Audience Development, Communications, Convention Program, Diversity, Education for Journalism, First Amendment, Freedom of Information, Innovation, Small Newspapers
Audience Development Committee
Chris Peck, Memphis Commercial Appeal, chair
The committee will work with the Newspaper Association of America, the Poynter Institute and others to explore ways that local news organizations can build the audience for their journalism.
Our mission this year is to …
- Help the newspaper industry capitalize on e-reader technology, mobile technology, and other digital delivery platforms.
- Explore alternative publishing cycles and new delivery options for print, including fewer days of the week, niche publications, and new print formats.
Communications Committee
(formerly The American Editor)
Carolina Garcia, Los Angeles Daily News, co-chair
Arnie Robbins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, co-chair
We will make The American Editor magazine an online-only communications tool that can help ASNE members and editors during this challenging time. It will continue to explore similar issues and topics as in the previous print versions. We hope to post new items and stories online as often as weekly, while other stories might be posted every month or two. The stories will be shorter, there will be helpful links to other valuable information. It will feel familiar but will evolve into an online-only publication that is likely to continue to evolve over the next couple of years.
Some of the departments we are planning are On deadline, law, management, the industry, editor profiles, from the president (a column and or video), Society for News Design contributions, Association of Copy Editors contributions, summaries of ASNE webinars, committee reports, cover story on some trend or issue, but shorter than currently done and lots and lots of links to journalistic issues being reported elsewhere.
 Convention Program Committee
David Boardman, Seattle Times, co-chair
Pam Fine, University of Kansas, co-chair
The 2010 ASNE Convention Program Committee has begun planning for what will be the most exciting – and most important – meeting in our group’s history.
The 2010 convention, in Washington, D.C., April 11-14, won’t really be a convention in the traditional sense. Rather, it will be a conference on the future of journalism, with America’s editors convening the array of other interest groups – journalists, publishers, advertisers, bloggers, funders, students, teachers, readers – to help us all move forward on creating new vitality for our profession while maintaining the values so essential to our democracy.
We’ll still have plenty of hands-on offerings, focused on real-life innovations that will help you better manage and motivate your newsrooms during the most challenging era of our careers. But even more than that, by attending you’ll be helping ensure those newsrooms will still be here, serving our readers, for many decades to come.
We’re beginning to plan the details now, and we’d love your help.
 Diversity Commitee
Amanda Bennett, Bloomberg News, co-chair
Susan Goldberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer, co-chair
Mizell Stewart, Evansville Courier Press, co-chair
The Diversity Committee wants to recast its mission to better reflect the changes in the newsgathering process and in the newsgathering business. We would like to hold a series of three seminars, located regionally, to again raise the profile and recommit ASNE members to this key mission. We have applied for a grant to fund these seminars, and are awaiting answers from a number of the nation's most prominent foundations. At the seminars, we see key discussions on these points:
- As hiring has decreased, radically, how can we focus on retaining and training a diverse staff? Having a diverse staff is more important than ever, in a country that is increasingly diverse. How can we achieve that in this kind of climate?
- How can editors better work with the Newspaper Guild and other unions to help retain a diverse staff when many contracts call for last-hired-first fired?
- How can editors talk about diversity so it continues to resonate at a time when jobs are scarce, insecurity is high and many people feel, regrettably, in a him/her-or-me situation at the office?
- Hate speech flourishes in the anonymity provided by the Web. This is particularly troublesome when it comes to comments on stories — and so far, short of banning comments, news organizations are struggling with how to manage this new problem. How can we provide a civil dialogue but retain the Web's rough-and-tumble edge?
- Diversity of content is as important as it ever has been. How can we involve the public to help us achieve this, while so many of our staffs lose minority representation?
 Education for Journalism Committee
Pam Luecke, Washington & Lee, co-chair
Rex Smith, Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union, co-chair
- High School Journalism Initiative.
