Here's a recollection of my experiences in Washington D.C. at the Society of Professional Journalists National Conference.
Oct. 4, 2007 Be Willing to Knock on Doors
There’s always an invigorating feeling that comes with traveling in a business suit. Each clickity-clack of my heels sent me soaring on a professionalism high. That’s the way airports are nowadays. It’s a giant flurry of suits. Black, blue, gray…just one big business bruise.
I found my roommate at the airport. Her name is Michelle, and she’s from the Northwest Arkansas Pro Chapter. She writes feature stories at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Later on she told me she had been covering a story for months about families affected by the War in Iraq. Michelle would occasionally drive out to the woman’s house and converse about life and her children since her husband left for duty.
On the way to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, we passed Capitol Hill in our taxi. It was only a couple blocks away. I was amazed at how clean and pretty the city was. I visited New York City about two months ago and made a unique comparison. They are both bustling, fast-paced cities…but when I left D.C., I didn’t feel like I had to shower right away to get the city’s germs off of me.
I registered for the conference and got a big SPJ canvas bag full of free materials. There was also a Journalism Trade Expo going on downstairs with different schools, government and journalism organizations passing out information. They even had huge Apple computers set up so conference attendees could check their e-mail and Facebooks! We all know how important that is.
At 1 p.m., I attended the first program called “Writing and Editing High-impact Stories.” Each hour block had about four or five programs to choose from, so you had to pick a favorite.
William W. Treanor, a publisher of Youth Today, and Tom Temin, former executive editor of PostNewsweek Tech Media, discussed how publications cover certain specialties.
The “trade press” is journalism in which everything is in the service of a readers’ profession or publication. It should:
-tell readers what they need to know
-provide context
-offer insights (and make articles actionable)
Examples of these types of specialties are information technology, sales and engineering.
They said 90 percent of the story tips you get are junk. When a story works out and makes a major breakthrough, you were either lucky or connected the dots (tips) with your mind. The example they used was “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.
At 2:15 p.m. I attended “Getting Inside: Crime Beat Investigations.” The panel consisted of:
Jeanne Meserve, CNN correspondent
Allison Klein, The Washington Post
Laura Sullivan, NPR crime and punishment correspondent
Ted Gest, president of Criminal Justice Journalists
They had some great tips for those covering crime beats:
1) Keep an eye out for wacky stories. Those get the most response.
2) Go to the court house and get every document you can find about a potential story.
3) Keep reading and watching the news to build new angles.
4) Build relationships with law enforcement- the best way to win them over is to do good reporting.
5) Knocking on doors can sometimes give you the best material.
6) Interview experts not involved with the case for different insight.
7) Establish lines you won’t cross…if the situation is too traumatic for a potential source, back off.
8) Compose yourself (don’t get emotional) because you have to remain professional.
9) Meserve said, “Turn over every stone, collect every piece of thread and weave it into a tapestry.”
10) Do interviews before your one big interview; that way, you have more information to back you up.
11) When you do ride-alongs with police, tell them what sector you want to visit and what officer you want to go with (preferably a veteran of the force.)
12) Always get phone numbers.
13) Call law enforcement back and always keep up with them.
14) Ask for detectives- they’ve seen and done it all.
15) A simple “I need your help” will probably grant you the interview! People love to help others out.
16) Sullivan said, “They want to show the public that they’re doing stuff and not eating donuts.”
I cover the cops beat at The Independent Florida Alligator sometimes, and I have to tell you that these are very good tips.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) discussed the Freedom of Information Act with a room full of journalists. The bill has recently been placed on the floor of the Senate. The FOIA would make records and information more accessible with the Open Government Act. It also would provide a shield law so the federal government could not compel a person covered by the shield to provide testimony or produce documents without first showing the need to do so by prevalence of evidence.
Whether students or real bloggers would be covered was an important issue brought up by audience members.
Cornyn said the government did not want to give “serial fabulists,” or unprofessional bloggers dealing in sensationalism, special protection.
After this talk, David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, discussed the true numbers behind the national debt.
Walker said there is no way the U.S. is going to grow out of this problem unless
1) We’re more truthful about where we are heading.
2) Improve financial reporting.
3) Strengthen budget controls
He said the younger generation will have Social Security, but it just depends how much and the eligibility age.
The main problems are that American families are spending more than they can make (you can thank credit cards for that) and that the population of 65-year-olds and over is going to boom in 2008. That means more people will be eligible for benefits the government has to pay for.
More information can be found at www.gao.gov.
