Instructions for setting up your online account access to Electronic News are at http://aejmc.net/rtvj/journal/

Research papers: Authors should submit each paper as an email attachment (documents may be submitted in the following formats: Word, Pages, PDF) directly to the paper chairs listed below for each division no later than 5 p.m. Eastern Time, December 10.

In the body of the e-mail, authors must provide:

• Title of the paper.
• Name, affiliation, address, office phone, home phone, fax and email address for each author.
• Students and faculty should indicate their status for consideration of faculty and student top paper awards.
• Do not include any author identifying information on any page of the attached paper submission. Authors also should redact identifying information from the document properties.
• Cover page:  only the title.
• Abstract:  250-words.
• Length of papers should not exceed 30 pages including references and tables (50 pages for Law and Policy papers).

Divisions and Chairs

Law & Policy Division, Courtney Barclay, aejsoutheast.law [at] gmail.com

History Division, Harlen Makemson, hmakemson[at]elon.edu

Magazine Division, Erin Coyle, ekcoyle[at]lsu.edu

Electronic News Division, David Free, dfree[at]austin.rr.com

Newspaper & Online News Division, TBA

Open Division, Dana Rosengard, drosengard[at]suffolk.edu

**SPECIAL NOTE**

Acceptance and/or submission of papers to colloquium paper competitions does not prevent authors from submitting to AEJMC divisions for the national convention. The author of each accepted paper (at least one author in the case of a coauthored paper) must present the paper at the colloquium. Complete contact information and a complete list of (all) authors must be submitted with other material (and on deadline) or a paper will be disqualified. For online instructions on “how to submit a clean paper” for blind review see http://aejmcchicago.org/papers. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by the end of January 2013.

Panel proposals: Panel proposals should be submitted to Justin S. Brown at justinsbrown [at] usf.edu by December 10 and should include a brief description of the panel along with proposed panelists. Proposals should not exceed three double-spaced pages.

For any questions regarding paper or panel submissions, please contact Justin S. Brown directly at justinsbrown [at] usf.edu.

The colloquium will be held at the Embassy Suites USF/Busch Gardens, located on the University of South Florida campus. The host is the USF School of Mass Communications. USF is located approximately 18 miles from the Tampa International Airport. A block of hotel rooms is reserved at a conference rate of $139. For colloquium registration and for hotel reservations, please visit the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium 2013 website link at http://www.aejmc.org/home/events/regional-meetings/ after Oct. 1.

The Electronic News Division is seeking panel ideas on a wide variety of topics related to electronic news, including radio, television and online journalism. We are especially interested in proposals that can be jointly sponsored with another AEJMC division, interest group or commission.

This year we are especially interested in panel ideas regarding diversity and/or electronic media policy, although all ideas are welcome.

By Monday, Oct. 8, please submit the following information to tbajkiewicz (at) vcu.edu:

1.        Your name and contact information
2.        Possible title and brief summary
3.        Potential speakers, including names and contact information
4.        Potential AEJMC divisions, interest group, or commission with whom to co-sponsor
(see http://www.aejmc.org/home/about/groups/ for a full listing)
5.        Estimated cost, if any (e.g., travel for non-AEJMC participants, etc.)

Of course, I would be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you for your participation in the Electronic News Division and in contributing programming for what will be an exciting conference.

Tim Bajkiewicz, Ph.D.
Vice-Chair and 2013 Programming Chair, AEJMC Electronic News Division
Associate Professor, Broadcast Journalism
School of Mass Communications, Virginia Commonwealth University

Prof. Bob Papper, Hofstra University. Photo from http://www.iabc-li.com.

Professor Robert Papper of Hofstra University has been named the recipient of the 2012 Edward L. Bliss Award for Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Education.

The award is presented annually by the Electronic News Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to recognize significant and lasting contributions to the field in the area of teaching, scholarship and service.

Professor Papper is currently the Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Chair of the Department of Journalism, Media Studies and Public Relations at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY.  Prior to that, he served as Professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He has held faculty positions at Ohio Wesleyan University and American University. His industry experience includes newsroom management and producing positions at WSYX in Columbus, Ohio, WRC in Washington and WCCO in Minneapolis.

Professor Papper is perhaps best known in the industry as the research director for the annual RTDNA/Hofstra University Survey. The survey provides the most extensive on-going research on the state of electronic journalism. His research is presented at major industry and academic conventions and is the most widely cited and reprinted research on this topic in the field.

