Issues
A daily newspaper serving the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Aug. 10-13, 2005
San Antonio, Texas
Staff
Co-publishers
Lorraine E. Branham
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
University of Texas at Austin
Editor
Robert Bohler, Texas Christian Univeristy
Managing Editor /
Newsroom Administration
George Sylvie, University of Texas at Austin
Managing Editor / News
Richard Finnell, University of Texas at Austin
Managing Editor / Production
Griff Singer, University of Texas at Austin
Assistant Managing Editor / Production
Fernando Ortiz, Corpus Christi Caller Times
Assignment Editors
David Bulla, Iowa State University
Tracy Everback, University of North Texas
Kym Fox, Texas State University
Donna Pazdera, University of Texas-Pan American
Photography Editor
Tino Mauricio, University of Texas at Austin
Technology Director
Scott Calhoun, University of Texas at Austin
Online Content Producer / Editor
Ajit D'Sa, trnsfr Studios, Austin
Copy Editors
Emily Grobe, University of Texas at San Antonio
Julie Ruff, University of Texas at Austin
Designers
Zachary Austrew, University of North Texas
Michael Walter, University of North Texas
Shawn Finer, Texas Christian University
Reporters
Ashlee Erwin, University of Missouri
Kathryn Feigen, Iowa State University
Jamie Loke, University of Texas at Austin
Denise Montaño, Texas State University
Christine Stanley, University of North Texas
Jared Strong, Iowa State University
Isadora Vail-Castro, Texas State University
Gabe Wicklund, Texas Christian University
Photographers
Courtney Addison, Texas State University
Emily Goodson, Texas Christian University
David Minton, University of North Texas
Abrams worries about protection of secret sources
Abrams
Lawyer represents jailed reporter Judith Miller
By Jared Strong
Iowa State University
Floyd Abrams, the nation’s preeminent First Amendment lawyer, made his first appearance ever at an AEJMC convention and said he is concerned about the state of American journalism.
“Sometimes I have my doubts that journalists as a group are as strongly committed to the protection of sources as has historically been the case,” he said in an interview before he spoke to a crowd of more than 100 Wednesday evening. “I think we are seeing the triumph of personal political views … Those journalists are really saying that we need to protect our confidential sources only if we really like the story that they’re giving us.”
Aside from his law practice, Abrams is a visiting professor at Columbia Graduate School for Journalism, where he speaks a few times each term, taking a broad look at the performance of the press.
Abrams discussed the situation facing one of his clients, New York Times writer Judith Miller. She is being held in the Alexandria Detention Center in Alexandria, Va., for not revealing an anonymous source who leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Abrams said he anticipates Miller’s release to be no earlier than Oct. 28, and it could potentially be much later.
“Any decision to try to coerce Judy Miller to reveal her sources by incarcerating her for more than the four months she’s currently facing would be troublingly punitive,” Abrams said before his speech.
He noted that Special Council Patrick Fitzgerald has indicated he might impanel a new grand jury or consider prosecuting Miller for criminal contempt.
“I really hope they don’t do it, but there’s really no way to know what the final decision will be,” he said.
Abrams said no matter how Miller’s situation is resolved, he hopes future journalists are taught about the importance of keeping their word after granting confidentiality.
“A journalist should still be prepared to pay a very high price in order to assure that sources are protected,” he said.
Abrams has tried many cases involving shield laws, and he said Miller’s situation will be more difficult than most.
“This is a difficult case because it involves a grand jury, and because it involves the revelation of the name of a CIA agent, but it still remains a close case in my view,” he said.
The leak of Plame’s identity has involved a number of journalists, including syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who originally released her identity, and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, who was released by his anonymous sources from his promise of confidentiality. Cooper has identified White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby as his sources.
Abrams said Cooper’s situation, where the sources released him, is the only way a journalist should reveal a confidential source.
“Cooper was personally released by his source,” Abrams said. “I say ‘personally’ because the federal government has begun to insist that its employees sign waivers that basically say, ‘If I ask any journalist for confidentiality, I waive it and encourage them to speak.’”
Miller and Cooper both believe that such a waiver is not valid because it is the result of de facto coercion, according to Abrams.
The Plame leak investigation comes at a time of growing realization in the journalism community that there has been some overuse or over reliance on anonymous sources, Abrams said.
“Newspapers and broadcasters are cutting back on that and I think they’re wise to do it,” Abrams said. “Confidential sources should only be used when it is absolutely necessary to do so in terms of both the information provided and the significance of the story itself.”