The committee supports the High School Journalism Initiative, as it develops youth journalism programs. Since, 2000, our efforts are growing a diverse generation of journalists/news consumers and imparting a deeper appreciation of the First Amendment and news literacy among all teens. The project has six key initiatives that are unique and unmatched, including the world's largest host of teen news online, and an advertising network.
- News Literacy Part 2.
We will build on the excellent foundation established last year for educating young people about the critical role of journalism in a free society. Our first activity will be an Aug. 5 panel at the convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The annual event, in Boston this year, attracts thousands of educators. The ASNE panel is called “Demand-Side Journalism” and will explore whether journalism educators should focus on teaching the next consumers of news, as well as the next practitioners. Pam Luecke will moderate the panel, which will include Rex Smith. Other panelists are Jerry Ceppos, dean of the journalism school at University of Nevada at Reno; Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center and author of an upcoming book related to this topic; and Alan Miller, director of The News Literacy Project. (Howie Schneider has a separate presentation later that day at the convention.)
With ASNE staff assistance, we will also assemble a News Literacy kit for all attendees at the 2010 ASNE convention. This will include audiovisual material and a letter or flyer encouraging editors to reach out to universities and secondary schools in their communities with the message of news literacy. If one editor in each state made contact with one university president/dean or school superintendent, that could be a powerful second wave. It would also be ideal if news literacy could have a small slot on the convention program to explain what this is all about.
- Membership outreach to educators. The committee co-chairs will develop and arrange a promotional mailing to encourage enrollment and convention attendance for journalism deans and endowed journalism professors who are now eligible for ASNE membership.
 Ethics and Values Committee
Mike Fancher, Seattle
Rethinking journalism ethics and values in the digital age.
The committee will explore how journalism can regain public trust in the digital world. Committee chair Mike Fancher, retired executive editor of The Seattle Times, spent the past year as a fellow in the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. Research conducted as part of his fellowship project suggests that the public views the core values of journalism differently than journalists do. The committee will examine the implications of these findings. It will also explore new interactive resources to help journalists, journalism educators and citizens connect with each other about ethics and values. The aim is to formulate a new ethic of public trust through public engagement.
 First Amendment Committee
Margaret Sullivan, Buffalo (N.Y.) News, chair
- We need to recruit members to the committee. We’re happy to report that we have already recruited Charlotte Hall.
- The committee needs to be the marketing and messaging arm of ASNE; most particularly, we need to get the word out that newspapers aren’t dying. Can we get a commitment from member newspapers and other friendly members of the media to run ads touting the value and continued vitality of American newspapers?
- We need to build on the success of the Liberty Tree campaign, which takes the First Amendment message onto college campuses and elsewhere. First step may be a Facebook presence for Liberty Tree. (Refresher: The Liberty Tree Initiative is an informal coalition of educators, journalists, librarians, artists and authors with a shared interest in building awareness of the First Amendment through education and information. It was founded in partnership with the ASNE, with help and support from the Knight Foundation, the McCormick Foundation and the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.)
- We are interested in working with the Education for Journalism Committee to begin a First Amendment writing contest at the middle school and high school level in order to increase awareness. This needs exploration, approval and coordination.
 Freedom of Information Committee
Andrew Alexander, The Washington Post, co-chair
Tim Franklin, Indiana University, co-chair
This is a critical year for the Freedom of Information Committee, which is faced with the task of sustaining the nationally recognized Sunshine Week open government public awareness campaign. The Knight Foundation will not be funding Sunshine Week at the same levels going forward, so we're working aggressively to secure new money to preserve and grow this vitally important project. We have contacted a number of foundations and companies like Google, which have a vested stake in open government and digitized public records. So, we'll continue to pursue other possible revenue sources, and, regardless, we're planning to continue the Sunshine Week campaign, but it may be a less comprehensive and coordinated effort than in recent years.
