Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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A note from
the president
ASNE’s 75th convention will be substantive
By Sandy Rowe
Time magazine just celebrated its 75th anniversary with Hollywood, Washington
and New York luminaries in full flower in New York. A media event made
for media coverage. The Clintons showed up. Tom Cruise was there. Muhammad
Ali, Kevin Costner, even our own Phil Bronstein — escorting his bride,
Sharon Stone.
Now ASNE gathers for its 75th anniversary convention. I’ve been looking
for a parallel between these press giants’ celebrations of 75 years. It’s
a stretch, but at least for our show you can leave your tux and evening
gown at home.
Plus our celebration of 75 years will be of significant substance (as
well as being fun), offering useful, practical information you can take
back to your newsroom and a load of outstanding and important speakers
ranging from Mark Willes to Alan Greenspan to Stephen Covey to Katharine
Graham.
Come to work, think, be challenged and renew friendships. This will
be a terrific convention, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Ed Jones,
his dedicated committee and the ASNE staff.
We’re trying some new approaches this year. The convention is built
around the central themes of the importance of improving our credibility
with readers, leadership and excellent writing. Not a bad trinity.
The centerpiece is the credibility issue, with a full day’s programs
devoted to it on Wednesday, April 1. We could not have selected a more
important and timely topic. You cannot turn on a television, read your
own newspaper or talk directly with the good folks in your community without
hearing how disliked and mistrusted journalists are. Even in its most benign
forms, the relentless criticism is disheartening.
ASNE is embarked on a journey to better understand the facts and perceptions
driving the criticism, to confront our weaknesses and to build a consensus
around what we need to do to live up to our own high-minded ideals. At
the convention we will push forward the discussion and bring you up to
date on our efforts and our plans for the future. We hope to begin to offer
an antidote through leadership, thoughtful analysis and action.
We have compelling sessions planned for the credibility day, highlighted
by a two-hour session that morning devoted to getting to the heart of the
problem. Charles Ogletree, Harvard Law School professor and star of the
famed Socratic sessions at Harvard, will lead us through a provocative
credibility conversation.
He will be joined by a provocative collection of participants who bring
varied and unique views of the newspaper industry, either by being part
of it, observers of us or having been the subject of coverage. They include:
Jerry Ceppos, executive editor in San Jose, who last year went through
his own credibility crisis in the wake of the "Dark Alliance" series; industry
leaders Jack Fuller and Geneva Overholser, former editors who now view
newsroom actions and attitudes from different perches and who are consistently
strong and steady voices on the role newspapers play and the function of
journalists; Sissela Bok, distinguished philosopher and ethicist at Harvard;
John Leo, columnist for U.S. News & World Report; Dan Rather, CBS News
anchor; J.C. Watts, congressman and rising star within the Republican Party,
and Judy Pace Christie and Karla Garrett Harshaw, both editors of newspapers
under 100,000 circulation and eloquent voices on how newspapers must connect
with their communities!
This day will have so much to it that you will receive a separate notebook
with readings and handouts when you arrive in addition to the regular program
devoted specifically to this issue. Plus, this session should have reach
beyond the convention. We will videotape the session, edit it down a little
and send it to you within a few weeks of the convention. Our friends at
The Poynter Institute will write a study guide to accompany the tape, so
once back in your newsrooms or classrooms you can use the notebook, tape
and the guide as you see fit in your own credibility conversations.
We don’t slow down in the afternoon. Following the session lead by Professor
Ogletree, Marvin Kalb will moderate a panel examining the coverage of the
Clinton-Lewinsky allegations; Tim McGuire will lead a much-needed discussion
on corrections and their impact on credibility, and Peter Bhatia and Tom
Rosenstiel will turn our attention to bias in the news columns — what it
is and how to deal with it.
Regardless how you feel about credibility, you can look forward to this
day as stimulating, useful and thought-provoking.
And that’s just one day. On Tuesday, March 31, Covey and Graham will
speak on leadership issues, specifically focused on newsrooms. On Thursday,
April 2, the morning emphasis will be on writing, celebrating the 20th
anniversary of the ASNE writing awards. That afternoon features Greenspan
on the economy and a discussion of privacy after Princess Diana’s death.
Finally, the morning of Friday the 3rd (in addition to early-morning workshops)
features Willes; John Hope Franklin, chair of the president’s initiative
on race, and Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
We have worked hard to give a coherence to this program and to keep
our attention focused on the most significant questions facing editors
in 1998. For ASNE, there is no more important topic. The four-day investment
for our 75th should be worthy of your time and attention.
See you in Washington!
Rowe, ASNE president, is editor of The Oregonian, Portland.
