NCAA mascot decision gets support

Ruling to ban portrayal of Native Americans stirring discussions

By Gabe Wicklund

Texas Christian University

The NCAA’s decision to restrict American Indian references in NCAA championships, effective Feb. 1, 2006, has the support of some journalism educators at the AEJMC convention.

Jeff Blevins, a professor at Iowa State University, said that, though he is sensitive to school traditions, it is time for schools to be sensitive to Native Americans.

“I understand that tradition is one thing, but I think we need to move past it,” he said.

In his three years at Central Michigan University, the Chippewa mascot has been a topic of discussion, with the tribe agreeing to the use of the name, Blevins said.

“I always kind of felt uneasy about the agreement that the university had with the tribe because the university always seemed to be the first to mention that and promote it.”

The NCAA decision affects 18 institutions, and each has six months to appeal the decision.

"Colleges and universities may adopt any mascot that they wish, as that is an institutional matter," said Walter Harrison, chair of the Executive Committee and president at the University of Hartford, in an Aug. 5 NCAA press release. "But as a national association, we believe that mascots, nicknames or images deemed hostile or abusive in terms of race, ethnicity or national origin should not be visible at the championship events that we control.”

Scott Reinardy, a graduate student from the University of Missouri, said if state universities are getting taxpayers’ money, then they have a right to voice their offense.

The last one standing

Saturday presenters face small crowds in final days of convention

By Jaime Loke

University of Texas at Austin

For the last two years, Matt Blake has had the distinction of being near the end of the line when it comes to making presentations on the final day of the AEJMC convention.

Most of the crowd will have packed up and gone by early Saturday, but Blake doesn’t take it personally.

“Last year at Toronto, there were only about six people in the room when I presented,” Blake said with a chuckle. The University of Florida doctoral candidate says he doesn’t know why he’s presenting on the last day again.

“Let’s just say I wasn’t good enough to be the keynote speaker, so I didn’t go on the first night,” he said.

Salma Ghanem, a professor at University of Texas-Pan American, is presenting on Saturday as well. She also has made last-day presentations and has encountered the same situation as Blake — a small crowd.

“Someone’s got to go last,” Ghanem said with a laugh. “It’s just the luck of the draw.”

Ghanem doesn’t mind Saturday presentations, but she prefers presentations in the middle of the meeting.

Scheduling of convention presentations is determined through what is known as a weighted lottery, called a chip or grid system.

News councils sought to raise media credibility

Grants would be awarded to develop groups for mediating consumer-media disputes

By Kathryn Fiegen

Iowa State University

The Knight Foundation is working with the Washington News Council to offer two $75,000 grants to develop additional news councils that would mediate disputes between consumers and the media.

News councils have been formed in Washington, Minnesota and Hawaii to address disputes involving newspapers, television, radio and Web news organization, and John Hamer, executive director of the Washington News Council, says he would like to see one in every state.

In the seven years it has existed, the Washington News Council had received 20 formal complaints against the media. Hamer said a formal complaint is one of the last options the group takes.

“We are somewhere between a letter to the editor and a libel suit,” Hamer said about news councils. “Many people just want someone to listen to them, and that is enough. Some people don’t know how to approach the media.”

News councils are not a path to legal action, Hamer said, and upset parties must sign a waiver stating they will not sue before working with the council.

“Our goal is to provide recourse outside the courts,” Hamer said.

Hamer said the council listens to complaints, arranges meetings with the media and educates media consumers on how to do things such as draft letters to the editor.

Grant applications are due Feb. 15. Applicants must present a proposal to put together a council that is non-partisan and diverse, Hamer said. Diversity means professionally, ethnically, geographically, ideologically and gender-based, he said.

“We are open to innovative proposals,” he said.

For more information, check the Washington News Council’s Web site, www.wanewscouncil.org.

AEJMC division offers new $5K grant

By Jared Strong

Iowa State University

The Mass Communication and Society Division of AEJMC will offer a new $5,000 annual research grant to students and faculty beginning next year, Jennifer Greer, head of the MC&S division, said Friday.

Details about proposals and deadlines are expected to be available by mid-October on the MC&S Web site and in the fall newsletter.

The total grant sum will be awarded to the top one or two proposals, which can focus on a broad range of topics but should examine the impact of mass communications on society, Greer said.

‘Net aches’

Panelists ponder convergence, multimedia journalism

By Gabe Wicklund

Texas Christian University

Journalism educators continue to struggle with teaching convergence, a prevalent problem discussed at Friday’s panel, “Convergence in the Newsroom.”