Abrams, who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case of 1971, authored a book published this year titled “Speaking Freely.” In it he chronicles his life as a champion for the First Amendment.
During the convention session, Sandra Chance, the 2004 Journalism Teacher of the Year from the University of Florida, asked Abrams questions based on accounts in the book.
“Let me start by asking you… well, I have a list of 54 questions,” Chance said to start the question and answer session, which elicited laughter from the crowd.
Chance was playing off of a part of the book, where Abrams describes his first time in front of the Supreme Court when he was asked 54 questions.
“Well I don’t have 54,” Chance said. “I have 52.”
A pad of paper was passed around during the session so attendees could write messages to Miller, which would be delivered by Abrams, who said in the session that journalism is on a troubled path.
“We can’t continue down the road with reporters going to jail and potentially fines or jail time for their employers,” he said.
Who are these bloggers?
Courtney Addison / AEJMC Reporter
Oldline journalists face stressful period with new outlet
By Kathryn Fiegen
Iowa State University
One word can be used to describe the relationship between blogs, mainstream media and the public — complex.
“I think what we have is a much more complicated relationship between mainstream media and blogs,” graduate student Lou Rutigliano of the University of Texas at Austin said Wednesday at “The Blogging Phenomenon.”
The session was one of several addressing the blogesphere at this year’s AEJMC convention.
Constance Davis, who teaches at Northern Illinois University, said her research led her to define journalists according to a 1987 Circuit court decision in Von Bulow v. Von Bulow. The decision labeled journalists as writers who gather their own information.
“Much of what we are seeing is that bloggers are not using information that they are going out and gathering themselves,” she said.
Rutigliano said mainstream media debacles such as Rathergate and coverage of the Iraq war have turned more attention to Web logs.
“This past year was a big one for Web log coverage,” he said. “Everyone wants to know, ‘who are these bloggers and where do they come from?’ The online world is changing journalism.”
Davis said bloggers are not the cause of the fall of mainstream media credibility, but rather another check and balance.
“Well before the advent of the blog, we saw the media making mistakes,” she said.
Rutigliano said bloggers rely on traditional journalism to publish, thus dismissing the notion that blogs will replace traditional reporting. He researched six of the largest political Web logs, three that were classified as conservative and three liberal. He and his colleague Kideuk Hyun found 50 percent of links in these blogs were references to professional media.
“It’s much more of a pivotal role mainstream media play in the blogosphere,” he said. “They don’t deconstruct media coverage.”
Sharon Meraz, also from University of Texas at Austin, agreed.
“Mainstream media seem to be more of an authority,” she said.
However, Rutigliano and the other presenters found Web logs have the power to polarize political opinion in the country, since many blogs are of a distinct ideology.
Patricia Swann of Utica College cited a few key statistics. She found Web log consumption is up 58 percent from 2004, and 27 percent of Internet users read Web logs. She also said 67 percent of Internet users get their political information online.
Meraz said blogging could be a threat to democracy because consumers tend to read only blogs that agree with their political view. She called it the “echo chamber effect.”
Meraz also said mainstream media are turning to blogs to get sources for news stories.
“Elite, non-media bloggers are being trusted as sources,” she said.
Dara Quakenbush, a graduate student at Texas State University, attended the session. She said the debate is ignoring the vast majority of blog readers.
“Some of the research I’ve done has shown people are more likely to read personal Web logs than political blogs,” she said. “There has been a lot of attention on political and news blogs, but I think most people read personal blogs.”
Quakenbush said she is researching the topic for her master’s thesis.
“I think that was very interesting,” she said of the session. “I think that debate will continue.”
Daily newspaper arrives at AEMJC
By Lorraine Branham and Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
Co-publishers, AEJMC Reporter
Welcome to the AEJMC Reporter, the inaugural newspaper of the convention!
For the next three days, news about this San Antonio convention, its panels and papers, as well as its participants, will be brought to you by 16 journalism students and a few professors who volunteered or were recruited to participate.
The idea for this conference newspaper was conceived in Toronto last year by Maggie, who persuaded Lorraine to join her in this ambitious venture.
Call it destiny – or coincidence.
Sixteen years ago, we worked together on the inaugural issue of the ASNE Reporter produced by students and professionals at the 1989 conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
They borrowed the model from National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which produced one of the first such newspapers a year earlier. Other professional journalism organizations soon launched similar publications.
The goals for such newspapers were simple, yet ambitious: bring together a group of students and professionals to produce a newspaper that covers the groups’ convention while providing valuable training and networking opportunities for students.
Such paper s have now become de rigueur at journalism conferences.
