Regional conference focuses on diversity
By Emily Viglielmo
Chapter Director
I was fortunate to travel to San Francisco for the SPJ Region 11 conference held March 15-17.
The overall theme of the three-day event was diversity — how to increase the representation of people of color in the media not only as sources, but as people covering the news.
The media coverage of the events of Sept. 11 was also discussed by most of the speakers.
The speaker at the opening session Saturday morning was David Moats. Moats is the editorial page editor of the Rutland Herald in Vermont. He won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing for a series of articles on the adoption of a Vermont law providing for the civil union of gay and lesbian couples. Moats wrote in support of the law.
"It was a bold and correct ruling," he said.
After the session, I mentioned to Moats that gays and lesbians and their supporters had attempted to have a similar law passed in Hawaii. He was very much aware of the situation and had read about the Alliance for Traditional Marriage.
What was fascinating was that Moats had spent several years in Afghanistan in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. He said that since Sept. 11, he has written several editorials about his experiences in Afghanistan.
"I was more concerned about putting a face on the ordinary Afghan people," he said. "It’s essential to give our editorials a human dimension. I was not concerned with writing a critique of American imperialism."
I also attended a session entitled "Looking through the Lens of Diversity in Everyday Reporting."
One of the panel speakers was Dara Williams, an Asian-American married to a haole. She is the director of News Watch, a project that is a clearinghouse of information on diversity in the news.
Williams spoke about the Los Angeles riots of 1992. I lived through those riots, but I found I was woefully misinformed about those events.
I thought the riots were basically about black and white conflict, but according to Williams, most of those affected were Latinos. Most of those arrested for looting were Latinos, but Latinos also owned most of the small stores that were robbed in South-Central L.A.
The other panelist was Dori Maynard, an African-American. Maynard is the president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Prior to being named president in January 2001, she directed the History project which leads the way in preserving and protecting the contributions of journalists of color.
It was interesting to hear her speak. She mainly focused on black and white issues, and recalled an argument with a colleague who believed that "Rodney King got what he deserved. The goal is understanding each other, but not agreeing."
She said the issue of ebonics "was actually a question of class, not race."
Maynard said that she would like to learn more about Asian-American issues.
She also directs the Fault Lines project, a framework that helps journalists more accurately cover their communities.
Sandy Close was the keynote speaker at the awards luncheon on Saturday. After graduating from UC Berkeley in the 1960s, Close went to Hong Kong and worked as the China editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Close founded YO! (Youth Outlook) in 1991 to showcase the writings of youths of color. In 1996, she co-founded "The Beat Within," a weekly newsletter of writings by incarcerated youth.
The recent rise of the ethnic media "is meant to connect the disconnect," Close said. "The ethnic media get it. They are advocates for communities that feel intense isolation. Our media haven’t yet acknowledged that there’s a problem."
She said in Orange County California, there are 30 Vietnamese newspapers.
Saturday afternoon, Tom Hallman of The Oregonian gave a fascinating presentation. Hallman won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2001. It was awarded for his poignant profile of a disfigured 14-year-old boy who elects to have a life-threatening surgery in an effort to improve his appearance.
I was struck by Hallman’s humility. He described his career as "very average, nothing glamorous. I wasn’t a Columbia graduate. I was fired from my first job. No one would have thought that I would win a regional award, let alone the Pulitzer."
He continued, "I had to learn how to be a good reporter. Art comes from assembling details. You find that emotion and find out how to report that emotion so someone feels something when they read it. If it moves you, it’s probably going to move someone else."
Hallman stressed that "writing has to be the reward, not the plaques on the wall."
Another Saturday afternoon session was entitled "Covering Disasters." MSNBC’s Marty Wolk described how he was in the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11.
"I was in the grand ballroom of the Marriott Hotel, attending a conference of the National Association of Business Economists when the crystal chandeliers shook, there was a loud bang and the floor shook. Everyone ran out — there were people screaming everywhere," he said. "It was hard to describe the atmosphere on the streets of New York that day. It was like the end of the world."
He was able to make it to his brother’s office in Greenwich Village where he filed his first eyewitness account of the tragedy.
He openly discussed his own emotional turmoil. "I felt like a piece of my heart had been ripped out. In the days that followed, the tears came often and without warning."
After the tragedy, he attempted to return to his home in Seattle using ground transportation. "Uniformed Amtrak representatives were besieged by people trying to figure out how to book travel to Boston, Washington and California."
He wrote a scrapbook of impressions from his weeklong journey by car and train.
