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Contacts: Kyle Elyse Niederpruem, SPJ Board President, 317/444-6385, or kylespj@starnews.com

INDIANAPOLIS — The Society of Professional Journalists joins The Media Institute in promoting a new educational and public awareness campaign aimed at celebrating the First Amendment.

The Society will serve as one of 12 Project Advisory Council volunteers for The Cornerstone Project, based at The Media Institute in Washington, D.C. SPJ will act as counsel to the three-year, $5 million nationwide project, which strives to give the American public a renewed appreciation of the importance of free speech and a free press.

“We are very gratified that SPJ is one of our Cornerstone partners,” said Richard T. Kaplar, vice president, The Media Institute. “With so much riding on the First Amendment, professional journalists are a natural ally in supporting free speech and press. We look forward to working with SPJ to help spread the Cornerstone message.”

The project’s initiatives will include communication with TV and movie critics at newspapers and magazines, talk show appearances, magazine and journal articles, opinion-editorial pieces, meetings with editorial boards, speaking engagements and online resources at www.mediainst.org

“SPJ has been a leader in the nation in creating a free and ethical press,” said Kyle Elyse Niederpruem, SPJ Board president and an assistant city editor at The Indianapolis Star. “This is a natural partnership for us. And we’ll be relying mostly on the sweat equity of our members to work with The Media Institute.”

Other organizations on the advisory council include the National Association of Broadcasters, Newspaper Association of America, Magazine Publishers of America, American Association of Advertising Agencies, American Library Association, American Society of Magazine Editors, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Association of American Publishers, Freedom of Expression Foundation, Media Coalition, Radio-Television News Directors Association, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

More information on the Cornerstone Project is available here or on The Media Institute’s Web site.

The Media Institute is a nonprofit research organization that advocates a strong First Amendment and excellence in journalism.

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