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Journalists nationwide need your help. You’re certainly aware of the legal challenges continually undermining a free and unfettered press, a cornerstone of our democracy. And you’re also aware of technological and industry trends, which have given rise to nice publications and news organizations, freelance journalists and bloggers.
The Society of Professional Journalists, one of the nation’s largest and oldest journalism-advocacy organizations, wants to work with America’s most respected media lawyers to fight for what’s right.
The Society, with help from its longtime general legal counsel, Bruce Sanford of Baker & Hostetler in Washington, D.C., is building a national legal-advocacy network. We hope you’ll become a part of it.
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Building Bridges
Lawyers supporting SPJ’s Legal Advocacy Network will pay $400 (individuals), $500 (up to five faculty members from the same law school) or $800 (up to three attorneys from the same firm) a year — money that will work tremendous good for the legal and journalism communities. Among the projects this annual fee will help underwrite:
Online Information: SPJ will build an online treasure trove of legal resources that becomes the go-to destination for journalists nationwide.This section of SPJ.org will feature lawyers’ bios and contact information and their white papers, legal briefs and timely updates.
Collaboration: SPJ’s local chapters hold hundreds of programs each year.The network will help those groups connect with media lawyers willing to deliver instruction, and it will offset costs associated with producing those events. Lawyers are also eligible to participate in SPJ’s Speakers Bureau.
Lobbying & Advocacy: We seek to pool resources more effectively to aid lobbying and legal work focused squarely on the First Amendment and access to public information.
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This network aims to provide sound and timely legal information to journalists; to help journalists find the right legal help when they need it; to encourage greater discussion and collaboration between the journalism and media-law communities; and to create a dynamic and thoughtful team of journalists and lawyers who help steer the network’s financial resources to the most important causes and legal cases.
We’re pleased that several prominent media lawyers already have agreed to support this exciting and innovative initiative. (You can read all about them by following this link.)
Please join this team, which we hope will be supported by media lawyers working in practices and markets large and small. Your support will do tremendous good for the legal and journalism communities. An executive from the Society’s headquarters may call to follow up with you soon.
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Legal Advocacy Network
Information
Members
Join Online
Download Form [PDF]
Advocacy
Legal Advocacy
2007 Report
2006 Report
Protecting Your Work
Legal Defense Fund
About the Fund
LDF in action
Federal Shield Law
LDF Auction
LDF Committee
Committee Reports
Legal Advocacy Network
Legal Defense Fund Committee
The LDF Committee oversees the Society's Legal Defense Fund, a unique account that can be tapped for providing journalists with legal or direct financial assistance. Application to the fund is approved by either a small committee or the national board, depending on the level of assistance sought. The committee works throughout the year raising funds for LDF.
Legal Defense Fund Committee Chair
Julie Kay
(954) 303-3384
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Julie Kay is an award-winning South Florida journalist who covers the southeast United States for the National Law Journal. She previously worked for the Daily Business Review for seven years, where she authored a weekly column entitled “Justice Watch.” Kay is also the Florida consultant for C-SPAN and freelances for People Magazine and Closer Magazine.
Previously, Kay worked as a staff writer for the Miami Herald for five years, covering city and county government in Broward County, as well as for the Palm Beach Post. In the late 1980s, she worked for a business publication in New York in the late 1980s, covering the international airline industry.
Kay has won numerous awards for her reporting, including the Green Eyeshades, the Florida Press Club, the Florida Bar Media Awards and SPJ’s Sunshine State Awards.
Active in the South Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists since 2000, Kay served as chapter president from 2002 to 2004. She currently serves on the Legal Defense Fund committee and the FOI committee of the national SPJ.
Holly Fisher, vice chair
Freelance Writer/Editor
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Holly Fisher is a freelance writer and editor in the Charleston, S.C., area. She most recently was the research editor for SC Biz News LLC, publisher of the Charleston Regional Business Journal, Columbia Regional Business Report, GSA Business, SCBIZ magazine and other business news publications. She also served as special projects editor and electronic media editor for the company. Fisher is a former regional director and board member for SPJ and a former board member of the SDX Foundation. Fisher also has served as an adjunct professor at the College of Charleston. Previously, she worked in the newspaper business in Indiana, Texas and South Carolina. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University and a master’s of mass communication from the University of South Carolina. She lives in Mount Pleasant, S.C., with her husband, Clint; daughter, Katherine; and two Labrador retrievers.
Legal Defense Fund Committee Members
Voting Members:
Dave Aeikens
Reporter
Times Media
Box 768
3000 7th St. N.
St. Cloud, MN 56303
Work: (320) 255-8744
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Dave Aeikens was elected president-elect in October. He served as national secretary-treasurer in 2006-2007. He was SPJ’s Legal Defense Fund Chairman from October of 2005 to October 2007. He served as Region 6 director for six years and Minnesota Pro Chapter president and secretary. He has been a reporter and editor at the St. Cloud Times for 14 years. He has covered schools, state government and served as the paper's night city editor for four years. He has worked 17 years in daily journalism in Minnesota. He and a colleague wrote articles that showed some government agencies in Minnesota were charging more than state law allowed for paper copies of government data. They won numerous awards for the stories and the Legislature changed state law to limit what governments can charge to 25 cents a page. He is an aficionado of Minnesota open records laws and has one numerous Freedom of Information awards. He is a member of the Minnesota Join Media committee and was honored in 2000 and 2006 with the President’s Award, which the Minnesota Pro Chapter gives for meritorious service. He was one of the founding organizers of the Midwest Journalism Conference, which jointly is the SPJ Region 6 conference combined with five other media organizations. With more than 300 attendees, it is one of the most successful regional conferences in the country.
