Programs GALORE coming YOUR way from SPJ!

Colorado Pro Sept. Newsletter

Hello members and friends.
Your new board has been busy and we’ve got a ton of great programs coming up in the rest of the month and in October. Feel free to forward all this useful information to anyone you think might be interested.
Stay tuned to the end of this newsletter for an entertaining story on one member’s excellent trip to SPJ’s Excellence in Journalism national conference.

Quick reminder on the APME NewsTrain two-day journalism workshop in Colorado Springs Sept. 27-28. Get details from the Colorado Press Association’s website. NewsTrain is sponsored by APME (Associated Press Media Editors) and the workshop is hosted by the CPA and the Colorado Springs Gazette. Click here to register. The Colorado Pro chapter provided two $75 stipends for members to attend.

OCTOBER PROGRAMS: FREE TRAINING & BOOK BEAT

The first Fireside Chat of the season is set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place, featuring Dusty and Patrick Saunders talking about sports journalism. Admission is free.

The father-son duo will discuss how ESPN, Fox and other broadcast networks affect local sports coverage, both on TV and in print, how the Internet affects sports reporting, the popularity of radio sports talk shows, how newspaper economics affect sports coverage, and, of course, the future of sports journalism.

Dusty worked at the Rocky Mountain News for 54 years as a copy boy, police reporter, city hall reporter, features editor, and covered the broadcasting beat as a critic and columnist for more than 40 years. He currently writes a Monday TV/radio sports column for The Denver Post.
Dusty was named the Colorado Journalist of the Year in 1993 by the Society of Professional Journalists and is a member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame. In 2011, he published “Here’s Dusty: Life in the TV & Newspaper World.”

Patrick covers the Colorado Rockies for The Denver Post. After working at the Longmont Times-Call, he joined the Post in 1998 as a Denver Broncos beat writer, covering the team’s second run to the Super Bowl title. He also worked as the Post’s online sports editor.
Patrick has won numerous writing awards including the 2003 Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism Award from Northwestern University for his series on the difficulties pro athletes face when battling mental illness.

Colorado Pro is teaming with the Denver Press Club to present an intriguing BOOK BEAT LUNCHEON with authors Robert McChesney and John Nichols, whose new book is titled “Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America,” on Monday, Oct. 14. The book covers the nexus of media consolidation, politics, elections and democracy. Nichols is the Washington, D.C., correspondent for The Nation magazine. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other papers. McChesney is the Gutsell Endowed Professor in Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the co-founder of Free Press one of the nation’s leading media policy and reform organizations, which held its biennial national convention last April in Denver, with more than 2,000 attending.

The event starts at noon, Monday, Oct. 14, at the DPC, 1330 Glenarm St. Menu: Chicken cordon bleu, roasted potatoes and mixed vegetables. Cost is $14 for DPC or SPJ members, $16 for nonmembers. MANDATORY REGISTRATION by noon Friday, Oct. 11. Here’s a link to a video of the authors speaking in Denver in April.

We’ve got an information-packed event coming up Oct. 16 to train journalists (and students!) how to mine U.S. Census data for story ideas and manipulate it to load your stories with accurate information. The free event, hosted by Angeles Ortega-Moore of the Partnership & Data Services
at the Denver Regional Census Office, is from 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm St., Denver. Did we mention ADMISSION IS FREE!

EIJ WRAPUP FROM JAYME MOYE
In the spirit of offering more professional training to our members, the Colorado Pro board awarded a $500 stipend to Boulder freelance writer Jayme Moye to attend SPJ’s Excellence In Journalism conference last month in Anaheim. (Didn’t you see all our #EIJ13 tweets and FB posts?). Moye, whose travel writing has been published in 5280 and National Geographic, got so excited about SPJ she volunteered to be a board member and will now help run our Top of the Rockies regional journalism conference. It’s hard not to get excited about SPJ and its important mission at a national convention. Here’s Jayme’s experience at EIJ:

“Apparently I wasn’t the only virgin conference attendee at SPJ National this year. The Excellence in Journalism Conference August 24-26 set a new record with nearly 1,500 participants, many first-timers. While I can’t speak for the rest of the neophytes, I was lured by the Anaheim, California location (free Disney tickets!), and some very high-profile presenters including Mark S. Luckie, Twitter’s Manager of Journalism and News.

