The Yale Law School seeks a director of internal and external communications. Requirements include a bachelor's degree and 8-10 years in communications, publishing and/or journalism, at least half of that time as a supervisor, and experience in strategic communications and promotional techniques. Experience in higher education or government is preferred. Mail résumé to Yale University Placement & Staff Relations, P.O. Box 208256, New Haven, Conn. 06520-8256. ... The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has an opening in Miami for someone to expand the values of a free press at home and abroad. Responsibilities include serving as a grantee contact, performing research, making proposal recommendations and developing grants. A bachelor's degree and five or more years of journalism experience and knowledge of the national journalism scene are required. Send a résumé in Word format and a cover letter that includes salary history to careers@knightfdn.org.
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NEW MEMBERS
SPJ ... Katie Richardson, adviser, Weatherford College
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COMINGS & GOINGS
Exits ... at the S-T: Sean Wood, who has written about business news from the Arlington newsroom for nearly seven years, to the Express-News in San Antonio, where he will cover the new Toyota plant
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PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
Tim Tune, IABC/Fort Worth
I hope your company never graces Forbes magazine's list of poorly designed and executed web sites referenced on p. 1. However, if there were a "Best Corporate Web Sites for Reporters" list, you'd use every trick in the book to get on it. I haven't perfected those tricks yet, but I know someone who has, and he's next at IABC/Fort Worth.
Show up Tuesday, April 5, and learn from Charles Pizzo tips -- 25 of them -- proven to work; how to avoid design disasters that reporters hate; and how to be a resource for reporters and keep them coming back for more. Charles is one of the most popular speakers in the nation on media relations on the web, his specialty. He sprinkles his presentations with real examples of the do's and don'ts of this critical corporate communications function.
Stay away from those bad lists. Lunge for the good ones. IABC can help get you there.
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OVER & OUT
John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ
We do greatly appreciate Jane Schlansker and her merry InterStar band for organizing the bang-up James B. Stewart "DisneyWar" speaking gig, then handing SPJ the proceeds for scholarships. They threw copious energy at the project. We're thinking of ways to say thanks. I'm not sure a fruit basket's gonna cover it. ...
Gary Hardee and Larry Lutz are my heroes, and I'm telling them now because Ernie Makovy was a hero, too, and with Ernie I waited too late. Ernie was as lean as his writing, and he had a cowboy amble and always wore boots and jeans. We'd pass in the hall on Friday afternoons as he headed to the back dock to smoke. "Mister Dycus," he would acknowledge in that drawn-out Hill Country drawl. He impressed me as kind and patient, a true craftsman, a lover of life. Wish I'd known him better. Maybe he would've called me "Chump." ...
Longtime SPJ member Karl King is rehabbing his old Leatherneck self at the VA hospital following hip and leg surgery necessitated by a car wreck Dec. 23. He may be there a couple of more months. Karl is our most faithful meeting attendee; who's to ask questions with him laid up? Send him a card or call his room: Veterans Administration Medical Center, 4500 S. Lancaster Road, TCUA, Dallas, Texas 75216, (214) 302-1983. ...
One month free Mensa membership to Star-T executive editor Jim Witt for this one. Take a calculator and punch in the first three digits of your phone number (no area code). Multiply by 80. Add 1. Multiply by 250. Add the last four digits of your phone number. Add the last four digits of your phone number again. Subtract 250. Divide by 2. What do you see? Speaking of whom, Jim's generosity is showing. He bought a Star-Telegram table at the James B. Stewart luncheon and two tables for the SPJ chapter's First Amendment Dinner 10 days later. Proceeds benefit scholarships. Waiter, an extra Texas pecan ball for Mr. Witt! ...
Bill Moyers, on receiving the Harvard Medical School's Global Environment Citizen Award, had this to say and so much more: "I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: 'What do you think of the market?' 'I'm optimistic,' he answered. 'Then why do you look so worried?' And he answered: 'Because I'm not sure my optimism is justified.' " Moyers' acceptance speech is here. The writing and clarity of thought captivate as surely as the reporting will leave you sad, frustrated and burdened indeed.
Closing words: "Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will." -- Ben Stein and others ... "The car of the future will have to respect the environment. What better way to raise public awareness than [by] developing a racing car?" -- Alain Lebrun, president of the IdéeVerte Compétition, on its 315 kilometers-per-hour race car powered by liquefied petroleum gas, one of the least polluting fuels, and lubricated with sunflower oil ... "I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." -- J.D. Salinger ... "Writing is just thinking through my fingers." -- Isaac Asimov ... "Life is always a tightrope or a featherbed. Give me the tightrope." -- Edith Wharton ... "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." -- H.G. Wells ... "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -- Mark Twain
Closing words II, G.W.B. & the Pharisees bracket: "George [W.] would read my memos [on how to 'signal' to Christian fundamentalists], and he would be licking his lips, saying, 'I can use this to win Texas.' " -- Bush family adviser and snitch Doug Wead in a GQ interview in September 2003 ... "The message coming out of the White House is that we'll fix Social Security by raising your taxes and cutting your retirement benefits, and, to get something passed, we'll forget about the personal retirement accounts we promised." That's like telling voters, "Never vote for Republicans again -- we lie." -- a senior Republican senator in The Washington Times, March 11, 2005