He began the research 18 years ago at Ball State University where he was also the lead researcher in a series of groundbreaking studies of consumer media usage under the umbrella title of the Middletown Media Studies. This study, like the RTDNA research, has served as national model for studying media use.

In his letter of nomination, Professor Greg Luft of the Department of Journalism and Technical Communication at Colorado State University said, “By serving as RTDNA’s broadcast news research expert, Bob has dissected, analyzed and interpreted practices, trends and movements in the broadcast news industry. He has often reported the results of those efforts to an industry with a voracious appetite for information about its own existence. These efforts are valuable for professionals, teachers and students. They provide clear and credible information about skill development, journalism ethics, reporting practices, careers, management concerns and diversity issues among others.”

In his letter of support for Papper’s nomination, NBC News correspondent Bob Dotson said, “All too often we honor the well known, the hype. You could find no finer man to represent the good name of Ed Bliss than Bob Papper, the man who makes his students better than even they think they are.”

Professor Papper holds an M.S. from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.  He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia College in American History.

The distinguished broadcast journalism educator award is named for Edward L. Bliss, a long-time writer, producer and editor for CBS News.  Bliss was known for his work with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. He ended his career as an educator at American University, which now houses the plaques bearing the award winners’ names.

The award will be presented to Bob Papper at the Electronic News division meeting and social at the 100th AEJMC National Convention in Chicago, August 9-12.

Contact:

Gary Hanson
Bliss Award Committee Chair
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Kent State University
330.672.8300

Past winners of the Ed Bliss Award (formerly Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Educator Award):

Jack Shelly, Iowa State (1983)
Ed Bliss, American University (1984)
Dick Yoakam, Indiana (1985)
Henry Lippold, Wisconsin-Eau Claire (1986)
Rod Gelatt, Missouri (1987)
Mitchell Charnley, Minnesota (1988)
Don Brown, Arizona State (1989)
Irving Fang, Minnesota (1990)
Ernest F. Andrews, Syracuse (1991)
Al Anderson, Texas- Austin (1992)
Michael Murray, Missouri-St. Louis (1993)
Joseph R. Dominick, Georgia (1994)
Joan Konner, Columbia (1995)
Gordon Greb, San Jose State (1996)
Travis Linn, Nevada-Reno (1997)
Vernon Stone, Missouri (1998)
Elmer Lower, ABC, NBC (1999)
Ken Keller, SIU-Carbondale (2000)
Lincoln Furber, American University (2001)
James Hoyt, Wisconsin (2002)
Phillip O. Keirstead, Florida A&M University (2003)
Thomas Griffiths, Brigham Young University (2004)
Peter Mayeux, University of Nebraska (2005)
Bill Knowles, The University of Montana (2006)
Jim Upshaw, The University of Oregon (2007)
Glenn Johnson, Washington State University (2008)
Sam Swan, University of Tennessee (2009)
Phillip Jeter, Winston Salem State University (2010)
Charlie Tuggle, University of North Carolina (2011)

These are times of great change for those of us who have traditionally taught students how to create news stories for radio and television. We are now trying to prepare students as well for challenges posed by new platforms, which could fall under umbrellas labeled ‘electronic’ ‘online’ ‘emerging’ and/or ‘digital’. Indeed, we’re engaged in an RTVJ renaming discussion right now, trying to decide what we should call ourselves to better reflect our new reality.

As we retool our classes to include new skills, I hope we can also upgrade instruction in an area that I fear is too often neglected – voice. Whether our students are working on-air or online, if they are sharing their stories by speaking we should be helping them to speak more effectively.

To that end I’d like to get an exchange of ideas going, exploring best resources and best practices. If you’ve come across something that works well, I’d like to know what it is and I’m sure your colleagues would as well.

To get the ball rolling, here are a couple of suggestions:

Dr. Ann Utterback literally wrote the book on broadcast voice. The fifth edition of her Broadcast Voice Handbook contains the latest research on what broadcast news directors are seeking vocally in the people they hire, and includes a chapter on voice for the new media. You’ll find the book, and contact information for Dr. Uttterback at http://www.utterbackpublishing.com/.

I also highly recommend David Alan Stern’s “The Speaker’s Voice.” which includes three CDs with a companion text/drill manual. It’s available at http://dialectaccentspecialists.com. This is an excellent resource for anyone doing self-guided voice work. Dr. Stern has also produced a series of recordings to help speakers who hope to reduce their accents, whether domestic American or foreign.

