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Send it in! Please let us know if your chapter held events to commemorate the day. Perhaps you gathered to eat birthday cake and watch the live Webcast together. Or maybe you held your own panel discussion reflective of journalism issues in your local community. Let us know what you did on April 17 to celebrate 100 years of SPJ. Submit chapter news items and pictures to Scott Leadingham.

If you were in attendance, you know April 17, 2009 was a day to remember. If you were watching online, you got a window into what was an extraordinary day. For everyone — whether there in person, watching online or with us in spirit — remember the day by viewing these selected events (all events in Windows Media format):

— Panel Discussion
— SPJ Induction Ceremony
— Keynote Address from Jane Pauley
— Anniversary Dinner, with remarks by Dave Aeikens

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Event Details

Barney Kilgore book presentation
Join author Richard Tofel as he discusses his book and research on Barney Kilgore. The book, “Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal, and the Invention of Modern Journalism,” reviews the life of the Wall Street Journal visionary who changed the shape of the paper and modern media.
Time: 2 - 2:45 p.m.
Location: Meharry Hall, East College building, 2nd Floor

Panel discussion
Panel discussion, "Journalism in Times of Peril and Promise," examining the past, present and future of journalism. Moderated by Bob Steele, the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at DePauw and Poynter Institute faculty member.
Panelists: Ken Paulson, Newseum president/former USA Today editor; Bob Edwards, XM Satellite Radio; Karen B. Dunlap, Poynter Institute president; Jan Schaffer, J-Lab executive director; Suzanne McCarroll, KCNC-TV reporter; Bruce Sanford, SPJ legal counsel/First Amendment attorney
Time: 3 - 4:30 p.m.
Location: Meharry Hall, East College building 2nd Floor
Read about the speakers
Click for DePauw University news release on panel

Anniversary ceremony
Ceremony to commemorate SPJ’s 100th anniversary, inspired by the fraternal traditions started by the Society’s original members and held in the very room in which SPJ was founded.
Time: 4:45 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: Meharry Hall, East College building, 2nd Floor

Anniversary dinner
Time: 5:45 - 7:15 p.m.
Cost: $25
Location: Memorial Student Union Ballroom

Anniversary dinner: Jane Pauley keynote
Keynote address from veteran NBC broadcaster and anchor Jane Pauley in anticipation of her induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. The event is made possible by DePauw University's Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series. This year Pauley also celebrates a notable anniversary — 30 years as a member of SPJ.
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Meharry Hall, East College building, 2nd Floor
Click for DePauw University news release and Jane Pauley bio

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About the Speakers

Bob Steele  Moderator, Panel Discussion
Bob Steele was a student journalist at DePauw University 40 years ago. Majoring in economics, he was news director of WGRE Radio and Sports Editor and a columnist for The DePauw. In 1968, he became a member of Sigma Delta Chi, The Society of Professional Journalists. Expand bio


Four decades later and after a career as a broadcast journalist and as a journalism educator, Bob has returned to his alma mater. He is the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism through 2014. He teaches courses in journalism ethics as well as seminars for DePauw’s Media Fellows program. Next fall he will teach a Leadership and Responsibility course and a First-Year Students’ Seminar focusing on Values and Storytelling.

Bob also continues his work with The Poynter Institute where he was on the faculty for nearly 20 years, including leading the ethics program for over a decade. He is the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values.

He’s worked with professional journalists from across the country and around the world — from reporters and photographers to editors and corporate news executives — on issues of ethics, values and leadership. He taught thousands of journalists in Poynter seminar sessions, conducted workshops at over 100 news organizations and wrote case studies, articles, handbooks and book chapters on journalism ethics issues. His favorite role is what he and his Poynter colleagues refer to as “rabbi” work — coaching and guiding journalists on real-time ethics challenges.

Bob’s full circle journey from and back to small-town Indiana included stops in Phu Lam, Vietnam as an army officer; Bangor, Maine, Green Bay, Wisconsin and Cedar Rapids, Iowa as a broadcast journalist; and Syracuse University and The University of Iowa while earning masters and doctoral degrees.

Through it all, Bob has believed in the power of inquiry. He values questions as a pathway to exploration and understanding. We search for answers, but it’s the questions that are the beginning and the end.