Social media-oriented breakout sessions had high participation. But in the three I attended, it seemed most people wanted more basic information than what was being presented. For example, Mark S. Luckie presented “The Business of Me,” an entrepreneurial vision for branding yourself and pitching your ideas. The audience questions, however, were not in that vein. Participants wanted to know if it’s okay to tweet the same thing twice (Yes, but not the exact same tweet—perhaps tweet the headline first, then a pull quote next), and what the best times are to tweet (Twitter traffic breaks out as follows: 8-10 am Morning News, 12-2 pm Lunchtime Personal Info, 5-8 pm Longer Form Content). It seems that going forward, in addition to advanced social media topics, a best practices presentation would be appropriate.

My favorite presentation was Louise Knott Ahern’s “Understanding the Fundamentals of Fiction (or Everything I Know About Writing I Learned from Romance Novels).” A reporter for the Lansing Journal, Knott Ahern could easily be an actress, or perhaps a politician, with her charmingly powerful presentation style. Her session distilled the best techniques from fiction, and how they can be applied to nonfiction to create a more compelling story. For example, she lambasted the anecdotal lead for having become too formulaic (“If you start your story with When Sally Smith woke up this morning you’ve already failed.”) and urged writers to begin with an inciting incident, a true moment of change, or what Knott Ahern calls “the holy shit moment.” She had the audience at times in stitches, at other times bemoaning their suboptimal narratives, and typically both at once.

Overall, I’d say the best part of the national conference is the networking. I got lost walking to a bowling alley in Anaheim with the President of the Colorado Chapter of SPJ (Dennis Huspeni) and ended up with a board position, drank scotch and talked teaching positions with the University of Colorado’s Director of Journalism and Mass Communication (Christopher Braider) , had lunch (and landed an assignment) with a senior editor at the Christian Science Monitor, and mentored a college student from Kentucky over burgers and fries.
I’ve heard that next year’s conference will be in Nashville. Anyone need a roommate?”

New Board Set, NewsTrain on track and SPJ’s EIJ 2013

Hope everyone’s summer has gone swimmingly. Hard to believe it’s already drawing to a close. Your Colorado Pro board is set, with the July elections behind us (thanks to all who voted). We’d like to welcome new board members: Tak Landrock, a multiple award-winning investigative reporter at KDVR FOX 31 with a 20-year Colorado career in television journalism; and Kara Mason, a student at Colorado State University-Pueblo working a dual degree in journalism and political science, magazine editor at CSU-Pueblo Today and news editor for the Pulp, an alternative news magazine in Pueblo. Tak and Kara bring some fresh ideas and enthusiasm to the board and we’re excited to have them.

CPA’s NewsTrain headed to Colorado Springs
Colorado Pro is happy to help the Colorado Press Association spread the word about NewsTrain. It’s a two-day journalism workshop that will be in Colorado Springs Sept. 27-28. NewsTrain is sponsored by APME and the workshop is hosted by the Colorado Press Association and the Colorado Springs Gazette. We’re so excited about it, we’re going to pay the registration fees for two Colorado SPJ members to attend. If you’re interested, email us at news@spjcolorado.com. For more information about NewsTrain visit CPA’s website.

SPJ’s EIJ 2013
We’re pumped about SPJ’s national convention Excellence in Journalism in Anaheim this weekend. Colorado Pro President Dennis Huspeni is representing the chapter and we gave Colorado freelance writer and SPJ member Jayme Moye a $500 stipend to offset most registration and travel costs for her to attend. They’ll both be tweeting (@denmanh, @jaymemoye and @spjcolo) and posting updates on our FaceBook page. Moye’s stipend, along with the NewsTrain registration stipends, shows the chapter’s commitment to getting our members help with professional training. If you have any tips on available training, let us know!

Official Board of Directors 2013 Ballot – Members please vote.

Colorado Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
Board of Directors election 2013-2014

Deadline to vote: midnight on Monday, July 22

Directions: Read carefully the bios and position statements of the candidates. Then send an email with a subject line “SPJ vote” with your votes to Deb Hurley at dchurley@aol.com. Please vote for one president-elect candidate or name a write-in candidate, and four board member candidates or send in the name(s) of write-in candidates. There are five candidates for board members, so the four with the top vote totals will serve on the board. There are no treasurer candidates, but write-ins will be accepted.

If you have questions, contact elections chair Deb Hurley at 303-601-8098.