Sunday morning began with the session entitled "Delving into the Diversity Toolbox." Sally Lehrman, an independent journalist, led the workshop. Lehrman was a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and currently serves as the SPJ national diversity chair.
I thought the most helpful part of the session was when Lehrman passed around a handout with only photos on it and we were asked to guess the occupation of each person in each photo. It really showed how important it was to not judge a book by its cover.
The final session I attended was led by David Cook, better know as Davey D. Davey D. is an African-American hip hop historian and journalist and former deejay of KMEL in Oakland, a predominantly African-American station.
Davey D. said he was laid off from KMEL after Sept. 11 when he and others in the African-American community voiced opposition to the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. He claimed that owners of the station were close friends of the Bush family.
Unfortunately I had to leave the session early in order to get to the airport and return home.
In other news, the next spring SPJ Region 11 conference will be in Phoenix. Also, Mark Scarp will be stepping down as regional director next year.
I really want to thank the Hawaii chapter for allowing me to attend this wonderful conference. Mahalo.
Chapter Director
NOTES: SPJ Region 11 conference, March 30-31, Anaheim, California
Hawaii chapter delegate: Larry LeDoux
Region 11 Business meeting: Mar. 30. Chair: Mark Scarp
Announcements:
National Convention: Seattle (actually Bellview) Oct. 4-6 Brochures available.
National Board of Directors semi-annual meeting in San Diego, 4/28
Review of SPJ Governance: 23 on National Board of Directors
12 regional directors.
6 at-large directors: 2 Pro, 2 academic, 2 student
5 officers
Region 11 is largest with 1100 members
Region ? (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming) is smallest with 300.
Membership was 12,000 in 1997. Today it’s 9,000 but organization budget is for 12,000.
Dues count for 1/3 of budget (used to count for more), but that’s still a budget based on 12,000.
Need: increase dues by $2 pro, $1 student;
or, increase membership;
or, reduce level of services.
(Reluctant to do last; took too long to finally get level of services up enough to make dues worthwhile. Reducing them would not be reassuring to people that even present dues level is worth value.)
General response; dues need to go down, not up.
Members need to see some value for dues.
National needs to market itself better—what are they doing with our dues and the other monies SPJ events activities raise?
Scarp: biggest outlay is for lobbying at the national level for all journalists in areas of ethics, access and First Amendment.
Scheduled: May 7 telethon to phone members who have not renewed.
Chapters asked to step up recruiting, esp. re-recruiting of members who have dropped.
Board is working to:
Restructure districts so that there are fewer and all are about same size as 11.
Restructure itself so that at-large reps are discipline aligned: print (newspapers/magazines), broadcast (radio/TV), new media, academic.
2002 regional conference will be in San Francisco.
Reports from other local chapters:
Fund raising and recruiting ideas:
San Diego does a semi-annual "Payback" television show on public access or donated commercial time: Newsmakers over past six months are invited to come and praise or criticize media for the way were treated. SD chapter tries to get both professional newsmakers (politicians, local office holders) and people who were accidental newsmakers, and to mix pro and con attitudes. Sells sponsorships.
San Diego did not hold its annual essay contest on the First Amendment, but rather on school violence. They are organizing a public forum on school violence at which they will present winners of the essay contest.
They are co-sponsoring a writer’s workshop. Other chapters reinforced co-sponsoring idea and experience: partnering with PRSA or SME or other local publishing groups or even publishers means halving the profits but also halving the risks. And partnering does not affect PR value of sponsorship.
Other chapter ideas: weekend seminars; using student chapters to do more than collate, mail, and register for events: have them do PR for and write news reports of events, SPJ issues, concerns.
Hawaii reported on its brown bag seminar program, gridiron show, and pro contest. Referred to number of new board members and problems of StarBulletin reorganization.
Scarp is running for a third term. He welcomes other nominees but couldn’t get anyone to chair an election committee to process other nominees. He is open to ideas on all these subjects: e-mail him at mscarp@spj.org
WORKSHOPS: Sat., Mar. 31
MAKING THE MOST OF THE EDITORIAL PAGES:
Editorial pages provide context for the news. They explore issues and seek answers to why and to how to make improvements. They are the paper's interactive page, but they haven’t changed in 50 years and they tend to appeal only to a small segment of readership who respond with letters.
Extremes on panel: Orange County Register is libertarian paper deliberately antagonistic. Interaction happens because people get mad. Sees editorial pages as corrections to reporter’s perspectives. Sees diversity as people who think differently no matter their skin color or ethnicity. (E.g., there’s no single local community: 300M in LA’s little Saigon, with 400 local newspapers.) In contrast, Fresno Bee seeks balanced coverage of all sides of issues, explains complexity, gets interaction other ways—inviting community columns, for e.g.