One type of convergence cross trains students to become multimedia journalists. They are trained to write for newspapers, the Web and electronic media.

Future journalists are being trained to be good at everything rather than focusing on one specialty. That may not a good thing, said panelist Larry Dailey, technology chair at the University of Nevada-Reno.

Dailey compared the dangers of cross training to a platypus.

“Isn’t the platypus an endangered species?” he asked. “Why is that? It’s not good at one thing; it’s mediocre at everything.”

During a discussion with the audience, Hugh Martin from the University of Georgia noted consumers are driving the news media to converge content in multiple formats.

Consumers are not reading newspapers anymore because new technology has lowered the cost of searching and finding information, which is not a bad thing, Martin said.

“We need to take a step back and ask what some of the larger principles are,” he said.

Panelists also addressed the reuse of content among media conglomerates. Markets use new technologies and put story content into different mediums — labeling it convergence.

“If convergence is just recycling all the content, it probably is not a good thing,” said Louisa Ha, a professor at Bowling Green State University.

Tankard: A leader in mass communication research

obituary

By AEJMC Reporter Staff

James William Tankard Jr., a professor emeritus in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who was known as a leader in mass communication research, died Friday after a long illness.

Tankard was a long-time member of AEJMC, and had served as chair of the Research Committee. He headed the committee that developed the professional journalism master’s program.

“His research work informed generations of students and professors,” said Lynda Lee Kaid, a professor at the University of Florida. “He provided an understanding of mass communication theory and taught us how to find applications.”

Tankard’s book “Communication Theories,” written with Werner J. Severin, is a standard in graduate mass communication theory classes across the country.

“He wrote in a clear and simple way that people could understand,” Kaid said.

Tankard was born June 20, 1941, in Newport News, Va., the eldest of three sons of Dr. James William Tankard and Eileen Looney Tankard.

Tankard received a Bachelor of Science degree from Virginia Tech in 1963. He received his master’s in 1965 from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and in 1970 he was awarded his doctorate from Stanford University with a dissertation on eye contact as a communication channel.

Tankard worked for Associated Press in Charlotte, N.C., in 1965 and as a county government reporter for the Raleigh (N.C.) Times from 1965-1966. He held part-time positions with the U.S. Information Agency and the Center for War/Peace Studies in Berkeley, Calif.

Dunwoody takes reins

By Jaime Loke

University of Texas at Austin

Sharon Dunwoody wants to make sure the 2006 AEJMC convention in San Francisco will be “fabulous.”

Dunwoody, the new AEJMC president, says she wants to make the next convention memorable since it is the focal point of the association’s year.

In a brief interview on Friday, Dunwoody said she wants the organization to spend more time helping graduate students, while not ignoring the needs of undergrads.

Dunwoody said that a couple of years ago, the association started to look at the quality of the association journals. As a result, the publications committee conducted a survey about members’ perceptions of the AEJMC journal. The results of the survey will be published in AEJMC news next year.

“We’ve got high quality journals, and the survey demonstrates that,” Dunwoody said.

“But we always have to ask ourselves if we’re serving our members, if the best scholars in our association are choosing to put their work here or not.”

Dunwoody is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She teaches science communication writing and research courses, communication and public opinion and introductory mass communication.

Dunwoody said she believes the association must listen to its members and others who are not on the administrative board in order to make intelligent decisions.

Q&A: Sharon Dunwoody

By Jaime Loke

University of Texas at Austin

As president of AEJMC, what do you think your most important job is?
The two most important jobs are to make sure the 2006 convention is just fabulous. This is a major thing that this organization does, and I think the second one will be to move along some issues that are on our table as an organization and that I personally am passionate about.

Give me some of the issues that you are passionate about. One of the things that we are working is how to bring doctoral education issues more fully into the ongoing work of the association. We have a large number of doctoral granting institutions; many of us work with graduate students. But the association so far has given the bulk of time and attention to undergraduate students, which are important, not surprisingly because they are the bulk of our students. But we need to also be sensitive to what it means to be training people at the doctoral level in journalism and mass communication.

What is the one thing you would like to see different about AEJMC under your leadership? I’d like to continue to enhance the opportunities for members to participate in this conference and in evaluating some of the issues we will be dealing with. So, for example, publishing the results of our survey of perceptions of our journals in the newsletter is a way of sharing information and asking membership to give us feedback, because one could have just kept it in-house.

