Published: September 23, 1996
Last Updated: October 01, 1996
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A set of seminars organized by ASNE committees this fall are designed to explore newsroom challenges and improve operations. Additional details are available from ASNE:

• "Breaking new ground in newsroom diversity" is the focus of a facilitated session organized by the Minorities Committee on the afternoon of Sept. 17, prior to the opening of the APME convention in Denver.

  Nancy Woodhull, executive director, Media Studies Center in New York, and a widely called-upon newspaper consultant, will facilitate a lively and challenging discussion among the editors. The APME rate at Denver’s Hyatt Regency Hotel is $125 a night for a single.

• Four forthcoming seminars provide an opportunity for editors to join ASNE’s Institute for Journalism Values.

  Developed by the ASNE Ethics and Values Committee and supported by a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, the seminar dates are: Washington, D.C., Sept. 29-Oct. 1; Chicago, Dec. 8-10; Atlanta Jan. 19-21; and St. Petersburg, Fla., Feb. 22-24 (new media focus).

  These seminars will explore the concepts that go to the heart of how newspapers cover the news and present issues that our communities care about, according to Karla Garrett Harshaw, committee chair and editor of the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun.

• "Re-focus on Quality Editing" is the topic of an Oct. 4-5 seminar at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, under the aegis of the Human Resources Committee.

  This conference provides an opportunity for senior editors, copy editors, copy desk chiefs, and editing teachers to focus on copy desk operations and editing. "This will be an unusual and exciting opportunity for interchange among these groups, which, as a rule, don’t talk enough to one another," according to committee chair Bob Mong, publisher, Owensboro (Ky.) Messenger-Inquirer. The registration fee is $50. The cost of lodging is $62 per night.

• Newspapers editors involved in major newsroom change efforts will gather in Columbia, S.C., Nov. 15-17 for a discussion of "learning lessons from newsroom change efforts," says Gil Thelen, editor of the Columbia State and committee chair. The cost is $75.00 per participant. The hotel cost is $88 single, $89 shared.
• Thirty years of the public’s right to know will be marked at a two-day symposium Sept. 12-13 at The Freedom Forum, marking the anniversary of the 1996 signing of the federal Freedom of Information Act.

  ASNE has taken the lead in organizing the event, which will generate proposals to expand FOIA protections. ASNE members have been invited to attend.