The small band of men and women working on the AEJMC Reporter believes that a newspaper like ours performs an important service to our membership.
We also want to demonstrate the skills we teach our students. And for our professors, it’s a chance to show that we not only teach ... we do.
Bilingual and bicultural journalists viewed as assets to profession
Courtney Addison / AEJMC Reporter
Deborah Vallejo of Bromley/Manning Selvage and Lee Advertising Company spoke to AEJMC atendees about the involvement of Western Union, their largest client, in Central American countries. The public relations work for her company extends beyond the U.S.- Mexico border into Latin America. Members toured the company’s offices..
Conference examines growing Latino news media, demand for Latino journalists
By Isadora Vail-Castro
Texas State University
The explosion of Latino news media is creating a demand for Latino college students and professionals.
Several AEJMC sessions focused on the steps being taken to prepare students for the growing market of Spanish-language journalism and the recruitment of Latino students.
“It has been said that there are two types of Latino journalists: Those who were born in the United States but grew up in bilingual homes, and those who are from a Latino country but have lived in the United States,” said Leonardo Ferreira, University of Miami and AEJMC panelist. “It would be naïve to think that these students come to learn just about the media in the United States.”
Ferreira said the best of both cultures should be taken into consideration when developing a university-accepted program. It should train students to be media literate and comprehensive.
Latino college student enrollment. Rosa Morales, Michigan State University, noted that the number of Latinos at MSU has remained stable since she graduated nearly 20 years ago.
“We need to get out into the communities to these students and their parents,” Morales said. “Michigan has 13 Spanish-language publications. Why aren’t our students writing for these?” Panelists agreed that Latino students have an advantage because knowing a language is one thing, but understanding the culture may not be taught in a classroom.
Felix Gutierrez, University of Southern California and AEJMC panelist, said the GRE and SAT exams may not reflect this understanding, but it is an asset essential to journalism. A decade ago, being bilingual was a disadvantage and was looked at as a challenge, Gutierrez said. Today, being bilingual and bicultural is considered an advantage. In Texas, Latino publications has created more jobs, and Texas has more than eight bilingual papers.
“Within the past 18 months, more than 200 jobs have opened up for Spanish- language publications in Texas,” said Dino Chiecchi, editor of Conexion, a bilingual newspaper in San Antonio that is part of the San Antonio Express- News.
Shield law may not give journalists total relief, Abrams says
Emily Goodson / Texas Christian University
First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams spoke to the AEJMC convention Wednesday evening on teaching the First Amendment to students. Abrams is also a visiting professor at Columbia University.
By Christine Stanley
University of North Texas
The possibility of a federal shield law for journalists became stronger this week, but a New York legal scholor questioned the net effect of how that will ultimately aid journalists and the public.
The American Bar Association, the largest group of lawyers in the United States, votedTuesday to support a federal shield law for journalists.
The action came in response to the jailing of Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who refused to reveal her sources in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case.
The vote opens the door for bar association members to lobby Congress for a shield law.
Floyd Abrams, Miller’s attorney and a visiting professor at Columbia University, said Wednesday in an interview that a federal shield law is vital for journalists to protect confidential sources. However, Abrams said he is unsure if a universal shield law would adversely affect the rights journalists currently have under the First Amendment.
“One of the hardest issues that must be addressed is whether this will genuinely serve the public,” Abrams said.
Currently, 31 states have shield laws on the books. Other states have “qualified privilege” statutes that protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources in some cases.
“A shield law could be adopted that gives less protection than the First Amendment itself,” Abrams said.
That possibility is causing some journalists to hesitate before lending their support to the federal shield law effort. Abrams said many members of Congress would support the shield law, but journalists have been reluctant to lobby for it. He said it is appropriate to do so now in light of the recent subpoenas issued to Miller and Matt Cooper of Time magazine as part of an investigation into leaks.
“When journalists advocate a shield law, people are suspicious,” Abrams said. “When the bar association supports it, it carries more weight.”
Lawrence Alexander of the University of Florida said a shield law would be benefit journalists.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with journalists advocating legislation that will help them do their jobs better,” Alexander said.
Thirty years ago, journalists missed a chance for a federal shield law when rejecting the idea, Abrams said. At the same time, the ABA also decided not to support a shield law.
Abrams said that in the 1970s the public generally held journalists in higher esteem than now, so it may be harder to convince the public that a federal shield law is needed.
“Journalists need a solid body of protection,” he said.
Low pay hurts community newspapers
Courtney Addison / AEJMC Reporter
Chad Stebbins of Missouri Southern State was one of four panelists leading a discussion on the Care and Feeding of Community Journalism Centers.