Bob’s wife, Carol, is his soul mate and muse, as well as an associate dean of academic affairs at DePauw. Compact Bio

Karen B. Dunlap  Panelist, Panel Discussion
Dr. Karen B. Dunlap has devoted more than 30 years to the education of journalists and aspiring journalist. She is president of The Poynter Institute as well as a Trustee at Poynter. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the (St. Petersburg) Times Publishing Company, the board of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation and Eckerd College Board of Trustees. Expand bio


She has led seminars on writing throughout the nation and abroad, and is co-author of The Effective Editor with Foster Davis, and of The Editorial Eye with Jane Harrigan. Dunlap was editor of the Institute’s Best Newspaper Writing series and has served three times as a Pulitzer Prize jurist. She was a reporter for the Macon News and the Nashville Banner and served stints as a staff writer at the St. Petersburg Times.

She began her tenure at Poynter in 1989. Prior to that she taught journalism at Tennessee State University in Nashville, and at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Dunlap is a graduate of Michigan State University and Tennessee State University, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. She has been recognized as an outstanding alum by each.

She has been recognized with the Gerald M. Sass Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2005, an honorary doctorate from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg in 2006, and the Missouri Honor Medal from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Compact Bio

Bob Edwards  Panelist, Panel Discussion
Bob Edwards is the host of "The Bob Edwards Show" on XM Satellite Radio and "Bob Edwards Weekend," distributed to public radio stations by Public Radio International (PRI). Both programs feature in-depth interviews with newsmakers, journalists, entertainers and other compelling figures. Expand bio


Before joining XM in 2004, Edwards hosted National Public Radio's (NPR) "Morning Edition" for 24-and-a-half years, attracting more than 13 million listeners weekly. He joined NPR in 1974 and was co-host of NPR's evening news magazine, "All Things Considered," until 1979 when he helped launch "Morning Edition."

Edwards was born in Louisville, Kentucky and began his radio career there.

Following service as a broadcaster in the U.S. Army, Edwards moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as an anchorman for WTOP-AM, an all-news CBS affiliate. At age 25, he became a correspondent with the Mutual Broadcasting System. He is a graduate of the University of Louisville and holds a master's degree from American University in Washington.
He is the author of two books: "Fridays with Red," which chronicled his radio friendship with legendary sportscaster Red Barber, and "Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism." Compact Bio

Suzanne McCarroll  Panelist, Panel Discussion
Suzanne McCarroll loves to tell stories. She found the perfect job in reporting.
She is a Communications Major from Stanford University. She took an inordinate amount of premed courses because she wanted to go to medical school. She never got there. After college, she accepted a job as an Executive Speech Writer for a major corporation. She hated it. She left the San Francisco Bay Area to cover sports for a tiny t.v. station in Pocatello, Idaho. She loved it. After eleven months, she became weekend anchor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She loved reporting, she didn't love anchoring. Expand bio


She found the perfect position as a live reporter for KCNC TV in Denver, Colorado. She loves human interest stories, but found herself covering the Columbine School shootings, the Bailey, Co. school shootings. The folks at Poynter Institute nicknamed her assignments "The Bummer Beat."

But McCarroll says there is a way to cover tragedy and victims with class. She does not believe in shoving a microphone into a grieving relative's face. She often stays away from the crowd of reporters and affords the family privacy and dignity while working to get the interview by a gentler means.

She has taught upper division courses at the University of Colorado Journalism Dept. She runs the classroom as a newsroom, dispatching students to cover the news, write in loud, crowded conditions, and meet deadlines. She also talks about being a person first, and a reporter second. Kindness can and does pay off in the competitive world of reporting.

She has been a visiting faculty member at the Poynter Institute focusing on ethics in reporting. She loves teaching, The students remind her how lucky she is to be in a field that is interesting, changing and dynamic.

Last year, she received an Emmy for lifetime achievement. She never misses her news deadlines, she did, however, miss the presentation of her award.

Her best stories off the air revolve around her three children. They are entertaining, enjoyable and rewarding. They do not, however, spend any time watching their mother on the news. Compact Bio

Ken Paulson  Panelist, Panel Discussion
Ken Paulson is president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum, Newseum and Diversity Institute. Expand bio


Previously, Paulson served as editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today and USATODAY.com. USA Today is the nation's top-selling newspaper.

For the past 30 years, Paulson has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer, serving as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states and as the executive director of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.

He was on the team of journalists who founded USA Today in 1982 before moving on to manage newsrooms in Westchester County, N.Y., Green Bay, Wis., Bridgewater, N.J. and at Florida Today in Brevard County, Fla. He is widely known for his efforts to inform and educate Americans about First Amendment freedoms and as a strong voice for tougher confidential sourcing policies and ethics guidelines in America’s newsrooms.

