Entries are due April 17 for the South Asian Journalists Association competition for South Asian journalists and students in the U.S. and Canada. More at saja.org. ... Student journalists will earn $2,500 during a 10-week commitment to write, copy edit or take pictures for a black-owned newspaper, write as a correspondent for Black College Wire or be a content editor for the Black Collegian magazine web site. Included is an expenses-paid trip to Nashville for additional j-training. Several interns also will cover the National Association of Black Journalists convention and job fair in Indianapolis for Black College Wire. Contact Jean Thompson, jelainethompson@aol.com or (646) 638-2032.
IABC local update: Technology author and consultant Jerry Stevenson will present "Communicating in the Future Tense: Critical Trends and Technologies Communicators Need to Know" at the Tuesday, April 11, IABC/Dallas luncheon. More here.
PRSA local update: Danielle Ezell, APR, principal of Oklahoma City-based 20 Hats; Suzi Prokell, owner of Prokell Publicity in Aledo; and Nancy Farrar of Farrar Public Relations in Fort Worth will discuss "Growing Your Independent Practice: How to Build a Business that Works for You," a PRSA Independent Practitioners Alliance teleseminar, at 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 26. Sandra Brodnicki of Brodnicki Public Relations will moderate the panel. Not every independent wishes to grow an agency, the organizers note. "Understanding and actually working your own business model, instead of just paying lip service to it, will allow you to create an effective marketing and branding strategy that delivers results. Are you a strategist or a tactician? A deal maker or account maven, or a little bit of both? This seminar will address the financial issues, fees, billings and budgeting independents face regardless of their structure and discuss relevant business development techniques." More here. Ezell and Brodnicki tag-teamed at the 2006 PRSA Southwest District Conference to present "Going It Alone: Success Stories from Independent Practitioners." Brodnicki and Farrar co-chair GFW PRSA's Independent Practitioners SIG.
PRSA local update III: Denise Angarola Fernandez, president/CEO of the Julden Group, will share the secrets of "buzz marketing" at the Dallas PRSA Pro-Am Day luncheon and program Friday, April 7, at the Park City Club, 5956 Sherry Lane. More here.
SPJ national update: Can this be America?; how Florida treats a patriot; Bush would have his war, memo asserts; and plagiarism foils WaPo columnist. During the past five years, 469 cases in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., have been tried in secrecy. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press searched the court's entire civil and criminal docket for that period, ending Dec. 30; 18 percent of nearly 3,000 criminal cases were not docketed. More here. ... When Leon County elections supervisor Ion Sancho uncovered security flaws in Diebold voting machines, GOP officials in Florida could have praised him for working to ensure a fair election. But do you think they did? Do you really? More here. ... In a two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, President Bush made clear to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he would invade Iraq without a second U.N. resolution condemning the country, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, says a confidential memo about the meeting written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times. More here and here. ... "I'm there to do opinion. That's what I do," said Ben Domenech, 24, a former Bush administration aide hired by washingtonpost.com to present a conservative view. "I'm not a journalist." Well, no kidding. Shortly after this statement, faced with plagiarism accusations, Domenech resigned. More here and here and here.
SPJ national update II: AP chief loses Vermont job; incompetence embraces the FBI; and journalist deaths highest since World War II. Christopher Graff, 52, who headed the Associated Press bureau in Montpelier, was fired March 22 after posting a column by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt. For the last two years, the AP has prepared a package of Sunshine Week stories in which media organizations advocate openness in government. Leahy wrote the highly critical column for the American Society of Newspaper Editors. More here and here. ... A case management system to help fight terrorism could cost $500 million, dwarfing the $170 million the FBI sank into a project that it jettisoned a year ago, a watchdog group says. Meanwhile, many New York FBI agents don't have an Internet-ready phone or even a government e-mail account. "We have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts," the man in charge of the FBI's 2,000-employee city office told the New York Daily News editorial board. More here and here. ... Eighty-four reporters and media staffers have been killed in the Iraq war, Reporters Without Borders announced March 21, the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In contrast, 63 journalists were killed during 22 years of conflict in Vietnam, the Paris-based media advocacy group added. The International Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists reached similarly grim conclusions, though with different figures. More here and here.
SPJ national update III: Iraq base funding smacks of extended stay; advance workers impersonated reporters; and Oregon paper seeks wiretap docs. Military planners say they want to withdraw American troops from Iraq in the coming year, yet an emergency spending bill overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives in late March with $67.6 billion more for the war effort, including money to build large bases there. More here. ... The White House says it will discipline two Secret Service men who masqueraded as Fox News reporters while scouting locations for a March 8 presidential visit to the Gulf Coast. More here. ... The company that publishes The Oregonian in Portland wants U.S. District Court in Oregon to unseal documents in a pending case that alleges the Bush administration illegally intercepted international phone conversations between the co-director of an Islamic charity and his lawyers in the U.S. More here.