President-elect candidate
Vote for one or send a write-in
Ed Otte:
Ed was elected to the SPJ Colorado Pro Chapter board of directors in 2011 and named membership chair. He helped organize and moderated Sunshine Week forums in 2012 at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction and in 2013 at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He worked with CMU students and faculty in 2011-12 to help form a campus chapter. The CSU forum was arranged with SPJ campus chapter adviser Kris Kodrich. In 2012, Ed and board member Doug Bell conducted resume/internship meetings with students at CSU and at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Ed also worked with Colorado Press Association Executive Director Sam Johnston to have SPJ members participate in CPA’s visits to college journalism programs in the fall of 2012. In March 2013, Ed worked with KUNC public radio and Rocky Mountain PBS to arrange The Future of News forum at The Denver Post.
1995-2010 – Executive director Colorado Press Association.
1993-1995 – CPA board of directors.
1980-1995 – Greeley Tribune. City editor, editorial page editor,
editor (1990-1995).
1991-1995 – Adjunct journalism faculty at CSU-Fort Collins.
1969-1980 – Worked in newsrooms at Alamosa Valley Courier, Colorado
Springs Sun, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Santa Fe, NM, and El Paso,
Texas.
Feb. 18, 2011 – Received CPA Friend of First award.
Aug. 26, 2010 – Gov. Bill Ritter signed proclamation declaring Ed Otte
Day in Colorado
Sept. 11, 2004 – Received Friend of Scholastic Journalism award from
Colorado High School Press Association

Reason for running: I enjoy working with the board members, all of whom are committed to SPJ’s mission and goals and to strengthening the chapter’s role in Colorado journalism. We will continue to provide additional programs and educational opportunities to our members, and to attract new pro and student members. And we will continue to partner with other organizations, such as CPA, to expand our activities around the state.”

Treasurer
No candidates
Please send any write-in names

Board of directors
Vote for four: There are five candidates. The four people with the highest number of votes will serve on the board.

Jim Anderson
Jim Anderson is The Associated Press news editor for Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. Anderson joined the AP in Mexico City and has worked in Los Angeles, New York, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Caracas, Venezuela, reporting throughout the Caribbean and in Central and South America. Before coming to Colorado, Anderson was an assistant city editor at The Miami Herald. A native of Syracuse, N.Y., Anderson has degrees from Cornell University and the University of Southern California.

Reason for running: My re-election bid is inspired by Colorado SPJ Pro’s critical role in identifying, addressing and publicizing restrictions on the free flow of public information – be it at the local, state or federal level. Working with SPJ members and leveraging our influence with other organizations, we can ensure that the public’s open records laws work – and act when they don’t.

Vicky Gits
A longtime Colorado resident and former staff writer with Evergreen Newspapers for six years, Vicky recently gave up covering long-lost dogs, aggressive elk, illegal hunting, government, courts, land use, outdoors, parks and fire districts for the Canyon Courier. She was also a staff writer for the Douglas County News-Press for three years, covering business, worked nights for six years at the Denver Post as news copy editor and spent five years at the Boulder Daily Camera as a business reporter and editor. Before that, there was a brief stint at the Denver Business Journal and a few years at Cablevision, a weekly trade magazine. Her first job in newspapers was with the Holly Chieftain the summer before graduating from the University of Colorado-Boulder with a master’s degree in journalism. In 1984, she completed a certificate in business and economics journalism at Columbia University in New York. She was appointed to the board in March to fill the remaining term of a vacancy due to resignation and assigned to the position of program chair. Member of Colorado SPJ Pro for about five years.

Reason for running: As a potential board member I am mainly interested in seeking and staging timely programs and social events, but also advocating for open records, open meetings and financial transparency.

Tak Landrock
Tak Landrock is a three time Edward R Murrow award-winning investigative reporter/producer for KMGH-TV in Denver. Landrock has called Colorado home since he moved here when he was 12. Landrock joined the CALL7 Investigators in December 2011 to help with daily investigations. Before coming to Denver, he worked in Colorado Springs as the investigative reporter at KRDO-TV. Many of his stories have helped create policy change, making Colorado a safer place to live and work. In one investigation, he was able to track down two murder suspects wanted for killing a 6-year-old girl and burying her body in a crawl space of a vacant home. His work lead to their arrest and conviction. Landrock’s investigations have garnished national attention from major news organizations, including the AP, CNN, ABCNEWS, MSNBC and FOX.

Reason for running: Journalism is changing at a fast pace, and we need to find a formula to respect the traditions of the past, but also understand the needs of the future. I share SPJ’s mission into ethical reporting, fighting for information and inspiring others. Recently, I joined SPJ as a member of the regional program committee and have brought my ideas on how to elevate our presence in the region, handling training seminars and hosted this year’s awards ceremony. I want to carry that forward as a board member. I am looking forward to helping the organization drive its mission as a leader from within.

