEREAS the SPJ national board voted in January to retire that award in a
special telephone meeting with three-minute time limits on board-member comments
and no advance consultation with chapters or national mission committees, and
WHEREAS the national board retired the award without undertaking any substantive
discussions with Thomas to clarify her remarks, and
WHEREAS the board's vote to retire the award followed discussion within the
national leadership occasioned by Thomas's exercise of free expression as a
private individual, specifically -- as reported by SPJ's president -- because
she "made comments some find objectionable in a prepared speech," and
WHEREAS SPJ, in a press release before the board vote, said the Executive
Committee "condemn[s][Thomas's] statements in December as offensive and
inappropriate," and
WHEREAS the Society has for many years encouraged the vigorous exercise of
freedom of expression and repeatedly warned against the dangers of content-based
and viewpoint-based restrictions on free speech, regardless of whether some
might deem the speech offensive, objectionable or inappropriate, and
WHEREAS SPJ presents other highly coveted awards named for individuals, living
and dead, that have not been similarly subjected to heightened scrutiny and
reconsideration based on the personal views of the people in whose honor they
were named, and
WHEREAS some SPJ national leaders have argued that future potential recipients
of the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award might misinterpret the Society's
intent in naming the award in honor of Thomas's career achievements in
journalism,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the delegates of the Society direct national
officers and staff to:* Restore the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award,
effective December 1, 2011, and* Accompany all promotional materials for the
Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award with the following language:"The Helen
Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to an individual or individuals
for a career of extraordinary service to journalism and the journalism
profession. The award is named after longtime White House correspondent Helen
Thomas for her tenacious and illuminating reporting over a period of more than
55 years. The award is the highest the Society bestows for distinguished
journalism careers and, in keeping with its guiding principles, is presented
without regard for the personal views held or expressed by any past or future
recipient."


AND WHILE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, I also would appreciate your support as I
campaign to become a national at-large director for SPJ.

I have been an SPJ member since 1979. During my entire career in professional
journalism as a Chicago City Hall reporter, and later as an opinion columnist
and analyst, I have always fought for bringing more diversity to our newsrooms.
There is little diversity on our national board.

I am running for this office because I want to raise that issue of the lack of
diversity and bring more diversity to newsrooms. In the decades I have practiced
journalism, we have seen less diversity, not more. My own ethnicity -- I am
Palestinian -- allows me to present and provide for my colleagues an array of
views that may not have been considered otherwise. I write a column analyzing
Middle East politics for Creators Syndicate. It appears in the Jerusalem Post.

In recent years, as jobs in the journalism industry continue to shrink, I have
moved in to media consulting.  But I apply my belief in the core principles of
responsible, ethical journalism to all of my client relationships and constantly
push for both diversity in government and also full transparency.

Thanks for considering this message thoughtfully. I will be at SPJ's national
convention, coming up in New Orleans, and would be happy to meet you there. If
you have any questions or would like to discuss ways to strengthen SPJ, please
contact me at RAYHANANIA@... or 312-933-9855 cell.

Sincerely,

Ray Hanania
rayhanania@...
www.Hanania.com


I'll feed updates into our brand new news group so you can see what's going on
and also so we can talk among ourselves. I promise not to eat too much, maybe
not, but I surely hope to catch some really good music there

Our new virtual community bulletin board, water cooler, schmoozification center
is secondcitynewsies at yahoo groups. Go there. Sign up. Share your voice.

secondcitynewsies@yahoogroups.com

In the meantime, you can always reach me at steve@...

saludos,

Steve Franklin
Cell 773 595 8667

What does everyone think of this?

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/145753/chicago-tribune-this-weeks-d\
oonesbury-strips-dont-meet-our-standards-of-fairness/

I didn't realize it, but there is indeed such a history. Gary Trudeau was on
NPR's On the Media and he was asked about it. He said he's pretty much used to
it: http://www.onthemedia.org/tags/garry_trudeau/

He also said something I found interesting. He said as a cartoonist, his job is
not to be fair, in fact it's the opposite. Guessing that most people understand
that a political cartoon doesn't aim for fairness, I wonder why the Sarah Palin
one or any other one can't be published anyway. What has been more fair about
all the ones that HAVE been published? It seems like an arbitrary application of
some incomprehensible standard.

