NewsTrain, MPI stop next in Nashville: AP’s Curley, Tennessean’s Seigenthaler headline Sept. 23-24 workshop
The president of The Associated Press and a Tennessee journalism icon will both deliver keynote addresses Sept. 23-24 at the APME and Freedom Forum NewsTrain workshop in Nashville, Tenn.
In addition, Freedom Sings, the First Amendment Center’s group that performs concerts of censored music, will perform its “Fight the Power” concert at the workshop.
Tom Curley, the president and CEO of The Associated Press, will deliver the first keynote address, kicking off the two-day workshop on Thursday. He will speak on the “Renewed Power of the Press.”
John Seigenthaler, chairman emeritus of The Tennessean, will deliver the secondkeynote address, kicking off the second day of the workshop. He will speak on “The First Amendment, a Cornerstone of Democracy.”
A former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Seignethaler served for 43 years as an award-winning journalist at the Tennessean, retiring as editor, publisher and CEO of the morning newspaper.
He also was founding editorial director of USA Today and founder of the First Amendment Center, where the NewsTrain workshop will be held. He is currently senior advisory trustee of the Freedom Forum.
The NewsTrain workshop will include two-tracks, one on the “Nimble Leader” and one on “The Evolving Journalist.” Attendees can attend one or both days of the workshop. Registration is $50. MPI members can pay MPI and send checks to Executive Director John Ryan, or they can make checks payable to APME NewsTrain and send them to Teresa Cooper, NewsTrain program assistant, 402 Cheltena Ave., Jenkintown, PA 19046.
Workshop participants have two choices for lodging. They can stay in dormitory-style rooms at a nightly rate of $62 plus tax at the Scarritt-Bennett Conference Center, 1008 19th Ave. South, Nashville, Tenn., one block north of the First Amendment Center, 615-340-7500. Attendees also can stay in two-room suites for $119 a night at the Embassy Suites/Vanderbilt, 1811 Broadway, Nashville, Tenn. 37203, 615-320-8899.
The NewsTrain workshop will be one of two scheduled for MPI members this fall. A workshop on politics will be held Oct. 9-10 at the Millennium/ Four Points Sheraton Hotel in St. Louis. A separate MPI Reporter on that workshop will follow this one.
Elaine Kramer, APME NewsTrain project manager, will be running the September workshop. Participants can attend one of the tracks on one day or attend both tracks over the two days.
Journalism educators also will attend the seminar on grants from the McCormick Foundation. They also will take part on a third track, “Extra Jolt,” which will include a session on “Coaching Narrative Storytelling” and “A Course for Educators: Journalism Class Exercises That Work.”
The Scripps Howard Foundation is funding scholarships valued up to $300 to help journalists from diverse backgrounds attend the workshop. Scholarships will pay registration and most lodging expenses. http://bit.ly/Nashville_NewsTrain_Diversity_Scholarships
The two-day workshop is nearly identical to the NewsTrain workshop held March 26-27 at the Daily Herald, Arlington Heights, Ill.
Like the March workshop, the Nimble Editor track will include sessions on news ethics and values, creating a constructive culture, story planning for multiple media and multiple deadlines, among other topics.
The Evolving Journalist track will include sessions on data strategy, alternative distribution, covering communities in new ways and knowing your audience.
Faculty will inclue Ronnie Agnew, executive editor of the Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Miss.; Jacqui Banaszynski, Knight Chair in Editor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism; Patrick Beeson, content manger for Scripps Interactive Newspaper Group, Knoxville, Tenn.; Bobbi Bowman, publisher, editor and reporter of the McLean Ear, McLean, Va.; and Michael Roberts, deputy managing editor for staff development, The Arizona Republic.
By Marlon Scott
The basic building blocks of any newspaper are well crafted stories and dynamic photos. With these blocks, both online and printed newspapers can be constructed into edifices ranging from as simple as a sturdy, functional log cabin, to an expansive, extravagant palace.
Larry Coyne, photo editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is one of many journalists who are warning his peers of a flaw in this fundamental tool for newspapers.
As part of the workshop “Covering Sports in a 24/7 World,” presented by MPI at the Millennium/Four Points Sheraton Hotel in St. Louis, Mo., Coyne led a discussion about the limitations newspapers are facing on the utilization and re-selling of photos.
Sports coverage must emphasize local angle
By Alex Iniguez
Think local. That’s the message that Kevin Winters Morris, sports editor of the Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Jim Ruppert, sports editor of The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill. instilled in the minds of attendees of the MPI “Covering Sports in a 24/7 World” workshop in St. Louis.
With the current state of the journalism industry, the distance some newspapers can send reporters has shrunk, leaving papers focusing on local sports news.
“Local is the only way we can go,” Ruppert said.
Ruppert and Morris said that, besides the obvious fact that their newspaper readers are more interested in something that happens within a range of 20 miles, their readers also reach out and give thanks to their newspapers for covering topics that really matter to them.
One major shift noted by both Ruppert and Morris is that covering a game with just a pen and a notepad is not enough anymore. With the state of the Web, audio, video and still images are vital. Words are not enough. Reporters no longer go to a game and scratch down some quotes on a notepad and insert them into a print story. Instead, they bring cameras, audio recorders and flip video cameras.