Speaking of Sunshine Week, our theme in 2010 will be celebrating "Local Heroes," those citizens in our communities who have used Freedom of Information to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others. This campaign will help personalize the sometimes abstract concept of open government. And, it will demonstrate how regular people benefit from a government that is transparent. As part of our overall Sunshine Week effort, we're working on a Web site that will illustrate the best practices of newspaper Web sites in making government information accessible to readers. The goal is to have this completed before Sunshine Week next spring.
The committee also is working closely with ASNE counsel Kevin Goldberg to help advance the passage of a federal shield law for journalists. And, the committee will continue to partner with the Associated Press Sports Editors to fight against the increasing number of restrictions being placed on journalists by high school, collegiate and professional sports organizations and teams.
 Innovation Committee
Steve Buttry, Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, co-chair
Linda Cunningham, Rockford (Ill.) Register Star, co-chair
The Innovation Committee will host a running discussion of innovation through such tools as webinars, live chats, blogs and social media. We will share lessons from successes, failures and continuing struggles in innovation relating to such topics as journalism, leadership, content, digital platforms, social media, databases, ethics, linking, shrinking staffs, community engagement, the changing business model and other issues facing newsroom leaders. We will provide and compile resources to aid editors and journalism educators in facing the challenges of leadership in our swiftly changing world.
 Small Newspapers Committee
Diana Fuentes, Laredo (Texas) Caller-Times, co-chair
Ken Tingley, Glen Falls (N.Y.) Post-Star, co-chair
The Small Newspaper Committee plans to introduce ASNE to a whole new audience of small newspaper editors and develop webinars that could be used for training not only for the editors but for their entire staff.
Our goals are to:
- Grow membership from as many small newspapers by emphasizing the strength of ASNE that, for example, allows the newsroom to get training, not just for the editors, but for the whole newsroom.
- Find out what type of training small news organizations believe they need most.
- Set out an ambitious schedule of monthly training seminars aimed at small newspaper editors and their staffs conducted by their fellow editors.
Audience Development, Communications, Convention Program, Diversity, Education for Journalism, First Amendment, Freedom of Information, Innovation, Small Newspapers
Audience Development Committee
Chris Peck, Memphis Commercial Appeal, chair
The committee will work with the Newspaper Association of America, the Poynter Institute and others to explore ways that local news organizations can build the audience for their journalism.
Our mission this year is to …
- Help the newspaper industry capitalize on e-reader technology, mobile technology, and other digital delivery platforms.
- Explore alternative publishing cycles and new delivery options for print, including fewer days of the week, niche publications, and new print formats.
Communications Committee
(formerly The American Editor)
Carolina Garcia, Los Angeles Daily News, co-chair
Arnie Robbins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, co-chair
We will make The American Editor magazine an online-only communications tool that can help ASNE members and editors during this challenging time. It will continue to explore similar issues and topics as in the previous print versions. We hope to post new items and stories online as often as weekly, while other stories might be posted every month or two. The stories will be shorter, there will be helpful links to other valuable information. It will feel familiar but will evolve into an online-only publication that is likely to continue to evolve over the next couple of years.
Some of the departments we are planning are On deadline, law, management, the industry, editor profiles, from the president (a column and or video), Society for News Design contributions, Association of Copy Editors contributions, summaries of ASNE webinars, committee reports, cover story on some trend or issue, but shorter than currently done and lots and lots of links to journalistic issues being reported elsewhere.
Convention Program Committee
David Boardman, Seattle Times, co-chair
Pam Fine, University of Kansas, co-chair
The 2010 ASNE Convention Program Committee has begun planning for what will be the most exciting – and most important – meeting in our group’s history.
The 2010 convention, in Washington, D.C., April 11-14, won’t really be a convention in the traditional sense. Rather, it will be a conference on the future of journalism, with America’s editors convening the array of other interest groups – journalists, publishers, advertisers, bloggers, funders, students, teachers, readers – to help us all move forward on creating new vitality for our profession while maintaining the values so essential to our democracy.
