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Excellence in Journalism is the national journalism conference of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Join us in September in Nashville for training, networking, workshops and more!
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Robert Becker has served on the Bylaws Committee since 2001 and has been the D.C.Pro Chapter's FOI chair since about 1992. Additionally, Becker serves as the D.C. Sunshine Chair, and the Mid-Atlantic Region member of the National FOI Committee. In this position, he provides advice and information on access to journalists and others in the D.C. metropolitan area. Most recently, Becker has been working with the Maryland, Delaware and D.C. Press Association to draft a new open meetings law for D.C. He’s worked with National (SPJ) to oppose a bill that would have exempted Virginia legislative committees from the state open meetings law, and he worked with the D.C. City Council Judiciary Committee on amendments to the D.C. open records law and the D.C. open meetings law. Becker has assisted students at a Montgomery County high school who, as part of their course work, aired controversial programs on the school board's cable channel. Recently, he actively opposed proposed restrictions on public access to federal court case files over the Internet. Working with the National FOI Chairman, Becker developed a program to train journalists, news managers and media outlet owners on the importance of defending public access to government information. He regularly addresses groups of foreign journalists and government officials visiting the United States on access to government information and has done training projects in Ethiopia, Morrocco, Argentina and Urugua on issues related to press freedom.
Dave Aeikens was SPJ’s president in 2007-2008 and 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.
David Carlson is executive director of the Center For Media Innovation + Research and Cox/Palm Beach Post Professor of New Media at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. He was a pioneer in the development of interactive newspaper products and was part of a team that created the first journalism related Web site in the world in the fall of 1993. 
Amy Fickling has more than 25 years of professional experience as a reporter and editor. She currently is editor of a business-to-business newsletter, Platts Energy Trader, targeting traders, marketers and investors in energy markets, in particular the natural gas and electric power markets. Platts is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Irwin Gratz is Morning Edition Producer for Maine Public Broadcasting. He's worked as a radio news anchor and reporter for nearly 30 years and also holds a Master's Degree in Journalism from New York University.
Kelly Hawes, 52, is managing editor of the Logansport Pharos-Tribune, an 11,000-circulation newspaper in north central Indiana.
Bill McCloskey, chairman of the SPJ Bylaws Committee and a member of SPJ’s Public Outreach Committee, is the retired Washington, D.C.-based Director of Media Relations for AT&T, formerly BellSouth Corp.