Region 11 Conference in Phoenix April 3-4

By Linda Chiem

DAY 1 - FRIDAY, APRIL 3

The SPJ Region 11 Conference was held at ASU's brand new Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the conference was clearly a vehicle to market the school and its programs.

Perhaps it was the windstorm that came from nowhere that kicked in on Friday, the first day of the conference, but it was pretty quiet aside from a few new student orientations.

At the regional delegates meeting, members were asked, "Why are you in SPJ?" and just about everyone talked about the importance of networking and fostering connections and relationships.

I didn't get an official count from Mark Scarp, conference committee chair, on attendees but I gathered it was a small group -- probably between 50 and 80 participants.

Aside from a few California delegates, myself and SPJ national president Dave Aeikens of the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota, just about all the conference attendees were from Arizona. And a large contingent were ASU journalism students.

Despite the wind, networking was in full force at the opening night reception at the Hotel Clarendon. (It was a 10-minute light rail ride and a very long three-block walk from the campus and my hotel.)

Several people talked to me about the Hawaii ceded lands case in U.S. Supreme Court resonated with several of the conference attendees who covered tribal issues in the northern parts of Arizona.

DAY 2 - SATURDAY, APRIL 4

This was the full day of conference activities.

The opening session, titled "The Future, What is it?" was sobering as panelists talked about layoffs and newspaper shutdowns. But the success of this new wave in social media, online-only news sites like The Voice of San Diego was highlighted and they hammered it home that consumers have so many avenues in which to get their news nowadays that traditional media has to stay innovative in order to compete.

As a business writer, the session on covering business in this economy was very valuable as well as the discussions on coping with changes in editorial departments.

But the bulk of the day's sessions really seemed tailored to helping students prepare for life after graduation and how to make themselves stand out and I got the sense that many weren't even looking to apply with traditional newspapers, magazines or news stations.

They see what's happening so they're looking at freelancing, self-start ups in online blogging and networking and there were a lot of sessions offering tips on how to go about doing that.

For professionals, it's about diversification: good writers need to be thinking about video and photographers and videographers need to know how to write well.

Overall, we're all in this boat together but there is plenty room for journalists with enough grit and skill to stay relevant, in case anyone was wondering otherwise.

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