Kara Mason
Kara Mason is a student at Colorado State University-Pueblo. While working on a dual degree in journalism and political science, she has been on the CSU-Pueblo Today staff and is currently serving as the magazine editor. Kara also contributes and acts as the news editor for the Pulp, an alternative news magazine in Pueblo. With just about a year of undergraduate school left, Kara hopes to continue on to earn a master’s degree and make a career of writing.

Reason for running: Being involved in the state SPJ is important to me as this is the place I am reporting. As a student, I believe there are many opportunities to grow in a network full of professionals, and I look forward to learning and connecting with those who share my passion for reporting.

Leticia Steffen
Leticia Steffen joined the SPJ and the Colorado Pro chapter in 1995. She is an associate professor in the mass communications department at Colorado State University-Pueblo and occasionally does freelance writing for The Pueblo Chieftain. Recently, Steffen served as guest editor at the Rocky Ford Daily Gazette/Ordway New Era. She hopes to continue her service to the Colorado Pro Chapter as a member of the board and would like to help develop more programming opportunities for journalists outside the metro Denver area.

Reason for running: I would be honored to have the opportunity to serve on the Colorado Pro board for another two-year term. Our membership is growing, and it is good to see members from around the state. Because I’m not located in the metro Denver area, I understand the difficulty of attending some of the wonderful programs that happen there, so this year I would like to research the possibility of streaming some of the talks and presentations that occur in Denver to places around the state. For members in the southeastern part of the state, I’d also like to try organizing carpools for those who want to attend the Denver events. I’m constantly encouraged, in my role as a journalism instructor at CSU-Pueblo, by the enthusiasm that exists among young people for the field of journalism. I have no doubts that our profession will continue to thrive, and I look forward to supporting journalism — through my work on SPJ and through my teaching — well into the future.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Call For Board Member Nominations

Dear members of Colorado Pro Chapter of SPJ:

My name is Deb Hurley. I’m the elections chair for the Colorado Professional Chapter of SPJ. I am calling for self-nominations for the six positions up for election on the board: four directors at-large, the treasurer and the president-elect.

Board meetings are held once per month, and board members may attend in person or via conference call. Board members may reside anywhere in Colorado, and must be members in good standing with national SPJ and the Colorado Professional Chapter.

To indicate your willingness to run for a position and to serve on the board, please e-mail me your name, the position you are running for, a photo, a biography of no more than 250 words and a statement of no more than 200 words explaining why you want to be on the board. NEW: Deadline is midnight, Wednesday, July 3.

The election information will be e-mailed to all members of the Colorado Pro Chapter on July 2. Members will have until noon on Monday July 22, to cast ballots in this all-electronic election.

If you have any questions about the process, the duties or how you can get involved with the Colorado Pro Chapter – whether as a board member or as a volunteer – please contact me at 303-601-8098 or at dchurley@aol.com or President Dennis Huspeni at 719-648-0055 or president@spjcolorado.com or news@spjcolorado.com.

Position: President-elect
Term of office: 1 year; this person automatically become president of the chapter in 2012, serving in that position for two years
Duties: The president-elect acts in the absence of the president and works closely with the president to oversee the chapter; learns the workings of the chapter in preparation to become president.

Position: Treasurer
Term of office: 2 years
Duties: The treasurer shall oversee all monies of the chapter and shall disburse funds upon proper authorization of the chapter’s officers; keep records of all receipts, disbursements and balances; report monthly on the financial condition of the chapter to the board.

Position: Members of the board of directors
Term of office: 2 years
4 positions are open
Duties: The board is responsible for the general direction and planning of chapter activities. Board members are required to attend board meetings and participate in the chapter’s professional development and programming efforts. A member of the board may also be appointed to chair one of several committees coordinating the work of the chapter, including membership, communications, programming, ethics and advocacy.

Top of the Rockies finalists announced!

We’d like to congratulate the finalists of this year’s Top of the Rockies regional journalism contest. Download the .pdf of the winners here TOR_Finalists_2013 judgments-results-433.136797908 (exact rankings revealed at the Awards Reception Friday May 17 at the Denver Press Club).

We had a record number of entries this year, so the Colorado Pro chapter would like to thank you all for participating. Journalists are working harder than ever, and there’s fewer of us. The award winners represent some the best work in Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. These are your watchdogs making sure governments and corporations are behaving; your storytellers who can take us to another world or plant us in someone else’s shoes; your information gatherers and sharers – no matter the medium.

Let’s celebrate our noble profession and toast some fine work over the past year at the Top of the Rockies Awards Reception, 5:30 p.m. (presentations start at 6:30) Friday, May 17, at the historic and storied Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm St., Denver. Appetizers provided with the cash bar. Winners are free, but could everyone else make a small donation to help cover costs? RSVP here.