Sports scribes take ESPN’s lead, swing for the fences

By Gabe Wicklund

Texas Christian University

What constitutes a cardinal sin for many print side sports writers can provide the basis for an ESPN sports anchor’s success— the clichés.

“The inning isn’t over until the fat lady sings.” “Win one for the gipper.” “There is no ‘I’ in team.” “Leave it all on the field.” “Defense wins championships.”

Sports editors have been working for years to cut clichés from newspaper pages and have stressed the importance of simplicity. SportsCenter, however, openly welcomes overused phrases, and University of Missouri graduate student Scott Reinardy said Friday at a broadcasting panel session that the practice is carrying over to newspapers.

“I think the style that has taken on the characteristics of ESPN is that quick-hitting, flashy, cutsie type of jargon that young sports writers feel they need to enhance their stories,” said Reinardy, co-author of “Boo-yah’! Sports Journalists Identify ESPN’s Impact on Sports Writing.”

Creative writing cannot replace facts, Reinardy said, but sports reporters are relying on their own artistry and less actual reporting when writing.

“They think they can write their way out of stories without having the information, which is troublesome because the copy desk can fix poorly written sentences and edit out some of this flashy style, but they can’t replace the holes in stories,” Reinardy said.

“You really can’t write good stories unless you’ve done good reporting.”

SportsCenter was begun in 1979 as a 15-minute program with 2 million viewers. In 2004, SportsCenter drew 94 million viewers who, on average, watched about five and a half hours of programming a week.

Is the NCAA going too far with its post-season Native American mascot ban?

No, I don’t think so. I know there are very strong feelings the other way. I respect people who are endeared to their school mascots, but it’s just wrong.

 

 

 

 

I think it’s a good idea not to use Native American names. When I hear the word “banned,” it sort of grates against my First Amendment sensibility, but I think it’s pretty offensive to be using native American names for team names. It’s appropriating somebody’s culture. It’s sort of taking somebody’s name and almost making a joke out of it by the people who have oppressed them.

 

 

“No. We have passed a resolution ourselves on this matter, either in 2001 or 2002. I think the time has come for us to stop denigrating groups like our Native Americans.”

 

 

 

 

 

“I think people should just chill. It should be a fun thing, and there shouldn’t be a lot of politics in it. Sports are sports. I don’t know much about it, but it should just be fun.”

 

 

 

 

 

“I think they need to pay more attention to this type of racial thing. I think it’s not very good to use ethnic groups’ images as mascots for sports groups. If I were a Native American, I would be opposed to that.”

Some media fall short in coverage of racial issues

By Ashlee Erwin

University of Missouri-Columbia

Today, if a couple of white men murdered a black teenager for whistling at a white woman, the news media coverage would be expected to be far different than in 1955.

Then, predominantly white news organizations such as The New York Times, had fewer sources and offered less historical context in their coverage of the murder of Emmett Till than did black-oriented media such as Jet magazine, said Craig Flournoy of Southern Methodist University.

Even today, Flournoy says, the print media still struggles with issues of race.

“What strikes me as odd is that the country is becoming more and more diverse, but we have a new media in this country controlled by middle-aged white guys,” Flournoy said.

On Saturday, Flournoy, along with three other academics, will discuss coverage of racial issues from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement.

“Race is a great unexplored area of media history,” said Flournoy.

“Media scholars will spend enormous amounts of energy and time looking at race today, but there’s very little attention to historical coverage of race.”

The session will present a historical continuum of newspaper coverage of black issues, ranging from a black newspapers’ coverage of the Civil War from California, early 20th century Ku Klux Klan and police brutality coverage issues in the Pacific Northwest and the Till case.

Getting job goes beyond grades

By Jared Strong

Iowa State University

It takes more than good reporting skills to land an internship and a first job, but many students don’t know it.

“I think my parents’ generation thought they’d be discovered on a soda fountain stool to go be a star,” said Katherine Bradshaw, a professor at Bowling Green State and panelist for Friday session “Getting Students Hired: Constructing Ideal Candidates for Journalism Openings.”

Bradshaw, who teaches broadcast journalism, said having high-level skills is important but making multiple professional contacts, creating a detailed career plan and dressing appropriately can be equally important.

Bradshaw told the 10-person audience about a student who needed to tone down her style a bit. Bradshaw advised her to dress like a “hip banker” but the advice didn’t sink in.