However, graduates can gain valuable insights and experience more hands-on training than they would with larger publications that offer more competitive pay
By Gabe Wickland
Texas Christian University
Community journalism may have jobs to offer, but journalism graduates can’t afford to work in those markets, said Tommy Thomason, chair of the journalism department at Texas Christian University, at the AEJMC conference Wednesday.
“One of the main questions I get from community editors in Texas is, ‘Why don’t you get me more students?’” Thomason said.
Students are willing to work in those markets, he said, but the low salaries do not suffice in paying off college loans.
Michael Hodges, executive director of the Texas Press Association, said money should not be the only factor involved in making a career choice.
Community newspapers “are really interested in having trained journalists come and work for them, but the limiting factor is that they can’t pay a big-city salary,” he said.
Hodges said he sees working at a community newspaper as similar to getting a master’s degree in journalism.
“It’s a rich investment of time, but you will gain experience that you won’t get working in a large newspaper,” Hodges said.
Small-market newspapers not only give graduates good hands-on experience, but also they meet the challenges of reader’s trust because they are niche papers, Hodges said.
Courtney Addison / AEJMC Reporter
Tommy Thomason of Texas Christian and Eileen Gilligan of SUNY-Oswego listen during Wednesday morning’s panel discussion on the Care and Feeding of Community Journalism Centers.
“The reason that niche publications are causing that trust is that the reader is connecting with the information sent with them,” he said.
Students’ observation of what community news has to offer them needs to start in the classroom setting, said panelists at a community journalism session Wednesday.
Students need to be prepared for community journalism because that is where the jobs are, said Chad Stebbins, a professor at Missouri Southern State.
Stebbins said that when he taught reporting, he would require students to complete a 40-hour internship at a community paper so they could get experience in small markets that employ talented journalists and offer a laid-back atmosphere and hands-on experience in more than one specialty.
“They would come back, and some would start to see community journalism as a serious career path,” Stebbins said.
Elizabeth Hansen, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University, said her students work on full-blown readership studies for weekly newspapers throughout a semester.
The result of having students work together with small local newspapers is that students begin to see specifically how that newspaper fits into the community.
“Students who would never have paid attention to community newspapers liked working for them,” Hansen said. “They really enjoyed the community experience.”
Al Cross, a professor at the University of Kentucky, said he found that many students do not fully understand the differences between small-market operations and large-market operations.
Each of Cross’ students does research on a small media market and writes a term paper about what he or she finds because exposure to the market is the key to understanding and appreciating it, he said.
“I found that some of them get interested in it, and they look at it as a logical career path once they get exposed to it,” Cross said.
Study: Public relations and women make a better fit
David Minton / University of North Texas
Lois A. Boynton, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presented a summary of a study on the gender make-up of college Public Relations students and why there are more women than men.
By Jane Loke
University of Texas - Austin
More women are attracted to public relations because they believe they are better at it, said Lois Boynton from the University of North Carolina.
A study conducted by Boynton and graduate student J. Rebecca Folmar confirmed this belief.
“There are differing goals,” Boynton said. “Women tend to think more of it as a relationship sense and the men tend to think more of it as a management sense,” said Boynton.
With more than 80 percent of women in public relations, Boynton and Folmar initially assumed that the gender of a mentor played an important role in women pursuing PR but their study showed otherwise.
“They [women] were looking more from the perspective of what advice can you give me, what connections do you have, how can you help me out rather than I’m going to go to a female professor or a male professor,” Boynton said.
The study also showed that women saw themselves as better communicators than men. Boynton explained that this belief stems from women who see PR as more of a caring profession.
“It’s disconcerting when you think that these are students who are 19, 20 and 21, that it is being reinforced very early that this is not something that men really should consider going into,” Boynton said.
Boynton, though careful not to place blame, said the media are partly responsible for the feminization and negativity of public relations’ reputation. Television shows, such as “Sex and the City”, features one of the main characters, Samantha Jones, working in public relations but her work mainly involved event planning.
Most men surveyed acknowledged they needed PR but were majoring in business as well because it was a more masculine field.
The study also revealed that women saw public relations as a more flexible and accommodating field, which provides another lure for them.
However, women acknowledged that they felt they needed to pay their dues before they could achieve the flexibility they wanted in their careers.
There are a number of reasons someone may or may not choose PR as a career.
“If we’re not presenting PR in a way attractive to men or minorities then we need to perhaps reexamine how we’re approaching it,” Boynton said.