I attended the Opening Night Reception and Legal Defense Fund Auction at the National Music Center. It was a neat building and the auction was outrageous. I think someone paid $5,000 for two tickets to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Oct. 5, 2007 America’s Out-of-Control Militia
Sleepy-eyed and stumbling, I managed to make it to a Young Journalists Forum at 7:30 in the morning.
Helen Thomas, 87-year-old reporter for the Washington Bureau and a journalism legend, was interviewing Leila Fadel.
You might know Thomas as the reporter who grills President George W. Bush at White House press conferences. If you do a Google image search, you’ll see her covering presidents from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton.
Fadel is a 26-year-old Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers. She talked about her experiences as a young woman in one of the most dangerous territories in the world.
She said Iraqis feel that Americans are there for oil and power. They say America has an “out-of-control militia running around Baghdad.”
The people are becoming more conservative and militant because they don’t want to be noticed. Getting noticed could get you killed in Iraq.
Soldier morale has also gone down because they don’t see the situation getting any better, Fadel said.
Thomas said this about the war: “There is no validity to our position whatsoever.”
Also, a funny side note: Thomas frequently gets asked if it’s hard being a woman journalist.
She responds: “Well, I’ve never been anything else!”
“Climate Change Affects Every Beat” was the next discussion I attended. An interesting focus of the talk was brought up by the U.S. Green Building Council. They talked about their efforts with LEAD Building Certification, or checking to make sure buildings are “green.” LEAD for homes starts Nov. 8 because there’s a tremendous demand for it.
The panel said media play a big part in helping consumers understand which green labels to trust for home products.
Young journalists interested in the environment could have a great career covering it, because it’s a topic that will be around their whole lives, they said.
“The White House Press Corps: Lap Dogs?” addressed the controversy of the White House press corps “selling out” journalism in order to gain access.
Members of the panel included:
Peter Maer, CBS Radio White House Correspondent
Deb Riechmann, AP White House correspondent
Wendell Goler, Fox News Channel White House correspondent
The panel agreed that this has been the toughest White House to cover, and they should always be asking themselves if they’re getting too cozy with their sources.
The large practice of follow-up questions at press conferences has also died away. George W. Bush apparently doesn’t like follow-ups and gets irritated when they’re asked.
They also had some advice:
1) Be measured in your persistence.
2) Look up public records to help a story.
3) When people ask you to sign petitions, say you’re a journalist and you can’t. (Remain objective!)
This discussion fit closely with the next one, “White House Press Secretaries: The Real Story.” Ron Nessen, former press secretary to Gerald Ford, and Mike McCurry, former press secretary to Bill Clinton, discussed their careers.
Nessen’s one regret was that he didn’t have a better sense of humor as press secretary.
McCurry said he missed the days when press conferences weren’t televised. He said both sides posture for the camera and everyone plays their roles…it’s less genuine.
McCurry said the U.S. needs to reexamine the role of “press secretary.”
One person is answering questions for the entire government, and the U.S. needs to radically change that, he said.
Nessen said his hardest day as press secretary was when the Vietnam War ended. He had to fight to keep his emotions out of the picture.
The rest of the day, I went with two girls, Laura from Oregon and Kiki from Minnesota, to go sightseeing. We walked from our hotel to the Washington Monument, past the Smithsonian buildings and to the White House. The architecture in D.C. is brilliant; every building looks extremely important.
Our final stop was Capitol Hill. Oct. 5 was my birthday, so I took a picture on the steps of Capitol Hill, shouting goodbye to my teenage years.
I turned 20 in D.C. What an experience that was!
Oct. 6, 2007 We Didn’t Tell Our First Wives
The first workshop of the morning dealt with writing feature stories. Libby Copeland, staff writer for The Washington Post, said over-reporting is often fatal.
“You get afraid of owning the material,” she said.
Don’t feel obligated to put every quote in. It’s a matter of being willing to impose your own sense of narrative in the story, Copeland said.
Elevation is an important part to writing features. The story is not about the subject, she said, but rather the bigger idea. Find what the person/subject stands for.
After that, I attended a discussion with Len Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post, to see where the newspaper was heading.
His advice:
1) Try really hard to get someone on the record because it helps the credibility of the story. The Post sometimes asks confidential sources to reveal their identity later down the road.
Interesting note: the Post newsroom is 48 percent female and 23 percent minority.
“We have to continue to work on diversity in the newsroom,” Downie said.
I attended another talk with Leila Fadel, the Baghdad bureau chief.
She said her biggest limitation is being blocked off from the stories she’s supposed to cover.