“Her employer told me, ‘Well, she was OK, but she came to work every day dressed like a slut,” Bradshaw said. “Apparently, I didn’t get my message through to her.”

Much of the discussion centered on how to prepare effective cover letters and resumes.

“If you made 500 copies of your resume, you’re doing it wrong,” said Michael Sweeney, who heads the journalism department at Utah State University.

“They should be specifically tailored for each publication.”

Doctoral students, employers dance the employment dance

Faculty looks for best minds, students search for best fit

By Christine Stanley

University of North Texas

The interviewers and the interviewed say it’s kind of like speed dating. Doctoral students have 30 minutes to woo their potential bosses, and interviewers have the same amount of time to make their prospects fall in love.

Sue Barnes, who teaches at University of Rochester, has been interviewing potential journalism faculty at the AEJMC Conference for the past two days. She said the interviewing process is not just about scrutinizing candidates.

“A large part of what I’m doing here is trying to sell Rochester [New York] because everybody thinks it’s the Arctic,” she said, laughing. “It’s a wonderful way to meet a lot of different candidates and talk about your school. I’m doing more promoting than scrutinizing candidates.”

One of the Marriott Rivercenter’s conference rooms was transformed into an academic meat market Friday – job seekers congregated outside, nervously peeking in on the interviewing table action. Inside, professors and administrators questioned their candidates with vitas spread out before them.

“It’s been interesting, intense and fun,” said Heidi Hennink-Kaminski, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia.

Hennink-Kaminski has been interviewing for the past three days and is being just as discriminating as her interviewers. She said she’s looking to find the right school that fits her needs.

“It’s a great opportunity to find out about the department structure, how many students are there, the different faculty and what their research interests are,” she said. “Instead of being just a brochure, you get a face-to-face experience.”

About half of Friday’s interviewees were fresh out of various Ph.D. programs, but some were in the midst of transitional periods. Hennink-Kaminski is leaving the corporate world after 15 years of advertising and public relations experience. She plans to defend her dissertation next June and will need a teaching position by next August.

Elections covered differently worldwide

By Isadora Vail-Castro

Texas State University

“Bush: wanted, dead or alive.”

Zeny Sarabia-Panol read the words on a poster in Rome a month before the 2004 presidential election. It showed a larger-than-life George Bush with a smirk. She knew she would never forget it.

“That poster is where I got the idea for this panel,” the Middle Tennessee University professor said. “I heard my friends say that if elections were held outside of the United States, Senator John Kerry would have been elected.”

Sarabia-Panol moderated a discussion Friday titled “How the World’s Press is Portraying Us.” Three panelists studied newspapers in Asia, Europe and South Africa.

Rose Baselers, a professor from Stillman University in the Philippines, studied Asia’s newspapers’ portrayals of the 2004 U.S. presidential election and candidates.

Baselers said that in South East Asia the election sparked more interest than any other presidential election, and that the Iraq war contributed to the increase.

“The Bush administration was described as one of failure and incompetence,” Baselers said. “Kerry was described as boring but popular among young, Black and Hispanic voters.”

Marci Hinton, who teaches public relations at Middle Tennessee State, found that stories in Europe about Bush portrayed him favorably after Sept. 11.

Advertisers work to avoid Hispanic stereotypes

By Kathryn Fiegen

Iowa State University

A common misconception in advertising is that Hispanics are all the same, a San Antonio ad executive said Friday.

The Hispanic population is growing around the country, and understanding the differences in the population is key, said Ignacio Guzman, associate creative director Bromley Communications of San Antonio.

“We might all look the same and talk the same, but there is a lot of cultural difference,” he said. “For example, the Hispanic population in New York is a lot more Puerto Rican, and in the Southwest, it is a lot more Mexican. I think the success of the Hispanic market will be to detect these differences.”

Tactics such as these have helped Bromley to the top of the market for Hispanic advertising. Bromley’s client list includes Burger King, Circuit City and Procter and Gamble. AEJMC convention-goers were taken on-location to Bromley’s downtown office for an Advertising Division session, “Pass the Salsa por favor: Targeting the Hispanic Market.”

“In order to talk to the Hispanic consumer, we need to understand them,” Guzman said.

He showed a television campaign for Circuit City to illustrate the importance of extensive research.

“Like, for Hispanics, a computer or a TV is more than a purchase,” he said.

The commercial showed a man walking down the aisle of Circuit City with his new computer as the “Wedding March” played. At the door to his home, he struggled as he carried the computer “across the threshold.”