Press releases: Not always welcome help in newspapers
Researchers focus on better information
By Jane Loke
University of Texas - Austin
People who teach and work in public relations don’t often share what they know about PR with each other.
According to Dustin Supa from University of Miami, the reason there are so many bad news releases is the belief that you have to get a lot of them out there.
“I don’t have an exact number, but if I had to estimate, I’d say about 85 percent of press releases sent to journalists get tossed in the trash.”
Supa understands first hand how journalists react to getting news releases. He spent this summer at the Durango Herald and assigned business stories. During that time, he used only two news releases.
Supa and Lynn Zoch, also from the University of Miami, conducted a study to see what types of press releases make it into the newspaper.
Zoch and Supa looked at 204 press releases — 99 from private companies and 105 from public entities. They came up with eight reasons that determine newsworthiness : proximity, timeliness, immediacy, prominence, cultural proximity, unexpectedness, human interest and significance or importance.
“Different companies deal with media differently, and I think some companies are more interested in output,” Zoch said. “I don’t think that’s an effective way to practice public relations.”
Supa and Zoch’s next step is to find out how press releases can be better structured.
Zoch noted that journalists pick news releases the same way they decide which news gets in the paper.
The problem is, she said, is that PR people don’t understand that. “The old cliché still holds true – if it bleeds, it leads,” Zoch said.
Accreditation standards reduced from 12 to 9 rules
Changes are prompting period of adjustment
By Ashlee Erwin
University of Missouri-Columbia
A new standard of accreditation, involving how schools measure learning, was unveiled on Wednesday to a standing-room-only crowd.
Standards set by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) have been shortened from a set of 12 rules to nine. Eight of those standards encompass the original 12. A new standard, “Assessment and Learning Outcomes,” requires that institutions not only plan learning goals but also maintain a written assessment plan that uses both direct and indirect measures to assess student learning, said Trevor Brown, Standards Review Committee chairman.
“Assessment as a process, as a plan, has been required for a couple years,” said Brown, of Indiana University.
Brown, who answered questions from a group of about 80, said the new accreditation standard has been a long time coming.
Beginning in 2001, ACEJMC adopted a schedule for the development and implementation of assessment plans, and by 2003, schools seeking accreditation were required to have plans for the assessment of education outcomes. In September 2004, schools were required to begin applying findings from assessment data to curricula and instruction, said ACEJMC executive director Susanne Shaw of the University of Kansas.
The majority of concerns from Wednesday’s panel stemmed from the direct and indirect assessment of student learning requirement of the new standard.
“The direct measures are the ones that are challenging us in particular – what constitutes acceptable direct measures,” Brown said.
Examples of direct assessment measures include portfolio assessment based on criteria that matches the 11 professional competencies in Standard 2, Curriculum and Instruction. Portfolios created by students to get jobs can be used as indirect assessment measures. Other direct measures include pre-and-post tests of knowledge on issues like the First Amendment, writing or ethics and capstone courses.
Examples of indirect assessment include student satisfaction surveys, first-year alumni competency surveys or published student work.
With such varying measures of both types of assessment, Brown expects a long transition phase.
“Because we don’t have a great deal of experience as a council with this as a separate standard, I imagine that we’re going to go through a period of considerable trial and error and mutual learning from one another,” Brown said.
For Judy Van Slyke Turk from Virginia Commonwealth University and James Stewart of Nicholl State University, the assessment standard does not cause as much concern because their regional association already requires assessment mechanism.
“We’ve really gotten kind of an early start on that, and I think some of the things we’re doing for assessment put us in line for that,” Stewart said. “But anytime there’s a change, there’s an adjustment phase, and I think that’s what we’re seeing right now.”
Other changes that will make an impact when site teams start visiting institutions this fall include a new template for self-studies based on the new standards and the movement of “Diversity and Inclusiveness” from the old Standard 12 to Standard 3.
Shirley Staples of the University of South Carolina said she was glad to see the diversity standard move up in number, and she sees the new standards as a positive change.
“The new nine standards better reflect what it is to be an accredited program,” Staples said. “That is, to have a stamp of quality in terms of excellence in instruction.”
Twenty schools are up for accreditation and re-accreditation this year by the ACEJMC, which currently accredits 107 journalism and mass communication programs.
Is blogging journalism
Meta Carstarphen
Oklahoma University
I think it’s one of the issues that a conference such as ours can uniquely undertake because we’re on the front end of research and we also are former practitioners. Now, I am one of those who sees positive value in blogging, but there are some obvious concerns such as credibility and sourcing, and those kind of things which our industry is discussing. So plugging it definitively into a category of journalism, let me say that it certainly is a form of communication that we need to be aware of and explore and continue to research. One of the positive things about it is that it allows new voices to have a platform for expressing opinions and views in a way that traditional journalism media are not equipped to do.