The debate is large: editorial pages are narrow. Enlarge the range of the debate by involving more people from community, utilizing Web sites.
Ideas for enlarging readership: Modesto invites people from the community to sit on the editorial board to provide community perspective on issues. 2 people, voting, 6-month terms. 2 students, non-voting, 6 month terms.
Fresno: Invite leaders or press people from local non-white populations (Latin, S.E. Asian) to do articles on the perspective of their communities on issues.
Put all the letters received on the Website—no print space restrictions there.
Put on the website the full transcripts of interviews that were edited for print version. Put full texts of public documents and forms so webusers can apply for access to public documents.
Open up forum sites on Website for community input on controversial issues. Organize chat sessions with public figures.
Make it easier to interact: Set up a voice mail for letters to the editor: 20 words, no profanity.
Set up a voicemail response column. Edit responses to essence and print with three-dot format.
(Scarp does this in Phoenix: column is called "The Vent". Printed with no names. Two-minute time limit on the voice mail. Edited only for profanity. "My job is to get people of the couch," he says.
ETHICS WORKSHOP:
Primary ideas: professional analysts—tech or financial--are often in the pay of (or at least financially involved with) the companies that they are analyzing. Ditto think tanks—although their affiliations are usually political. We need their information, but to be objective, we have to disclose their connections. Suggestions: consult academics. Consult competitors.
This is what caused the .com bubble and what is exacerbating the .com debacle. Analysts are either sellers or buyers—journalists have to figure out which, adjust their acceptance of the sources, and identify the possible conflicts of interest. Good journalism tends to be counter cyclic. We should not just reflect society but be a lamp to light it.
Other issues: corporate ownership of media: when was the last time you saw a serious ABC investigation of Disney. Or CBS investigation of General Electric. And how could CNN do anything serious on AOL or TIME-Warner?
New York Times is on a slippery slope with its book reviews on same page as a Barnes and Noble hot link: that affects readers choices (no links to Amazon, Borders, other book sellers.) This gets worse when you realize that NYT gets a cut of every purchase made through that link. That puts the paper in the position where a reader could question its objectivity. We should never do this. Our credibility is all we’ve got. Without it, we have no product to sell and no career.
Why is the Internet less trustworthy than the newspaper or the TV/radio broadcast?
Print and broadcast go through an editing process—sometimes several layers of it. This process checks facts and asks questions about the relationship of the sources to the story. About other sources. About source credentials. In contrast, the Internet is self-publishing. No one checks facts, vets sources. Online data is raw data. Check it. Be a critical thinker.
OTHER CAREERS FOR JOURNALISTS
Public relations, corporate communication, media relations—these are all about helping people communicate more effectively with each other and with the media. If you have to leave journalism, market yourself as someone who understands what reporters need and who is able to organize and present information—directly or by prepping executives to handle news conferences--so that it is useable by and useful to the media.
Never stop networking. Never do anything that will affect your credibility. Lots of people can do research and writing. Honesty and integrity are the most important coin you have.
WHAT’S UP WITH ON-LINE
Young journalists—students even—are on the cusp of the greatest revolution in communication since the inventing of printing. On-line will not replace the other media, but it is and will become the new mass media for the 21st century.
Disadvantages: we are trained to be literal minded and Spartan. We are not trained to augment. We are not encouraged to be open-minded to new, non-linear ways of presenting information. The Internet is not linear. You can enter a story at any point. So we have to find new ways of telling stories. Not just print and graphics, but video and audio.
Remember the hard fact: news media are businesses. They must show a profit.
Use this shakeup time to prepare:
1. Experiment with new ways to tell stories—learn what will work.
2. Learn basic on-line skills: html is the new grammar for mass communication.
3. Create a personal and a business plan.
4. Assemble the skills, people, etc. that you need to implement the plan.
5. Implement it.
Fast download times are coming. Soon. And the Internet—an essentially visual medium--will come into its own.
The gold rush is over. Now the business of the Internet will mature. The keys to profitability are:
Employment tips: solid news skills.
Well rounded: able to write, edit, broadcast, provide photos, and post to template on the website. Ask not "why" but "why not"?
Values:
There were minor rumblings regarding SPJ dues.
There is currently a freeze on membership dues, but it
hasn't helped to increase membership. SPJ membership is flat.
Student membership, however, is up. Their fee is much
lower than professionals. But they seem to drop out of SPJ
once they land their first job and the organization is not
deemed as useful anymore.
Everyone raved about the Hawaii conference. They liked
the location.