We’ll still have plenty of hands-on offerings, focused on real-life innovations that will help you better manage and motivate your newsrooms during the most challenging era of our careers. But even more than that, by attending you’ll be helping ensure those newsrooms will still be here, serving our readers, for many decades to come.
We’re beginning to plan the details now, and we’d love your help.
Diversity Commitee
Amanda Bennett, Bloomberg News, co-chair
Susan Goldberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer, co-chair
Mizell Stewart, Evansville Courier Press, co-chair
The Diversity Committee wants to recast its mission to better reflect the changes in the newsgathering process and in the newsgathering business. We would like to hold a series of three seminars, located regionally, to again raise the profile and recommit ASNE members to this key mission. We have applied for a grant to fund these seminars, and are awaiting answers from a number of the nation's most prominent foundations. At the seminars, we see key discussions on these points:
- As hiring has decreased, radically, how can we focus on retaining and training a diverse staff? Having a diverse staff is more important than ever, in a country that is increasingly diverse. How can we achieve that in this kind of climate?
- How can editors better work with the Newspaper Guild and other unions to help retain a diverse staff when many contracts call for last-hired-first fired?
- How can editors talk about diversity so it continues to resonate at a time when jobs are scarce, insecurity is high and many people feel, regrettably, in a him/her-or-me situation at the office?
- Hate speech flourishes in the anonymity provided by the Web. This is particularly troublesome when it comes to comments on stories — and so far, short of banning comments, news organizations are struggling with how to manage this new problem. How can we provide a civil dialogue but retain the Web's rough-and-tumble edge?
- Diversity of content is as important as it ever has been. How can we involve the public to help us achieve this, while so many of our staffs lose minority representation?
Education for Journalism Committee
Pam Luecke, Washington & Lee, co-chair
Rex Smith, Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union, co-chair
- High School Journalism Initiative.
The committee supports the High School Journalism Initiative, as it develops youth journalism programs. Since, 2000, our efforts are growing a diverse generation of journalists/news consumers and imparting a deeper appreciation of the First Amendment and news literacy among all teens. The project has six key initiatives that are unique and unmatched, including the world's largest host of teen news online, and an advertising network.
- News Literacy Part 2.
We will build on the excellent foundation established last year for educating young people about the critical role of journalism in a free society. Our first activity will be an Aug. 5 panel at the convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The annual event, in Boston this year, attracts thousands of educators. The ASNE panel is called “Demand-Side Journalism” and will explore whether journalism educators should focus on teaching the next consumers of news, as well as the next practitioners. Pam Luecke will moderate the panel, which will include Rex Smith. Other panelists are Jerry Ceppos, dean of the journalism school at University of Nevada at Reno; Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center and author of an upcoming book related to this topic; and Alan Miller, director of The News Literacy Project. (Howie Schneider has a separate presentation later that day at the convention.)
With ASNE staff assistance, we will also assemble a News Literacy kit for all attendees at the 2010 ASNE convention. This will include audiovisual material and a letter or flyer encouraging editors to reach out to universities and secondary schools in their communities with the message of news literacy. If one editor in each state made contact with one university president/dean or school superintendent, that could be a powerful second wave. It would also be ideal if news literacy could have a small slot on the convention program to explain what this is all about.
- Membership outreach to educators. The committee co-chairs will develop and arrange a promotional mailing to encourage enrollment and convention attendance for journalism deans and endowed journalism professors who are now eligible for ASNE membership.
Ethics and Values Committee
Mike Fancher, Seattle
Rethinking journalism ethics and values in the digital age.
The committee will explore how journalism can regain public trust in the digital world. Committee chair Mike Fancher, retired executive editor of The Seattle Times, spent the past year as a fellow in the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. Research conducted as part of his fellowship project suggests that the public views the core values of journalism differently than journalists do. The committee will examine the implications of these findings. It will also explore new interactive resources to help journalists, journalism educators and citizens connect with each other about ethics and values. The aim is to formulate a new ethic of public trust through public engagement.