-Anna



--- In secondcitynewsies@yahoogroups.com, Stephen Franklin <istifan66@...>
wrote:
>
> Isn't there a long history of newspapers that have moved Doonesbury off their
editorial pages or removed it temporarily and largely because the strips didn't
fit their ideology?
>  
> Stephen Franklin
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Erin Polgreen <erinpolgreen@...>
> To: secondcitynewsies@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 9:56 AM
> Subject: Re: [secondcitynewsies] Is the Tribune right on this one?
>
>
>  
> Here's some thoughts from a Trib cartoonist on the matter:
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/145914/what-does-chicago-tribunes-c\
artoonist-think-about-his-paper-killing-this-weeks-doonesbury-strips/
>
> "They did the same thing to my comic strip Prickly City a few years back in a
series on Ted Kennedy. This was before I was on staff here. So this is not a new
policy aimed squarely at liberal comic strips as has been suggested."
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Anna Tarkov <tooter2@...> wrote:
>
>
> > 
> >What does everyone think of this?
> >
>
>http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/145753/chicago-tribune-this-weeks-\
doonesbury-strips-dont-meet-our-standards-of-fairness/
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> twitter.com/erinpolgreen
>

Interesting piece on this:
http://www.theagitator.com/2011/09/20/your-right-to-record/?utm_source=feedburne\
r&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+radleybalko+(The+Agitator)

Thoughts on this?

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/147038/pew-75-of-americans-say-pres\
s-cant-get-their-facts-straight/

A CJR piece I read not too long ago seems to support the idea that
covering up mistakes is often the preferred path:
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/errors_in_anytown_usa.php?page=all


____________________________________
Anna Tarkov
Mobile: 773-844-6302
Journalist - Blogger - Raconteur
http://www.annatarkov.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/annatarkov
http://twitter.com/annatarkov

Here in New Orleans at the SPJ convention, I'm inspired by the brilliant
humanity of a tv journalist from Minneapolis. His lesson is the need to be open
to what comes your way, to listen to people and to learn from them what the most
compelling story is.

It's a reminder of the power of story-telling but more importantly a reminder of
the need to be spontaneous and to embrace the life we see and hear in front of
us.

And I'm struck too by the talk about what qualifications you need to be a
blogger. Diddly. You just need to be yourself and imaginative and a voice that
others want to hear. Hurrah. Let's cheer for those, and this is what I heard
from editors, who are different and who bring a new look and feel and mindset to
covering the news.

And lastly, I'm floored by the way twitter unites the world and the techniques
that make it zoo easy to live in a virtual second floor hovering over the earth.
It's a great tool but a tool only that comes when you are trying to do good
journalism.

any thoughts?

saludos,

Steve

Joanne Gordon, co-author of "Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul," will speak at Medill Northwestern University on Monday, Oct. 10 at 4 p.m. as part of the Gertrude and G.D. Crain Jr. Lecture Series. 

Please join us for her presentation, "Finding Your Voice: Reflections on Building a Life as a Professional Writer."

Medill Northwestern University
McCormick Tribune Center Forum
1870 Campus Dr 
Monday, Oct. 10 at 4 p.m.
Moderated by Craig LaMay, associate professor at Medill

Joanne Gordon, co-author of, "Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life
Without Losing Its Soul," will speak at Northwestern University's Medill
campus today at 4 p.m. about "Finding Your Voice, Reflections on
Building a Life as a Professional Writer."

Medill Northwestern University
McCormick Tribune Center Forum
1870 Campus Dr
October 10, 2011
4 p.m.

Every year the national SPJ gives out money for local projects.

What  are your thoughts? Here is a list of who got what and how they are using
the money.

Steve

http://www.spj.org/chaptergrants1112.asp

Long lapsed SPJ and CHC member back, allow me to introduce myself, I'm Tom Robb,
a reporter & political editor for the Journal & Topics Newspapers based in Des
Plaines covering 16 communities around the North and Northwest Suburbs. I'm the
political editor localizing issues in Springfield and Washington and the beat
reporter for Niles, Glenview and Elk Grove Village. The Journal is a family run
outfit founded and in continual operation since 1930. I'm also a Northeastern
Illinois University alum.