Problem now is getting someone to host next year's regional.
Possible locations that were discussed included San Diego
and Las Vegas. The Nevada chapter doesn't want to be
responsible for hosting the event alone.
Solution: Getting several chapters to organize it together.
Someone suggested giving Christy Wilson a call to provide
advice or a checklist of how to organize a weeklong event.
I was there during the awards luncheon to accept the
award for Hawaii Pacific University's Kalamalama newspaper,
which took second in student newspaper (non-daily) category.
SPJ-Hawaii would like to thank the following companies for their generous donations to the silent and live auctions, held March 29 during the Region XI conference at the Ala Moana Hotel. Funds raised during the conference benefit SPJ-Hawaii and the SPJ Legal Defense Fund. Mahalo! * KHON TV 2 * KITV * The Maui News * Aloha Airlines * Hawaiian Airlines * Aston Wailea Resort * Maunalani Bay * Kauai Marriot Resort & Beach Club * Kapalua Resort * Hawaii Theatre * Indigo * Royal Hawaiian Surf * Roy's * Hard Rock Cafe * Planet Hollywood * Hoku's (Kahala Mandarin) * Hanohano Room (Sheraton Waikiki) * Oahu Country Club * Princess Kaiulani * Outrigger Waikiki * Jeep Aloha Bowl * First Hawaiian Bank * Mona Woods * Rainbow Tower - Hilton Hawaiian Village * Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch & Crab * Hilo Hattie * Dixie Grill * Mountain Apple Co.
Journalists and students from California, Arizona, Nevada, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands attended the 1998 regional conference in Honolulu from March 26-29, 1998.
The conference focused on "Reporting on the Pacific Century," covering professional development and a look at business, politics, diversity and environment.
Most of us on the organizing committee
have recovered from the fabulous 1998 Region Xl
conference hosted by the SPJ-Hawaii Chapter in
March. By every measure it was a winner.
The "Reporting on the Pacific Century" conference
held at the Ala Moana Hotel attracted an estimated
85 attendees and guests. It was an incredible effort
and we can all be proud.
Conference participants, from national SPI President
Fred Brown to former SPJ-Hawaii President Howard Graves,
said they were impressed with the caliber of speakers
and the organization of the conference. If there was
one disappointment, it was that more of our local members
didn't take advantage of the chance to hear from our
excellent panelists, who in-cluded the likes of Dan Gillmor
of the San Jose Mercury News, whose reports on technology
are heard regularly on National Public Radio, and the always
entertaining Allen Neuharth (ask Diane Chang to tell you
about his "above the fold" anecdote). Broadcast talent
consultant and recruiter Don Fitzpatrick also was a hot ticket.
Those of us who sat in on some of the sparsely
attended sessions quickly found ourselves involved in
lively, intimate discussions on topics ranging from same-sex
marriage to the Asian currency crisis.
If you did not attend any of the conference events,
you also missed the Satur-day night dinner and auction,
featuring Charlie Memminger as auctioneer. A surprise
guest was Gov. Ben Cayetano and his wife Vicky,
who were attending another function at the hotel.
The Cayetanos gra-ciously posed for photos with our
Mainland guests
The Sunday trip to Maui didn't quite provide
the climax for which we'd hoped. I escorted
seven Mainland conferees to the Valley Isle
to enjoy the new Maui Ocean Center, but our
whale-watch cruise was canceled due to
gale-force winds. However, my guests still went
home with some stories to tell after we visited
the awe-inspiring Piilani- Hale Kii heiau complex
in Wailuku and Hookipa Beach on the windward
side, where a small group of fearless windsurfers
were shredding the waves. And that was before
we got thrown out of an Upcountry bar for trying
to sneak my 4-year-old son in the door (hey, at that
point, it had been a loooong weekend).
Best of all, I'm very pleased to report that we
didn't lose any money on the conference. With
the support of our generous corporate sponsors
and those free-spending auction night bidders,
we raised $2,940 for the Hawaii Chapter’s
educational programs and $1,591 for the
national SPJ Legal De-fense Fund.
To those who donated auction items and bid on
them, we say mahalo. A bigger maha-lo goes to our
major corporate sponsors: Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
Hawaii Newspaper Agency, GTE Hawaiian Tel,
The Maui News, Hawaii Tribune-Herald, Honolulu
Publishing Co., Pacific Business News, BHP Hawaii,
Asian American Journalists Association, Cen-tral Pacific
Bank, City Bank, Continental Air-lines, First Hawaiian Bank,
Hawaiian Host.