“You become a fly on the wall,” she said.
About 203 reporters have been killed in Iraq so far. That’s about one a week, she said.
Because of her age and gender, she said she has to try harder than everyone else to be taken seriously.
Also, she worries the most about potential kidnapping situations.
Her biggest culture shock when she travels back and forth from Iraq to the U.S. is that
1) Americans aren’t thinking about Iraq. In Iraq, people HAVE to think about it because their lives depend on it.
2) She likes visiting the U.S. because she can take a cab, go out at night and go to the market without consulting 10 people.
Fadel said a lot of bloggers are coming into Iraq now, but they usually only get one perspective: the military’s.
Iraqis are becoming more and more afraid to say anything, she said.
The most interesting part of the discussion was when someone asked Fadel about beautiful things she has seen in the war zone.
Fadel brought up the weddings that happen every Thursday. People are also trying to paint the blast walls and plant flowers around them.
“I have also fallen in love with the country,” Fadel said.
“Bloggers and Journalists: Friends or Foes?” talked about the recent rise of legal action against bloggers.
Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said 75 percent of cases are because of libel. The second cause is copyright issues and the third is privacy issues.
One-fifth of cases are filed in California. The six major issues are:
1) corporate cases
2) dissatisfied customers (complaining about a bad service)
3) local government/politics (writing a blog about a government official)
4) personal feuds
5) student/teacher feuds (the parents can actually be sued for libel)
6) Cult/religion (defaming of religion)
Three individuals have 10 percent of the lawsuits:
1) Tucker Max
2) Luke Ford
3) Mario Lavandeira (Perez Hilton)
Bloggers have lost $17.2 million.
Visit www.mediabloggers.org for more information.
Now, the moment we had all been waiting for at the conference: Watergate: 35 Years Later. Huzzah!
The panel:
Carl Bernstein, former Washington Post reporter
Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post
Daniel Schorr, NPR Senior News Analyst
Ben Bradlee, Washington Post VP At-Large
Bob Schieffer, CBS News
Scott Armstrong, Information Trust Executive Director
Alicia Shepard, author
What an impressive bunch! When Woodward and Bernstein entered the filled auditorium, journalists swarmed around them like crazed paparazzi. They are true celebrities.
To start off the discussion, we watched the making of the “All the President’s Men” movie with Redford and Hoffman.
Woodward joked that the role of Bradlee in the movie was all about running around the newsroom and saying, “Where’s the f***ing story?!”
Bradlee said when he heard that Nixon had audiotapes that could be used as evidence, he didn’t believe anyone could be that stupid.
The confidentiality of Deep Throat was a major topic.
“That was a secret we kept because that was the bargain,” Woodward said.
I believe it was Bernstein who said the secret was kept for so long because they never told their first wives.
Woodward and Bernstein encouraged reporters to be active listeners and learn from their mistakes.
My favorite part of the discussion was Ben Bradlee. If you’ve ever read “All the President’s Men,” you’ll realize that he has an eccentric personality. He made me laugh while reading and he made me laugh in person.
And the best part of it all- the three of them signed my book!
That night I went to the President’s Installation Banquet thanks to professor Dave Carlson. He and his wife gave me a ticket. National SPJ president Christine Tatum left the position and Clint Brewer took over.
I randomly met Josh Wolf, the video blogger who was jailed for about 200 days because he wouldn’t turn over video footage to a judge. He wanted to protect his sources. Wolf seemed like a really nice guy, and I commend him for what he did! It goes to show that we really need a Shield Law passed.
Oct. 7, 2007 Student Newspapers Covering a Heart-Wrenching Crisis
I went to “When Disasters Strike,” a discussion about FEMA’s performance during disasters. This was probably my least favorite discussion. Instead of anecdotes and some tips for student journalists, I felt like it was a public relations session for FEMA.
The last session was really eye-opening. It was about Deconstructing Virginia Tech. What I really liked was that they had the former editor-in-chief there from the Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech’s student newspaper. Amie Steele, the former editor, gave tons of insight on the hard decisions they had to make about coverage of the shooting.
Understaffed and emotionally-burdened, they decided to focus more on the students and families rebuilding instead of giving the shooter the publicity he craved. I really respect them for that.
After that, I took a taxi back to the airport. My journalism adventure had come to an end.
I wanted to thank professor Mike Foley, professor Dave Carlson, UF College of Journalism and Communications, and the North Central Florida SPJ Pro Chapter for helping me out with my trip. It’s an awesome experience I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.