Shahira Fahmy
Southern Illinois University- Carbondale
It has been very important with the recent London bombings, because there were hardly any photographs out and there was this one blog that had specifically…photos from cell phones, so to me it gave me the opportunity to see something I was not able to see from traditional media. So in that sense, yes. But in also a lot of other ways, blogging could be (capable) of spreading all kinds of rumors you don’t know (are) accurate. You don’t know who’s putting out what.
Tom Johnson
Southern Illinois University- Carbondale
It can be. Certainly there are bloggers that are journalists, and particularly blogs that are by reporters that talk about the process of journalism. Most blogs, frankly, are just gatherers of information and commentators more than journalists, so I think it often depends on what blog you’re talking about.
Kay Trammell
Louisiana State University
I would say that blogs can do random acts of journalism but…just because you’re a blogger does not make you a journalist. However, journalists can also blog, so they can do it professionally.
-compiled by Denise Montaño, Texas State University
‘Big box’ a must to host AEJMC conventions
By Jared Strong
Iowa State University
The 2005 AEJMC Convention has only just begun, but planning is under way for the 2009 meeting.
The site for the 2009 convention will be decided Saturday by what AEJMC Convention Manager Fred Williams described as a “democratic” process.
Williams said the association has a five-year rotation pattern for convention sites. Certain cities, such as Washington, D.C., and Chicago, are a part of the rotation. The rest of the country is split into three geographic sections, including parts of Canada and Central America.
The 2007 convention will be in Washington, D.C., and 2008 is set for Chicago.
The 2009 session is slated for the East Coast rotation, an area that includes Toronto, the East Coast of the United States and Ohio.
“Any city that wants to can bid,” Williams said. “But not every city hears about it.”
Williams said the only requirement for the convention is a hotel center to accommodate about 2,000 attendees and a multitude of sessions.
“The association calls it ‘a big box,’” he said.
There are 20 potential cities for the 2009 convention. The list was presented at the AEJMC executive meeting Tuesday, and the council of divisions meeting Wednesday. After the two groups make their selections, the list goes to the members meeting for a vote on Friday.
After the members make selections, the choice goes back to the board of directors to draft the recommendation. The selection will be announced Saturday afternoon.
Sammye Johnson of Trinity University, chair for this year’s host committee, said she has some advice for future host committees.
“I think the biggest thing is being organized with getting the [research] papers,” she said. “And expect that you will get phone calls and e-mails from people who say, ‘I think I forgot to put my name on my paper. Can anyone dig it out for me and find out?’ And that is almost impossible.”
Session teaches teachers how to teach grammar
By Denise Montaño
Texas State University
Grammar errors are difficult mistakes for students to deal with in the classroom, but they’re even more difficult for the teachers editing the articles.
“Editing is very much a weak spot for many people,” said Ron Rodgers, University of Florida professor.
If students are having difficulties, what can educators do to alleviate the confusion? To help educators teach students more effective and concise ways to get over the grammatical hurdle, the AEJMC conference offered a session called Teaching Grammar to Journalism Students.
“Too many teachers say students should know,” about grammar, but “if they don’t, it’s our responsibility to begin addressing that,” said Steve Collins, University of Central Florida professor.
Many teachers “don’t teach grammar because they don’t know it,” said Don Ranly, University of Missouri-Columbia professor. “But editors should know what they’re doing.”
Ranly said his approach to educating students about grammar is to go back to the beginning: Re-teach students about clauses, subjects, verbs, and other basic grammar tools.
“Even being a copy editor, having to find (a relative clause), I don’t know that I could,” said Margo Wilson, California University of Pennsylvania professor. “But you do need to know the basics. After that it becomes intuitive.”
Once students are comfortable, they will easily incorporate grammar skills into their writing, Ranly said. He stressed the use of repetition to insure consistency, and said many of his students learn more by constantly using such tools.
Glen Bleske, a panelist from California State University, Chico, said he uses a check system to insure students learn grammar. Instead of copy editing their stories, he places a check mark at the end of each line that contains a mistake and tells students to correct them.
It “confronts the fact that there is a mistake and students have to find their own error,” said Bleske.
While using this system, he found that students began to learn grammar by the third or fourth week. He also said most students stopped making the same mistakes repeatedly.
“I never know what I’m going to lecture on until I get those stories,” Bleske. “Then, I go through those stories in my lecture based on” errors in those stories.