The biggest mahalo must go to the organizing
committee, in particular Stirling Morita, Kim Murakawa,
Lynette Lo Tom, Diane Chang, Donalyn Dela Cruz,
Stafford Kiguchi and Sharon Ishida and her crew at
the Uni-versity of Hawaii. As my 10-year-old daughter
Maria would say, "You're da bomb!"
Being a reporter is a lot like being in nursery school:
If you're not busy, an editor will find something
for you to be busy about.
That was just one of the many pearls of wisdom
delivered by Jim Kelly, assis-tant manager editor
of the Honolulu Advertiser during
an SPJ Region XI conference workshop on
"EDIT: It's Not Just a Four-letter Word."
Kelly worked at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis as
a city editor, political editor and Page 1 editor before
joining the Advertiser. His speech focused on the
relationship between reporters and editors.
"There's no bigger drag for a reporter than to
get the sense their editor doesn't care what they're
writing about," Kelly said. "Reporters, in my experience,
need a lot of attention."
Kelly came prepared with two lists he said were important
to enhance the editor-reporter relationship. His "Top
10 rules of STYLE for managing reporters, charming
snakes and taming lions" follows:
1. Be an editor, not a friend.
2. Lose an occasional argument.
3. Admit mistakes and move on (works both ways).
4. Deal with conflict immediately and directly.
5. Submerge your ego -- you're not a reporter. Don't compete.
6. Be specific in praise.
7. Have fun and create fun.
8. Work harder than they do.
9. Give credit to others.
10. Remember who's boss.
Here are Kelly's "Top 10 rules of SUBSTANCE for
managing reporters, charming snakes and taming lions":
1. Care.
2. Know what your reporters cover.
3. Figure out what they need and -give it to them.
4. Be clear in your expectations;
offer regular, specific feedback on
their work.
5. Make them stretch.
6. Keep your word.
7. Let them fail.
8 Work the room, be known
and trusted by everyone from the
security guard to the news desk to
the guy in sports who does all the
agate.
9. Plan.
10. Read their stories.
Kelly offered advice to reporters: Don’t go in
self-satisfied if an editor makes a mistake; let the
editor know what you need and when you’re in
trouble; keep your word – if you say you’re going
to write a 40-inch story, stick to it; give your editor
specific feedback; care what your editor thinks;
know what your editor’s needs and responsibilities
are to his/her boss.
Most of all, communication is of the utmost
importance to the relationship, Kelly said. Reporters
and editors should always be in contact.
"In this world, where you assume you know
what is going to happen -- don’t assume," he said.
"Never assume."
Foreign news bureaus are suffering from
increased emphasis on local news, said a
panel of foreign correspondents at the recent
SPJ-Hawaii Region XI con-ference on
"Reporting on the Pacific Century."
"We ought to be breaking down the barriers
between foreign and local," said Richard Halloran,
former director of the journalism and communications
program at the East-West Center and a former
foreign correspondent for the New York Times, the
Washington Post and Business Week.
Halloran joined fellow panelists Robert Basler,
former Asian bureau chief for Reuters, and Kathy
Wilhelm, director of the Freedom Forum Asian Center
in Hong Kong in examining the decline of foreign
news bureau,
"American leaders are becoming more parochial,"
Wilhelm said.
Domestic reporters need to become more
knowledgeable in foreign affairs, while editors should
require more follow-ups on situations such as the Asian
currency crisis, she said.
Wilhelm, who served in the Associated Press’ Hanoi
and Beijing bureaus, said the current trend is reflected
in U.S. newspaper coverage of the currency crisis, with
stories played on the business page instead of the front
page. "It’s ghettoized," she said.
Foreign correspondents are different from local
reporters who receive feedback, according to
Wilhelm. "Reporters are really divorced from their
audiences," she said. "There was this deafening silence."
Halloran said that’s not always a bad thing. He
said his most difficult experience was working at
the home office. "In Washington, there’s too much
damn feedback," he said.
The panelists said versatility and a sense of adventure
are essential for anyone who aspires to be a foreign
correspondent. "A foreign correspondent is not a
specialist," Halloran said. "You must cover everything
under the sun."
Foreign correspondents also don’t necessarily have
to know the language, but do have to understand how
other societies work, the panelists said. Reading and
understanding history "give you a sense of context,"
according to Halloran. "History gives you a sense of timing."
Above all, you have to be a solid journalist with an
instinct for news. "Fire in the belly -- without that you’re
doomed to failure," Halloran said.
The work of a foreign correspondent is not for those
satisfied with a desk job, he added. "You live with it,"
Halloran said," . . . and God help you if you are out
of the country when a coup happens."