PRSA local update II: Let your career bloom by joining PRSA this month or next, and add a one-year enrollment in one of the 19 professional interest sections for free. Sections offer seminars, teleseminars, workshops, conferences, newsletters, monographs, web sites and electronic exchange with a nationwide network of PR pros in specific fields. More on sections at (212) 460-1420, prsa.org/_Networking/pis/ or sections@prsa.org. Quickest way to join PRSA: Apply online. Enter SECT2005 in the promotion code field to benefit from the sections offer. Request the special application at membership@prsa.org. Still with the questions? Chapter membership chair Holly Ellman, hellman@fwcds.org, is standing by.
SPJ national update: Hard sell, hard toll; support the troops -- listen to them; and government in the pitch dark. It's maybe the toughest sell job in American military history, and recruiters are cracking under the strain. One in New York says the pressure has given him stomach problems and searing back pain. He says he has considered suicide. Another, in Texas, says he volunteered for Iraq duty rather than face the Army's wrath. A chaplain says he counseled nearly a dozen recruiters in the past 18 months as they cope with marital troubles and job-related stress. More here. ... Soldiers' online diaries let anyone with an internet connection eavesdrop on the war zone. "Dozens of houses raided, no arrests, only one weapon confiscated -- same old story, 'holding it for a friend' -- which led to that house being trashed for a more thorough search," wrote Spc. Nick Cademartori in his blog, The Questing Cat, describing a mission he conducted in January as part of the 1st Infantry Division. More here. And there's Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization that says it seeks to educate the American public about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the soldiers' perspective. The best part of the site is the Hear It from the Troops section. A real eye-opener. ... Three short sentences tucked inside President Bush's 2,000-page federal budget would give the president the power to appoint an eight-member "Sunset Commission" that would review federal programs every 10 years and decide whether they should be eliminated. Any programs not "producing results" would "automatically terminate unless the Congress took action to continue them." More here.
SPJ national update II: "You can't replace the paper" (whoa, maybe you can); reporting scared; and Marines sound off. One conclusion from the recent International Radio and Television Society Foundation convention in New York was that a decade from now, much of what's taken for granted today will have morphed beyond recognition. Blogs will play a role, but so may citizen journalism. More here and here and here and here. ... Arab reporters covering the Iraq war find themselves under attack from every direction. Western reporters retreated to fortified compounds months ago. Now Arab journalists are retreating, too. Result: Firsthand reporting is getting squeezed out. "We can no longer get close to people's suffering, people's hopes, people's dreams," says Nabil Khatib, Al Arabiya's executive editor for news. More here. ... On May 29, 2004, a station wagon that insurgents had packed with C-4 explosives blew up on a highway in Ramadi, killing four American Marines.They were in an unarmored Humvee that their unit had rigged with scrap metal, but the makeshift shields rose only as high as their shoulders. In returning home, the men of Company E are telling their story. It is one of insufficient armor and too little planning, which hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and took from them some of their fiercest warriors. More here.
SPJ national update III: More numbers so large, you can't comprehend; blog relief; PR as PR, news as news; and bill challenges censorship rush. Government spending would keep deficits over $200 billion annually for the next decade, Congress' top budget analysts assert in a new report. The Congressional Budget Office says cumulative deficits over the next decade may be $125 billion worse than it estimated only in January. Contributing to that will be the cost of combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which Congress has appropriated more than $300 billion. More here. ... A bill introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling would effectively rewrite a 2002 campaign finance law popularly known as McCain-Feingold in a way that would bar the Federal Election Commission from regulating political web sites. The bill mirrors a companion measure introduced by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. More here. ... The U.S. Senate on April 14 voted to require U.S. government agencies to clearly identify themselves on video news releases they distribute to broadcasters. VNRs, often resembling TV news segments, have been sent out by agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, and some TV stations have aired them without identifying the source. The Government Accountability Office, the audit arm of Congress, has said some were covert propaganda. ... The FCC could not slap indecency fines on cable and satellite television and internet entities under a bill, the Stamp Out Censorship Act of 2005, introduced March 17 by Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Nonpublic broadcasts such as those on cable and satellite television and the internet are not now subject to indecency regulation. More here.