Another panelist, Gerald Grow of Florida A&M University, offered teachers a way to not only incorporate students’ mistakes as teaching tools, but also use those mistakes to create grammar drills.
Students’ improvement on drills allows them to “attribute success to their own effort,” said Grow.
Practice is a key to students’ learning process because they can to see and understand their mistakes easily, said Grow.
He challenged educators to make their students accountable for their own improvement by using a system that begins with easier grammatical tools and elevates to more difficult areas.
Practice drills, grammar quizzes and other teaching materials are available on Grow’s Web site, http://www.longleaf.net/newsroom101.
Profs recommend relief for interns
By Christine Stanley
University of North Texas
It’s a hard knock life for journalism’s non-paid interns, and chances are it won’t improve anytime soon, an AEJMC panel agreed Wednesday.
Larry Lamb of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who moderated a panel on unpaid internships, said media companies need to change how they approach internships.
Will Sutton, a visiting professor at Hampton University, agreed.
“I believe strongly that interns should be paid,” said Sutton, formerly of the Raleigh News and Observer. “It’s a cultural thing. That’s something that will take a long time to change.”
Sutton said many media professionals, particularly in the radio, television and film, make it a point not to provide intern salaries as a teaching tool, sort-of like a tough way to separate slightly motivated students from ambitious ones.
Yet journalism educators are concerned that non-paid internships are unfair to less privileged students whose parents are unable to support them through summers, especially those who accept unpaid, out of state internships. In journalism, and in increasing numbers of other fields, they pointed out, internships are almost mandatory to get a first foot in the door, and finding a job that puts food on the table can be tough without one.
“This is your stepping stone to the work world,” Andi Stein of California State University-Fullerton said.
Last year, the New York Times reported that Vault Inc. found that 80 percent of graduating college seniors had completed a paid or non-paid internship in 2004. That’s 20 percent more students than 10 years ago.
The AEJMC took a stance on the issue in the early 1980s, but no formal policy has been adopted by the organization. At that time, AEJMC pushed for paid internships, telling the association that employers would have more of a legal ownership of their employees that way.
Former AEJMC president Douglas Ann Newsom on Wednesday charged the newspaper publisher organizations and other groups to look at the status of unpaid interns industry-wide and reassess the reasoning for not paying students.
Newsom and other panelists said paid interns are more likely to feel accountable to their employer if they are paid, which inevitably leads to better performance.
According to Newsom, several newspapers have changed their ways and began financially supporting interns.
“I think they appreciated our approach,” Newsom said.
Strapped student interns can find some relief in receiving class credit for their positions. Pam Caldwell, an internship coordinator at California State Fullerton, said she has been attempting to place students in internships with their part or full-time employers. If a student is working as a teller at a bank, for example, they could move up to the corporate public relations office for the summer and earn college credit.
Sammye Johnson of Trinity University said she offers a public relations writing class where students during the summer hook up with a non-profit organization and develop a media kit. This quasi-internship allows students to build a legitimate portfolio without the demands of a 40-hour, unpaid work week.
Caldwell also suggested building alumni-supported internship funds for those students who qualify.
Council: Academia may be too critical
Criticism important for first-time submissions
By Ashlee Erwin
University of Missouri-Columbia
Many people live by the rule that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
But in the world of academia, criticism is the rule of life.
The Council of Divisions entertained discussion at a Wednesday morning meeting about excessive criticism on refereed papers at this year’s convention.
The topic will be further explored at a Saturday morning training session for incoming research chairs who will be handling next year’s paper submission process.
“We want to get the message out about what makes for a good review,” said Council of Division chair Carol Pardun of Middle Tennessee State University.
“Instead of solely focusing on quantitative scores, we also ask for constructive, helpful, written feedback that tells people what they can do to make their papers better.”
For Sloane Signal of Howard University and Frauke Hachtmann of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who co-wrote an accepted paper, this year’s review process produced mixed results.
“I had written a research paper that I thought was pretty strong, and it actually had positive comments but it wasn’t accepted,” Hachtmann said. “Ours that was accepted had kind of harsh comments. Sometimes it depends on the reviewer.”
Criticism also depends on the type of paper. Signal and Hachtmann submitted a special topics paper in an essay format that differed structurally from the traditional research paper but were criticized according to research paper requirements.
“I think they need to have different criteria for those types of papers,” Hachtmann said.
But because they both serve as reviewers in addition to submitters, Signal and Hachtmann understand the inherent problems with the process. First, papers are refereed blindly so that readers do not know whether the writer is a first-time doctoral student or a 30-year research veteran.
