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May/June 2013
Volume 101 | Number 3
View as PDF: Part 1 | Part 2 |

From the President
Other than approving Legal Defense Fund grants for three free-press freedom fighters, the most important thing the SPJ board did at its April 20 spring meeting was adopt a new Openness and Accountability Best Practices Guide. You'd be forgiven for wondering why the directors of a journalism ...

After Boston, Still Learning
It was late, I was tired, but I couldn’t pull away from Twitter and what was going on around Boston. Gunfire. Explosions. A massive police presence. Was this connected to the bombings at the Boston Marathon that Monday? It was looking like it. I’d searched the hashtag #watertown
Ten with Todd Melby
Growing up in the small, western North Dakota town of Hettinger, Todd Melby didn’t know his upbringing would prepare him for one of the biggest professional projects of his life. Granted, it took him a few decades to realize that, but with age comes wisdom. Melby, who has long lived and worked in ...

Member Profile: Sean Carberry
It’s likely you’ve heard the work of Sean Carberry.

Perhaps you listened to WBUR in Boston while he produced and reported there. Maybe you liked Susan Tedeschi’s 1998 album “Just Won’t Burn,” for which Carberry received a Gold Record for his work as a recording engineer. Loyal followers of ...

Remembering Robert S. McCord
Robert S. McCord, the 1975-76 national SPJ president, died April 13, 2013, in North Little Rock, Ark. He was 84. McCord held several prominent journalism positions in Arkansas media, but his legacy lies in the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, which passed the legislature without opposition ...

Narrative Writing Toolbox
When you sit down to finally write, it’s natural to plunge in and think of the story in terms of reporting — flipping through your notebook for a great quote — and working to craft a snappy lead. That’s fine when it comes to breaking news and briefs, but for a feature you need to think differently. ...

Generation J Toolbox
OK. I'm stumped. It’s true. I’m racking my brain to come up with a good lead to this article about writing good leads (or ledes, the official spelling in newspaper speak so it’s not confused with “lead” type). We’ve all been there — or here where I am presently — trying to craft, conjure and ...

Diversity Toolbox
It has been happening a lot lately: Native Americans misrepresented in the media, often with animal images. Whether it is Michelle Williams’ Another Magazine photo shoot where she is dressed as a Native American in a wolf-like costume or a former Minnesota TV news director posting on Facebook ...

FOI Toolbox
A female student complained to Oklahoma State University police in January that her ex-boyfriend had secretly videotaped them having sex in an on-campus apartment that the student newspaper identified as a football player’s residence. OSU officials redacted the ex-boyfriend’s name and other ...

Education Toolbox
21st-century skills. Project-based learning. Problem solving. Writing for a real audience. Authentic use of technology. Media literacy. Critical thinking. Cooperative learning. Multi-disciplinary learning. Most likely you’ve heard these education buzz phrases, but would you recognize them in action? If ...

Freelance Toolbox
A handful of years ago, I lost out on wages when several publications folded amid the recession. In fact, I’m still receiving bankruptcy filings from one rag that went out of business. I wrote a longish piece for another magazine that turned out to be a revolving door for editors. Not surprisingly, ...

Words & Language Toolbox
Literacy. n. the state or quality of being literate; specif., a) ability to read and write b) knowledgeability or capability ... (Webster’s New World Dictionary). By that definition, we can say with surety that the media world is populated by the literate. After all, writers for the news ...

Ethics Toolbox
At the risk of losing my lifetime membership in the Journalism Club of America, I think it’s important to say that not every story needs the news media’s attention. Sometimes, no matter how tempting, we need to take a pass — for ethical reasons. We may already accept this premise based on ...

Global Toolbox
Journalists from around the world have been going to Collioure, France, twice each year since 1993. They do not go to see where Matisse and Picasso painted, nor to visit the historic sites that span the past 13 centuries. This picturesque town, on the Mediterranean Sea a little ...

Digital Media Toolbox
Hey, can you make me a free video? Gather a room full of student media advisors together and sooner or later the topic of “value” comes up. From what we teach to how we teach it, it seems many inside and outside of education do not consider media a discipline equal to similar pedagogies with ...

Chapter News - FIU Photo Contest
SPJ’s Florida International University chapter held a photojournalism contest in April with the theme “Capturing Generation Y.” The chapter asked college and high school students around the country to submit one photo that captured the essence of their generation in any real moment. Photos ...