Video cameras bring the unique problem of unnatural interviews. Unfortunately, many high school students (or younger) have never done an interview on camera, leaving sometimes unsavory interviews for writers to use.
With all the problems with the industry, Ruppert and Morris have found the formula to engage with readers, provide in-depth coverage and maintain a quality publication – start local.
Call on all staff to cover the big story
By Jessica Hinterlong
Bob Zaltsberg, editor of the Herald Times in Bloomington, Ind., and Reid Laymance, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, opened the second day of the Mid-America Press Institute workshop, “Covering Sports in a 24/7 World,” with a discussion on “Covering the Big Story.”
The two veteran writers shared their insights about discovering features before opening up the floor for comments and questions from the sports writers and students present.
“It’s never too soon to start thinking about a feature,” said Laymance. “And it doesn’t always have to be just you, the writer, brainstorming. It helps to engage the whole newsroom because sometimes they come up with better ideas than you do.”
Photo by Marlon Scott
By Sara Patterson
As reporters utilize social media tools to supplement print reportage, questions of online personality and journalistic objectivity abound.
The young sports staff from the Herald-Times in Bloomington, Indiana, shared a fresh perspective with veteran reporters attending the Mid-America Press Institute sports seminar June 28.
The panel of 20-somethings, led by newly minted sports editor Chris Korman, talked about generating online-only content to connect with readers and engage the web community.
From live blogging during games to tweeting breaking news and posting quirky post-game videos, the trio strive to keep print standards high while tacking on additional roles for reporters with new media applications.
The Herald-Times Web site’s print-edition content was placed behind a pay wall in 2003, so reporters and editors use video, blogs and chats to fill the site with free content. Since 80 percent of the site’s hits come from non-subscribers, Korman said they try to cater to both audiences.
Korman’s crew has been using Cover it Live technology to live blog during games and can have 500 to 3,000 people looking on.
“We try to stay away from having an opinion, but (online involvement) can call your objectivity into question,” said sports writer Dustin Dopirak, 28. “You end up having to justify what you do as you start to have a relationship with the readers.”
Inevitably, readers start to ask for the reporter’s personal opinion in the online forum, and it becomes a fine line to tread.
“A lot of the time, fans don’t know what our standards are,” said Korman, 28. “They have every right to think when they come to our site that they are at a fan site, and people just don’t know what our objective is. But this is also a chance to explain to the readers where you are coming from.”
High school beat writer Hugh Kellenberger, who has 622 followers on Twitter, was one of the first at the Herald-Times to embrace the social tool. He said he has learned to approach with caution.
“My no. 1 use of Twitter is to link to the content we have going on the Web site,” said Kellenberger, 26. “(Twitter) opens up a new line of communication. It used to be that the crazies would just send reporters e-mails, but now it’s become part of the public forum. Now they demand a response.”
Herald-Times editor Bob Zaltsberg said the paper has an established social media policy for its employees, but it mostly dealt with transparency. He encourages his young staff to continue their trial-and-error approach to new media.
“When the day comes to make some money on these things,” he said,” we want to be in the position to do it.”
Smelser: Try new things, fail faster
Erik Smelser Photo by Marlon Scott
By Matt Wilhalme
In an era where newspaper collapse has become common place, the director of the St. Louis Sports Agency wants journalists to fail – faster.
The only way to find out what works, Erik Smelser said, is to fail quickly in order to buy some time to figure out what will.
“We are in the business of news with an emphasis on business,” said Smelser, who never went to journalism school and had never really reported on anything until recently. Read more…
Rick Hummel Photo by Marlon Scott
By Caitlin Dolan
in a world where new technology is created everyday it’s important to go with the flow of the time and learn how to utilize those new tools to enhance your writing. That was the message from Rick Hummel, longtime baseball writer during the Mid-America Press Institute workshop on “Covering Sports in a 24/7 World”.
Hummel, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, shared his experiences in becoming a beat writer for the St. Louis Cardinals and provided some tips on how to succeed in a competitive world. Read more…
Erik Smelser: learn to fail quickly
Laymance: Learn from past, future
Journalists are entering a new age of instantaneous news, user-generate content, and other social media. Before journalists can move forward, they must learn from the past and then learn from the future, according to Reid Laymance, sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Laymance made the keynote address to begin the MPI workshop, “Covering Sports in a 24/7 World.” He told the audience of collegiate and professional journalists about how he has learned from the past to understand the future. Read more…
John Mozeliak, general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, will be one of the keynote speakers at the Mid-America Press Institute’s June 28-29 workshop on “Covering Sports in a 24/7 World” at the Millennium/Four Points Sheraton Hotel, St. Louis. Mozeliak will provide a different perspective on Twitter, Web coverage, the MLB network and what he thinks is the role and future of traditional media.
The Cards GM is part of an impressive line up of speakers and topics on the June program. Hall of Fame baseball writer Rick Hummel will speak on beat reporting and Reid Laymance, sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will
Rick Hummel
discuss what a newspaper has to do to compete in the digital world. In addition, sessions on creating
a high school sports Web page and covering the big sports story in your area will be covered.
The first 25 to register will have a chance to purchase half-price tickets to the Monday, June 28, Cardinals v. Diamondback game at Busch Stadium. So sports editors and reporters sign up soon.
To register for the conference, contact John Ryan, MPI executive director, at jmryan@eiu.edu.