First Amendment Committee
Margaret Sullivan, Buffalo (N.Y.) News, chair
- We need to recruit members to the committee. We’re happy to report that we have already recruited Charlotte Hall.
- The committee needs to be the marketing and messaging arm of ASNE; most particularly, we need to get the word out that newspapers aren’t dying. Can we get a commitment from member newspapers and other friendly members of the media to run ads touting the value and continued vitality of American newspapers?
- We need to build on the success of the Liberty Tree campaign, which takes the First Amendment message onto college campuses and elsewhere. First step may be a Facebook presence for Liberty Tree. (Refresher: The Liberty Tree Initiative is an informal coalition of educators, journalists, librarians, artists and authors with a shared interest in building awareness of the First Amendment through education and information. It was founded in partnership with the ASNE, with help and support from the Knight Foundation, the McCormick Foundation and the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.)
- We are interested in working with the Education for Journalism Committee to begin a First Amendment writing contest at the middle school and high school level in order to increase awareness. This needs exploration, approval and coordination.
Freedom of Information Committee
Andrew Alexander, The Washington Post, co-chair
Tim Franklin, Indiana University, co-chair
This is a critical year for the Freedom of Information Committee, which is faced with the task of sustaining the nationally recognized Sunshine Week open government public awareness campaign. The Knight Foundation will not be funding Sunshine Week at the same levels going forward, so we're working aggressively to secure new money to preserve and grow this vitally important project. We have contacted a number of foundations and companies like Google, which have a vested stake in open government and digitized public records. So, we'll continue to pursue other possible revenue sources, and, regardless, we're planning to continue the Sunshine Week campaign, but it may be a less comprehensive and coordinated effort than in recent years.
Speaking of Sunshine Week, our theme in 2010 will be celebrating "Local Heroes," those citizens in our communities who have used Freedom of Information to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others. This campaign will help personalize the sometimes abstract concept of open government. And, it will demonstrate how regular people benefit from a government that is transparent. As part of our overall Sunshine Week effort, we're working on a Web site that will illustrate the best practices of newspaper Web sites in making government information accessible to readers. The goal is to have this completed before Sunshine Week next spring.
The committee also is working closely with ASNE counsel Kevin Goldberg to help advance the passage of a federal shield law for journalists. And, the committee will continue to partner with the Associated Press Sports Editors to fight against the increasing number of restrictions being placed on journalists by high school, collegiate and professional sports organizations and teams.
Innovation Committee
Steve Buttry, Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, co-chair
Linda Cunningham, Rockford (Ill.) Register Star, co-chair
The Innovation Committee will host a running discussion of innovation through such tools as webinars, live chats, blogs and social media. We will share lessons from successes, failures and continuing struggles in innovation relating to such topics as journalism, leadership, content, digital platforms, social media, databases, ethics, linking, shrinking staffs, community engagement, the changing business model and other issues facing newsroom leaders. We will provide and compile resources to aid editors and journalism educators in facing the challenges of leadership in our swiftly changing world.
Small Newspapers Committee
Diana Fuentes, Laredo (Texas) Caller-Times, co-chair
Ken Tingley, Glen Falls (N.Y.) Post-Star, co-chair
The Small Newspaper Committee plans to introduce ASNE to a whole new audience of small newspaper editors and develop webinars that could be used for training not only for the editors but for their entire staff.
Our goals are to:
- Grow membership from as many small newspapers by emphasizing the strength of ASNE that, for example, allows the newsroom to get training, not just for the editors, but for the whole newsroom.
- Find out what type of training small news organizations believe they need most.
- Set out an ambitious schedule of monthly training seminars aimed at small newspaper editors and their staffs conducted by their fellow editors.
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ASNE members:
For more on committee activities or to join a committee, go to the committee discusion pages. You'll be asked to log in. If you don't know your password, click on the send password link.
ASNE members:
For more on committee activities or to join a committee, go to the committee discusion pages. You'll be asked to log in. If you don't know your password, click on the send password link.
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