How about you? If you have any resources you’d like to share please send them to me at dcupp@unc.edu and I’ll be happy to pass them on. Thanks.

At the recent Community Radio Conference in San Francisco, practitioners of public media had the opportunity to learn about the initiatives of the National Center for Media Engagement, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping public media outlets “engage and educate citizens, build sustainable community relationships and stimulate civic participation.”

Through a series of presentations, including an inspiring keynote address by social engagement and innovation expert Richard Harwood, conference participants learned how local electronic media outlets are putting their personnel, production, and distribution capacities to work to serve the needs of their communities.

Harwood’s keynote reminded electronic journalists to “make good on the urge to do good” by connecting across differences in the communities and audiences served by electronic media outlets.  The conference was sponsored by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.

Dr. Charlie Tuggle, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will recieve the 2011 Bliss Award from the AEJMC Radio-TV Journalism division.

Dr. C.A. “Charlie” Tuggle of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been selected the 2011 recipient of the Edward L. Bliss Award for Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Education. This award recognizes an electronic journalism educator who has made a significant and lasting contribution to the field in the areas of teaching, service and scholarship. It is given annually by the Radio-Television Journalism division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

Dr. Tuggle is professor and director of the journalism program at UNC-Chapel Hill.  He spent 16 years and a reporter and producer in local television newsrooms in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida.  He became a broadcast journalism educator in 1992 as a guest lecturer and seminar leader at the University of Florida and has since taught at the University of Montevallo and Florida International University in addition to UNC-Chapel Hill.  He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama.

Dr. T, as his students call him, is the co-author of the Broadcast News Handbook:  Writing, Reporting, and Producing in a Converging Media World.  He also co-edited a book on women in local television news and recently co-authored a book chapter on TV news live reporting.  He has authored more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals.  Of particular importance to the RTVJ divison of AEJMC, Dr. Tuggle was one of the founders and continues to be co-editor of the division’s journal Electronic News.

In writing Dr. Tuggle’s nomination letter, Dr. Suzanne Huffman of the Schieffer School of Journalism at Texas Christian University, said, “(Dr. Tuggle) has a tireless work ethic, a sure moral compass, and a collaborative and inclusive style.  I believe he has clearly demonstrated exemplary teaching, service and research.”

More than a dozen colleagues and current and former students wrote letters of support for Dr. Tuggle’s nomination.  One former student who has worked in several major markets TV newsrooms wrote that his relationship with Dr. Tuggle has extended well beyond his college years.  “I have come across a broad demographic of colleagues.  None of them has a relationship with a former professor like I have with Dr. Tuggle.  (He) tirelessly serves all his students long after graduation.  He keeps all of us connected, and bends over backwards to make sure we all excel.  Another former student wrote, “Dr. T’s applied curriculum ultimately prepares students for the ‘real world.’”

The distinguished broadcast journalism educator award is named for Edward L. Bliss, a long-time writer, producer and editor for CBS News.  Bliss was known for his work with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and ended his career as an educator at American University which now houses the plaques bearing the award winners’ names.

Past winners of the Ed Bliss Award (formerly Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Educator Award): Jack Shelly, Iowa State (1983); Ed Bliss, American University (1984); Dick Yoakam, Indiana (1985); Henry Lippold, Wisconsin-Eau Claire (1986); Rod Gelatt, Missouri (1987); Mitchell Charnley, Minnesota (1988); Don Brown, Arizona State (1989); Irving Fang, Minnesota (1990): Ernest F. Andrews, Syracuse (1991): Al Anderson, Texas- Austin (1992): Michael Murray, Missouri-St. Louis (1993); Joseph R. Dominick, Georgia (1994): Joan Konner, Columbia (1995); Gordon Greb, San Jose State (1996); Travis Linn, Nevada-Reno (1997); Vernon Stone, Missouri (1998); Elmer Lower, ABC, NBC (1999) Ken Keller, SIU-Carbondale (2000); Lincoln Furber, American University (2001); James Hoyt, Wisconsin (2002); Phillip O. Keirstead, Florida A&M University (2003); Thomas Griffiths, Brigham Young University (2004): Peter Mayeux, University of Nebraska (2005), Bill Knowles, The University of Montana (2006), Jim Upshaw, The University of Oregon (2007) and Glenn Johnson, Washington State University (2008), Sam Swan, University of Tennessee (2009), and Phillip Jeter, Winston Salem State University (2010).