He chaired the Marquette Tribune Task Force in 2006, which issued a report on the events that led to the dismissal of the Marquette Tribune advisor.
David Cuillier
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
University of Arizona
Marshall Building, Room 323
Tucson, AZ 85721-0158
Work: 520/626-9694
Fax: 520/621-7557
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
David Cuillier, a former newspaper reporter and editor, is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Arizona. He researches public attitudes toward freedom of information and is one of the SPJ newsroom trainers for acquiring government documents.
Hagit Limor
Investigative Reporter
WCPO-TV
1720 Gilbert Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45202
513/852-4012
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Hagit Limor’s other experience with SPJ includes stints as Greater Cincinnati Pro Chapter President and membership chairman; National Membership Committee; National Finance Committee Chair; and board member of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.
Outside of SPJ, she serves as WCPO-TV's Emmy and national award-winning investigative reporter, but her journey began half a world away. She was born in Israel and moved to the United States when she was eight years old. At WCPO, Hagit is regarded as a "do-it-all" journalist. She's served as an anchor, general assignment reporter, and now helms the award-winning I-Team. Her abilities as a writer and reporter have garnered Hagit dozens of national, state and local awards.
She and videographer Anthony Mirones won First Place in the 2008 National Headliner Awards for "Resurrection", a four-year investigation into pollution from the local international airport. Hagit and Anthony also won a 2008 Emmy Award for "Solid Gold Weddings", a consumer investigation into a wedding video company that brides across the nation claimed did not deliver the videos it promised. Hagit and producer/videographer Phil Drechsler won second place in the 2008 National Association of Health Care Journalists competition, for "Care-less Denials", about lack of access to mental health care by a national insurance company.
Hagit has previously won three separate national Sigma Delta Chi Awards from SPJ, was a national finalist with the Investigative Reporters and Editors Association, and has won other national awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Headliner Awards.
She also has won nine Emmy Awards while at WCPO, more than a dozen state Associated Press and SPJ awards, and local SPJ awards.
Hagit received bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
At home, she shares life with her husband Jeff, her son Jake, two dogs and two cats.
Neil Ralston
Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd #11070
Bowling Green, KY 42101-1070
270/745-5841
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Neil Ralston serves as a campus adviser at large for SPJ’s national board of directors. He is an assistant professor of journalism at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. Before joining the faculty at Western Kentucky, Ralston was an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches (NAK-uh-tish), La., where he taught and advised the student SPJ chapter since 1999. Other teaching appointments include Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. Ralston began a career in journalism in 1978 and has worked as an editor, reporter and photographer at weekly and daily newspapers in Missouri, Illinois, Louisiana and Texas. His most recent full-time reporting job was in 1985-89 when he worked for the San Antonio (Texas) Light where he covered city hall, the police, federal law enforcement agencies and the federal courthouse.
Ralston has bachelor's degrees in communication and industrial technology from Northeast Missouri State University and a master's degree in journalism from The Ohio State University where he was a fellow in the Kiplinger Program of Public Affairs Reporting. He earned a doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2002. Additionally, Ralston was named SPJ's campus chapter adviser of the year for the 1998-99 school year. He has been a member of the SPJ board since 2003.
Kevin Z. Smith
Assistant Professor of Journalism
Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community and Technical College
301 Jaynes Hall
1201 Locust Ave.
Fairmont, WV 26554
304/367-4864
E-mail
Bio (click to expand)
Kevin Z. Smith is an assistant professor of journalism at Fairmont State University. He is a career journalist having worked in newsrooms as a reporter, photographer and editor for more than 20 years.
He earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from West Virginia University and a master's degree in mass communications from Miami University (Ohio).
He served as an adjunct instructor at Fairmont State and West Virginia University before being named assistant professor of journalism and director of student publications at FSU in 2003. He also was a visiting instructor of journalism at Miami University from 1995-2000.
Smith has worked at various daily papers in West Virginia including publications in Fairmont where he was managing editor, Morgantown as city editor, Parkersburgas a business writer and Grafton as sports editor. He also worked as a reporter for Bloomberg Financial News in Washington, D.C.
Smith was inducted into SPJ as a West Virginia University student in 1978. He joined the ethics committee in 1988 and served as chair of the committee from 1994-96, the two years when the ethics code was rewritten. He is a contributor to two of the SPJ ethics books, "Doing Ethics in Journalism" and he has written for trade publications and scholarly journals on ethical issues. He also served as the society's Sunshine Chair, an advocate for open meetings and records laws in West Virginia, for five years. He served on the national board in 1997 as a campus adviser-at-large. He also has worked on the convention's resolution and nominations committees.
Smith is a columnist for the Times West Virginian in Fairmont, is a freelance writer for northern West Virginia's Corridor magazine and works as an Associated Press political elections reporter. He is a native of Fairmont with two sons, Ben and Nick.
Non-voting members:
Rebecca Baker
E-mail
Jodi Cleesattle
E-mail
Carol Cole Frowe
E-mail
Allison Barlow Hess
E-mail
Christine McManus
E-mail
Ellen Mrja
E-mail
Tom Ramstack
E-mail
Neil Reisner
E-mail
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