Experts are satisfied, worried by changes to modern newsrooms

By Emily Goodson

Texas Christian University

It starts with the educators. That was the message conveyed by panelists at Friday’s session “Beyond Photojournalism: Changes in the Culture of the Newsroom.”

Maggie Steber, a freelance photographer for the Miami Herald, said newspapers are in trouble as circulations drop and revenues are lost.

“We’re in a fight for the life of newspapers,” Steber said.

“(The solution) starts with the educators.”

Members of the panel discussed several smaller issues surrounding the problem, such as collaboration between newspapers and other media outlets, digital manipulation of photographs and the increased drive by newspaper owners to show significant profit rather than produce quality journalism.

Loup Langton, who teaches photojournalism at the University of Miami, said he thinks the digital manipulation of photographs is the least of newspapers’ problems because journalists know it is unacceptable.

“Photographers and photo editors know the consequences of changing a photo,” Langton said.

“I think that we should not worry so much about digital manipulation.”

Reporter Notebooks

‘Reporter Notebooks’ offer student journalists working for the AEJMC Reporter a chance to share their viewswith the newspaper’s readers.

When asked to write this notebook, I was quick to think of all the bad things that happened to me this week. I wanted to go into detail and tell all of you how disorganized we were and how I almost went home the first day.

But after a secret session with my beloved professor Kym Fox, she flat out told me I was being naive. I am lucky to have such a wonderfully and brutally honest mentor in my life.

If you are a journalism student, find a Kym Fox at your university.

When asked to write this, I wasn’t thinking about all the people I got to interview that I would never have the chance to meet. I didn’t even realize I learned that I am able to work under daily newspaper deadlines.

I wasn’t thinking that all the clashing personalities I was working with might be how the real world is. When I was asked to write this, I was thinking of myself.

We all argued and whined but the paper was still on the table in the morning. Strangers crammed into a Marriott suite with only two Internet available computers and produced the very first AEJMC student paper.

Now that I am finally writing this, and thinking about the week, I feel lucky to have been here. I think all the students who worked their tails off, for no pay, and did a wonderful job of sticking it out for the duration of the week.

I heard Bill Douglas say at a discussion Thursday night, “you don’t see what we put in, you see what we put out.”

This experience is one I know, I won’t learn in a classroom.

Prior to my arrival at the San Antonio airport Monday, I had never been to Texas. For all I knew, stepping off the plane meant stepping into a world of big hats, bigger hair and y’all becoming the correct way to say “you all.”

I was disappointed to find out most of my stereotypes were personified by the tourists walking around downtown San Antonio. Yes, tourists. It seems when people step off the plane in San Antonio, they buy a cowboy hat at the airport, grab a can of Aqua Net and use “y’all” like it’s their job.

But, don’t you worry. I’ll still go back to Iowa full of Texas-sized stories about my stay.

For one, my cab drivers have been delightful. I believe you can tell a lot about a town’s character by its cabbies. In Las Vegas, for example, I had a cab driver get me from the Hilton to the Stratosphere in five minutes flat. (In Las Vegas, you get down to business, if you know what I mean.)

In Washington D.C., my cab drivers told me about the famous people they had driven around. (In D.C., it’s all about who you know.) In New York City, my drivers never said anything. (In NYC, you mind your own damn business.)

I’m not quite sure what to make of San Antonio. I had a cab driver Wednesday who had his left turn signal on the entire time. He asked me if I had paid my respects at the Alamo. When I told him I hadn’t, he replied, “Well, you should do that. If it weren’t for what happened there, we would all still be speaking Spanish, you know.”

What? I thought we lost the Alamo?

Regardless of history – or history according to my cab driver, I’ve enjoyed my time here doing two of my favorite things: sightseeing (via cab) and recording the first draft of history for AEJMC.

Pardon me. I’m a talented, hardworking, creative journalism senior looking for some pocket change to get me to a newspaper home. Can you spare a quarter?

Oh, how I love to hate that American monetary blood flow. But how does an only child of an educator and travel agent afford to live while in college? You take out $35,000 (that’s a four-year guesstimate) worth of loans and get a full-time job, or in my case two.

Let me give some context. This past summer, I worked as the managing editor for the North Texas Daily in Denton. Once a week, we published 14,000 tabloid-style newspapers for a campus audience of 32,000 students and 3,000 educators. We had a paid staff of eight.