This year’s award will be given at the RTVJ meeting and social on Thursday, August 11th as part of the AEJMC National Convention in St. Louis.

It’s fitting that I first saw the article on my Facebook feed, “How 4 people & their social network turned an unwitting witness to bin Laden’s death into a citizen journalist” by Poynter Online’s Steve Myers.

It’s about Sohaib Athar, the IT consultant in Pakistan who tweeted about seeing the choppers during the May 1 raid: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” Myers discusses Twitter-verse networks more than anything else, but this caught my eye:

“Each of them contributed to a chain of information that turned one man’s offhand comments about a helicopter in the middle of the night into an internationally known work of citizen journalism.”

Citizen journalism? When did a 140 (or in this case 62) character comment become citizen journalism, or any kind of journalism?

Twitter has gotten increasing headlines for playing a role in the protests in Iran in 2009, the Haiti disaster, the revolution in Egypt, and more recently the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. And Paul Farhi’s 2009 article in American Journalism Review discussed journalistic Twitter strategies–like using it as a reporting tool–that are still making their way into newsrooms.

So, the first question: Is Twitter journalism?

Business Week asked that very question in a Feb. 2011 published debate. Michael De Monte from ScribbleLive said no, Twitter is not journalism because it doesn’t provide context and depth. Brian Solis from Engage said yes it’s journalism if we define journalism as reporting news.

I just finished teaching our undergraduate senior-level Journalism Seminar class where, as I tell the students, we do some “big thinking” about what journalism is and what it means to be a journalist. We use what I consider to be one of the gold standards, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s “The Elements of Journalism,” updated in 2007. Its nine elements and principles are:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
3. Its essence is discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the news significant, interesting, and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

How could even one of those realistically happen in 140 characters? I suppose you could string a bunch of Tweets together, like Matt Stewart did in 2009 in what may be the first novel released on Twitter, but that seems to defeat the purpose of short bursts of information.

What about Tweets being citizen journalism?

This opens the whole citizen journalism debate. In a February 2010 article in Online Journalism Review, Gerry Storch quotes Indiana University’s Dr. David Weaver saying they shouldn’t even be called citizen journalists, but rather “citizen communicators” because “without the training and education that most journalists have, most citizens cannot qualify as journalists.” There’s no doubt that people can be in more places than journalists for regular or breaking news reporting.

In another Poynter Online article, Steve Outing wrote “The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism,” originally posted in 2005 and updated in March, 2011. The piece is about fitting citizen efforts into legacy media. It goes from the first layer, “Opening up to public comment” to number 11, “Wiki journalism: Where the readers are editors.” Social media aren’t mentioned (really?), but Twitter could get some traction with #2, “The citizen add-on reporter” where citizens provide information.

Although social media weren’t mentioned in either article, defining people as citizen journalists isn’t about the medium they use, but the quality of message they deliver.

Weaver’s conditions aside, reporting is just the beginning of journalism, and that’s Twitter’s strength–pieces of information 140 characters at a time. While no one wants to create a hard and fast definition of journalism, it involves more of what Kovach and Rosenstiel outlined and, as Business Week’s De Monte mentioned, context. But Twitter isn’t journalism, citizen or otherwise.

There is no special call for papers on a specific topic this year, but we encourage undecided researchers to consider exploring the ways in which broadcast news operations are now utilizing social media to connect with their viewers.

Papers submitted to the 2011 RTVJ division competition should be no longer than 25-pages of manuscript, excluding references and appendices, and should be submitted in one of the generally approved academic bibliographic styles.

RTVJ accepts only one paper per author. This is true even if you are primary author on one paper and co-author on another. In that case, please submit one of the papers to another division.

The division offers cash prizes for top student and top faculty paper submissions. Authors of all selected papers are expected to present their work in St. Louis. Cash awards for winning papers will only be awarded if the authors present their work at the conference.  Please note that if your paper is presented in St. Louis it will automatically be forwarded to the editors of Electronic News unless you choose to opt out of submitting it to that journal.

Questions concerning submissions should be directed to Dave Cupp, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Phone: 919-843-7183 Fax 919-962-0620 Email: dcupp@unc.edu.

Everything else you need to know from AEJMC

Read the 2011 AEJMC Convention Paper call at http://www.aejmc.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2011-AEJMC-Conference-Paper-Call.pdf

See the conference site at http://www.aejmcstlouis.org/home/

All research papers must be uploaded through an online server to the group appropriate to the paper’s topic via a link on the AEJMC website: www.AEJMC.org. The following uniform call will apply to ALL AEJMC paper competitions. Additional information specific to an individual group’s call is available at the end of the uniform call information.