Paulson also was the host of the Emmy-nominated television program “Speaking Freely,” seen in more than 60 PBS markets nationwide over five seasons, and the author of "Freedom Sings," a multimedia stage show celebrating the First Amendment that continues to tour the nation's campuses.

He was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online, launching online newspapers in both Florida and New York in 1993.

For the past 10 years, Paulson has been a regular guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, speaking to more than 5,000 journalists about First Amendment issues. He recently was honored with the API Lifetime Service Award.

Paulson has been elected to the leadership of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and will be president of ASNE in 2011. In 2007, he was named fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, “the highest honor SPJ bestows upon a journalist for extraordinary contributions to the profession.”

He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School and is a member of both the Illinois and Florida bars. Compact Bio

Bruce Sanford  Panelist, Panel Discussion
Bruce W. Sanford has been described by American Journalism Review as one of the most accomplished press lawyers in the nation. The National Law Journal mentioned him in its 1991 list of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, and The Washingtonian’s 1997 article on “The 50 Best Lawyers in Washington” noted he was “without peer” in First Amendment Law. Expand bio


In recent years, Mr. Sanford has represented President Clinton in the negotiation and publication of a book and won libel and copyright cases brought against First Lady Barbara Bush and John Grisham, respectively. He has defended The New York Times in a seminal libel case brought by an author against the Times’ Book Review and won a five-year controversial lawsuit for Esquire magazine brought by former White House National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane.

Mr. Sanford is general counsel to the Society of Professional Journalists, the largest and oldest organization of journalists in the United States, and he has represented most of the leading national news media and book publishers including the E.W. Scripps Co., Tribune Co., The Hearst Corporation, ABC, NBC, Fox Television, AOL/Time Warner, National Geographic, Random House, Simon & Schuster and Bertelsmann, A.G.

Mr. Sanford has defended more than 1,000 libel, intellectual property and First Amendment cases throughout the United States, Canada and abroad, including libel cases brought by a Chicago politician, the chief of police of Birmingham, Alabama, a former U.S. Ambassador to Chile, a girlfriend of Elvis Presley, a boyfriend of Vanna White, the founder of Rockwell International, professional football legends, and an Internet merchandiser.

An accomplished author, Mr. Sanford wrote the best-selling trade book, Don’t Shoot the Messenger: How Our Growing Hatred of the Media Threatens Free Speech for All of Us, published in hardcover in 1999 by The Free Press (a division of Simon & Schuster) and in paperback in 2001 by Rowman & Littlefield. The book received substantial critical acclaim, including the Baltimore Sun which termed it “the most intelligently disciplined book on the role of a free press”; The Boston Globe which said “Sanford transforms media criticism into something resembling fun”; and USA Today which called it “important and thought-provoking.” Newsweek’s Evan Thomas said the book was “lively, vivid and at the same time subtle and knowing,” and Larry King reviewed it as “brilliant, a must-read” and selected it as his Book of the Week. Compact Bio

Jan Schaffer  Panelist, Panel Discussion
Jan Schaffer is executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism and a leading thinker in the journalism reform movement. She left daily journalism in 1994 to lead pioneering journalism initiatives in civic journalism, interactive and participatory journalism, and citizen media ventures. Expand bio


She launched J-Lab in 2002 to spotlight new forms of digital storytelling. J-Lab rewards novel ideas through the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism (www.J-Lab.org). It funds cutting-edge citizen media start-ups through its New Voices project (www.J-NewVoices.org) and McCormick New Media Women Entrepreneur initiative (http://www.newmediawomen.org). It produces Web tutorials on digital media, including www.J-Learning.org and the Knight Citizen News Network (www.kcnn.org). It also spotlights interactive news exercises and digital storytelling examples that involve people in public issues.

Schaffer previously directed the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, a $14 million initiative that funded more than 120 pilot news projects that better engaged people in public issues.

She is a former Business Editor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she worked for 22 years as a reporter and editor.

As a federal court reporter, she helped write a series that won freedom for a man wrongly convicted of five murders. The stories led to the civil rights convictions of six Philadelphia homicide detectives and won several national journalism awards, including the 1978 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. Also while covering federal courts, she broke the Philadelphia Abscam story about the FBI sting operation that used agents posing as Arab sheiks. She was sentenced to jail for six months for refusing to reveal her sources; the sentence was stayed on appeal.

Currently, she serves as a speaker, trainer, author, consultant and web publisher on digital storytelling models and the future of journalism. J-Lab is a center of American University’s School of Communication. Compact Bio