My day on production deadline goes like this: enough Red Bull to feed my caffeine addiction, $6; two fast food meals when there is not enough time to walk home and cook, $8 (thank you Jack in the Box.); one drink at a favorite bar to wash the stress down, if I can still stand, $4; pay I receive at my student newspaper for a 10-15-hour day on deadline, $13.

No, we are not paid per column-inch or issue. The NT Daily pays “salary,” in my case no more than 20 hours per pay period. That’s a whopping $25 more than my rent.

To paraphrase my production manager, “You knew the dangers of the job before you took it.” And the phone call I received from her on Tuesday, telling me I was responsible for, but not being paid for, the 44-page “back to school” edition due to plant in seven days, did not help my attitude.

Yes, I know the “danger,” but don’t rub my nose in it.

Do any students work for their campus paper for money? Of course we don’t. Will we do it again and again? Of course we will. How important is the experience? Priceless. How important is a square meal? You got food! Can I have some? I wash dishes!

A reoccurring theme in these notebooks has been the love of our chosen career path, but what to do when you have to work another full-time job to pay for rent, food, books, crazy lab fees, gas, Red Bull (as a dietary supplement), beer, movies, popcorn, more Red Bull, lollipops, my five-newspaper-a-day obsession, and that bread and water thing? Please don’t mention my broken car – it’s a touchy subject, and I missed my mother’s birthday to be here. Sally E. Austrew, thank you for your love and support. So happy birthday, Mom. Feed me soon.

Ask me to do anything, I will. Ask me to learn anything, I will. Ask me to dedicate unimaginable hours from my schedule, I will. But at least pay me enough so I could eat one – yes just a mere one – hot meal a week. Then ask me if I’m complacent, I’ll agree.

Just understand that I can’t afford dry-cleaning, shoe-shines, razor blades and professional lunches.

Regardless of history – or history according to my cab driver, I’ve enjoyed my time here doing two of my favorite things: sightseeing (via cab) and recording the first draft of history for AEJMC.

Imagine that you’re an unpaid newspaper intern. It’s Monday, and you have only $10 to last five days.

You have a 40-mile commute to work and gas costs $2.25 per gallon. Rent is due by Friday, and your one and only decent suit begs for dry-cleaning, ketchup stains still intact from last week.

Basically, life sucks – even though you’re getting invaluable experience in your chosen field.

I’m wrapping up an unpaid internship at the Fort Worth Weekly this summer, and it’s been wonderful. My editor has constantly shown great trust in me, allowing me to be a real reporter instead of a cubicle-bound fact checker.

Yet it’s been hard.

Why?

Well, I know the good people at the Weekly would pay me on a regular basis if they could, but budget constraints are a reality for nearly every publication in the business, so it’s understandable.

Colleges and universities need to find more ways to help solve this problem. A lot of ideas were thrown around at a panel discussion Wednesday, like establishing internship funds and creatively structuring curriculum, which would ease the burden on non-paid students.

It’s not enough to say, “That’s just how it is.” Internships are vital, and often, if you’re not from a big-name school, getting a paid gig can be next to impossible.

But it’s needed. After all, how can I make ends meet when my sole source of income is baby-sitting one of my professor’s pets?

Made it out alive

The AEJMC Reporter staff

By Lorraine Branham & Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez

When we arrived in Room 618 of the Marriott RiverCenter Monday, the small staff of the AEJMC Reporter was facing an intense week of working side-by-side to produce our daily paper. We joked, at the outset, that deodorant was a must: we would be in close quarters.

One week later, after several late nights, technical difficulties, and intense discussions (OK, sometimes arguments!), we are saying goodbye.

Judging from what we’ve seen, the AEJMC Reporter has accomplished what it set out to do: Let participants read about some of the major issues at this conference and provide training to 16 young college-journalists. We have been gratified to see many attendees drop by to offer to help and tell us how cool our effort is. We want to thank, in particular Kim Smith and Bryan Murley both of the University of South Carolina, Edna Negron of Ramapo College and Carol Wilcox of Virginia State University. They asked if they could help and we were only too grateful to have them join us. If we’ve left off anybody, please forgive us.

Of course, again, the San Antonio Express-News staff was superb: in particular Yvonne Castillo, assistant night production manager, and Ted Edmonson, publishing services manager. We know there were people we didn’t meet, who dropped off the paper and worked the printing presses. The Express-News and its editor Robert Rivard have established the paper as a stalwart supporter of journalism education and in this case, the paper has gone far beyond the call of duty. (It also provided daily coverage of the convention on paper and online.)