1. Submit the paper via the AEJMC website link (www.AEJMC.org) to the AEJMC group appropriate to the paper’s topic. Format should be Word, WordPerfect, or a PDF.

2. The paper must be uploaded to the server no later than 11:59 P.M. (Central Daylight Time) Friday, April 1, 2011.

3. Also upload a paper abstract of no more than 75 words.

4. Completely fill out the online submission form with author(s) name, affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, and email address. The title should be printed on the first page of the text and on running heads on each page of text, as well as on the title page. Do NOT include author’s name on running heads or title page.

5. Papers uploaded with author’s identifying information displayed WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR REVIEW AND WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE DISQUALIFIED FROM THE COMPETITION. ALL AEJMC DIVISIONS, INTEREST GROUPS AND COMMISSION PAPER SUBMISSIONS WILL ABIDE BY THIS RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTION. NOTE: Follow instructions on how to submit a clean paper for blind reviewing.

6. Papers are accepted for peer review on the understanding that they are not already under review for other conferences and that they have been submitted to only one AEJMC group for evaluation. Papers accepted for the AEJMC Conference should not have been presented to other conferences or published in scholarly or trade journals prior to presentation at the conference.

7. Student papers compete on an equal footing in open paper competitions unless otherwise specified by the individual division or interest group. Individual group specifications are appended to this uniform call.

8. Papers submitted with both faculty and student authors will be considered faculty papers and are not eligible for student competitions.

9. At least one author of an accepted faculty paper must attend the conference to present the paper. If student authors cannot be present, they must make arrangements for the paper to be presented.

10. If a paper is accepted, and the faculty author does not present the paper at the conference, and if a student author does not make arrangements for his/her paper to be presented by another, then that paper’s acceptance status is revoked. It may not be included on a vita.

11. Authors will be advised whether their paper has been accepted By May 15 and may access a copy of reviewers’ comments from the online server. Contact the paper chair if you are not notified or have questions about paper acceptance.
Special note: Authors who have submitted papers and have not been notified by May 15, MUST contact the division or interest group paper chair for acceptance information. The AEJMC Central Office may not have this information available.

12. Authors of accepted papers retain copyright of their papers and are free to submit them for publication after presentation at the conference.

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Special Call Information

Upload papers for the AEJMC 2011 St. Louis Conference beginning January 15, 2011. Paper submitters should follow instructions on the front page of the submission site to create your account and complete the information required.

Deadline for paper submissions is April 1, 2011, at 11:59 p.m. CDT. Any submissions after this time will not be accepted.

Before submitting your paper, please make certain that all author-identifying information has been removed and that all instructions have been followed per the AEJMC uniform paper call. Papers uploaded with author’s identifying information displayed WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR REVIEW AND WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE DISQUALIFIED FROM THE COMPETITION. ALL AEJMC DIVISIONS, INTEREST GROUPS AND COMMISSION PAPER SUBMISSIONS WILL ABIDE BY THIS RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

NOTE: Follow instructions on how to submit a clean paper for blind review at www.AEJMC.org.  Contact Felicia Greenlee-Brown with comments, concerns and other inquiries at AEJMCprogram@aol.com.

Doral Chenoweth III, a photographer with The Columbus Dispatch, made Ted Williams an overnight Internet sensation when his video of the homeless man with the great voice went viral. (See the newspaper’s special report page.)

The pertinent details shouldn’t be lost on media professionals: Chenoweth is a newspaper photographer who produced a short video with a Flip cam and posted it to his paper’s website and YouTube. What was once the sole domain of TV news–shooting, editing, and distributing video–is now very democratized and being used by TV’s traditional competitors.

As of this writing, the 1:37-long video on YouTube has 7.5 million hits–up from 5.5 million this afternoon. According to USA Today, Williams is to appear on NBC’s Today Show tomorrow morning. Job offers are pouring in.

Viral videos are nothing new, but too many are cats doing funny things instead of being tied to news. This story has several elements making it media- and public-friendly: A down-on-his-luck guy who has a natural talent and is ready to get back into the game after drugs and alcohol (Williams said in the video that he’s been clean for two years).

News professionals should take heart. Even in this media-saturated world, compelling stories can still break through, even with a guy and a Flip. It’s great that all this happened because Chenoweth was doing his job–reporting about his community and the people in it.