Pardun said that it is important to consider that a lot of young doctoral students and faculty are submitting papers for the first time, and constructive criticism is important for those groups.
Another problem is the timing of the review process, which generally happens at the end of the fall semester.
“It’s tough because as a reviewer you have a lot of things going on, it’s the end of the semester,” Signal said.
Whether the criticism is good or bad, both professors suggested that explanation is key to keep from appearing too critical in the review.
“The more detail the better,” Hachtmann said. “I don’t really care if it’s harsh, but I don’t like the ones that are harsh and just basically say ‘This is horrible.’”
Practical research helps professionals
By Jared Strong
Iowa State University
Only a small percentage of academic research is of practical use to the newspaper industry, said a session moderator Wednesday, but a new research competition is aimed at improving the connection.
“Slightly more than 1 percent of papers presented at AEJMC conventions were of any interest to the industry,” said Randy Reddick, a professor at Texas Tech, who moderated a refereed paper research session on narrowing the gap between the newsroom and the classroom.
In 2003, the International Newspaper Marketing Association surveyed 700 of its members at leading newspapers around the world, according to the AEJMC Web site, and the responses helped identify practical topics of interest to the newspaper industry.
The INMA and the Council of Affiliates awarded Ann Auman, University of Hawaii, a $200 award for her paper “Survival in paradise: How ‘local identity’ helped save the Honolulu Star-Bulletin” at Wednesday’s session. Auman said she wrote the paper to tell a “David vs. Goliath” story that has use elsewhere.
“What’s the purpose of researching if you can’t apply it in a useful way?” asked Auman, whose paper details the near closure of the Star-Bulletin in 1999 by Gannett Co. Inc.
Auman credits the newspaper’s “local identity” and culture as major factors contributing to the swell of community support that preceded an unprecedented anti-trust ruling that ordered the paper be offered for sale.
“Ann’s paper is awfully good,” said Frank E. Fee, Jr., session discussant and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“It’s a story that needed to be told. It’s high time we brought the academy and business together. Hopefully this session is the inauguration of dedicated research panels looking at real journalism issues.”
Fee offered a couple of reasons why a disconnect exists between what journalism professionals desire and what is being produced by researchers.
“Traditionally, the industry looked at what we do as very narrow and impractical,” Fee said. “It’s a profession where things tend to be a mile wide and an inch deep, and researchers look at things an inch wide and a mile deep.”
He also said research can be critical of media practices, which is unique among professional industries.
“We’re the only industry that eats its own young,” Fee said.
Bush signs $286B bill for roads, rails nationwide
By Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ill. — President Bush calls the massive $286.4 billion transportation spending bill he signed into law Wednesday a job creator. Critics simply call it pork spending.
The bill will pay for more than 6,000 favored projects in the districts of nearly every member of Congress. It will pay for new highways and bridges, for rail and bus facilities, for bike paths and recreational trails.
The legislation will cost $30 billion more over six years than Bush recommended, but he said he was proud to sign it.
"The bill I'm signing is going to help give hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs," Bush said. "This bill upgrades our transportation infrastructure and it'll help save lives."
Bush signed the measure at a suburban Chicago Caterpillar Inc. plant in the home district of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The Republican leader oversaw nearly two years of negotiations on Capitol Hill to get a version that Bush would accept.
The president spoke to workers outside the plant, surrounded by sparkling new construction machinery. Two cranes held a sign that said "Improving Highway Safety for America" over the portable stage set up with a wooden desk for the signing.
The bill signing was the second ceremony this week that has taken Bush from his Texas ranch, where he is spending about five weeks on a summer break from the White House. On Monday, Bush went to New Mexico to put a new energy policy into law.
More nominee surprises?
By Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee John Roberts didn’t disclose that he once lobbied for cosmetics makers, or mention that he’d once given a TV interview about justices’ independence. And questions about his connections with the conservative Federalist Society have lingered for weeks.
Midway between his nomination and his confirmation hearing, a big issue is whether more surprises await officials fighting over access to documents in his career.
Senate Democrats are accusing the White House of delaying the release of Roberts’ paperwork to ensure Republicans aren't blindsided by information that could hurt his confirmation. “The time for such partisan review of documents was before the nomination of Judge Roberts to the Supreme Court,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
But Republicans say the Roberts questions so far have been minor, and they contend his opponents will reach to any length to find a way to criticize President Bush's nominee. “I’m convinced that even if there’s not anything, there are groups out there who are going to try to make this nomination controversial even when it shouldn’t be,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will question Roberts early next month.
