Last Updated: January 12, 2000
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Members can anticipate a shift in the next year's schedule. The 1997 convention
will start - and end - earlier.
Responding to suggestions from members and attendance patterns, the
1997 annual meeting will begin with a can't-miss session on starting at
3 p.m. on Tuesday April 8. (The topic: "The Editor's Life and How It Can
Be Better.") The final event of the convention will be the Friday luncheon,
which will conclude by 2:30 p.m.
Other changes in the format are anticipated. The traditional early-bird
sessions are being folded into the general sessions, which will start at
8 a.m. each day. Breakfast will be provided Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The opening session will be followed by a reception at the Newseum,
the Freedom Forum's $50 million museum dedicated to the past, present and
future of news. Interesting convention events are also planned for Wednesday
and Thursday evenings.
There will be a keynote breakfast on Wednesday morning with a headliner
speaker, modeled on the format pioneered at last April's convention.
Editors can expect a stronger-than-usual focus on newspaper issues at
the convention sessions, and negotiations are under way with a number of
headliners for the luncheon and breakfast speakers, according to Tim J.
McGuire, editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and chair of the Convention
Program Committee.
ASNE has received an acceptance, barring unforeseen developments, from
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the convention leaders are
aggressively attempting to line up President Clinton and other prominent
figures.
The "cornerstone" sessions of the convention will be a major presentation
on how to think, two sessions devoted to newspaper content, and a session
that presents the findings of three major ASNE studies under way in the
current year. One is a readership study of newspaper's competitive advantages,
another is a national survey of the attitudes and aspirations of the newsroom
work force, and the third is a survey of editors probing how they spend
their time and what their biggest challenges are.
Other topics to be addressed in sessions are an update on Web publishing
and the future of newspapers,
The current anticipated schedule can be seen on ASNE's Web site. The
Web schedule will be updated whenever there are significant changes and
new confirmations.
Convention materials will be mailed to members in December. 
