PRSA local update V: It was a busy year for the PRSA Masters. June 22: Meeting for dinner at Pegasus Restaurant, Al Becker, former managing director of corporate media relations at American Airlines, spoke on the 9-11 crisis, the Wright Amendment and other aviation issues. ... Aug. 29: Dining at Reata, Pat Svacina, communications manager for Rep. Kay Granger, talked about crisis communication (the 2000 tornado and Wedgwood shootings), the Trinity River Vision and defense spending. ... Sept. 28: An information-sharing mixer with UTA and TCU PRSSA students and NuPros members was held at the Fort Worth Club. (They eat well, these PRSA Masters.) Organizers Allyson Cross and Phil Beckman received positive feedback from the students.
SPJ national update: Media-sourcing debate on deck; and Bush pushes CPB critic on to CPB board. The administration is increasingly at odds with some Republicans over press freedom. Two influential Republicans, Sen. Richard Lugar and Rep. Mike Pence, both of Indiana, plan to reintroduce legislation in 2007 limiting the government's power to force journalists to disclose confidential sources. Many Democrats, whose party now controls Congress, also support extending protection to reporters' sources and are expected to co-sponsor the legislation. "We're suggesting there's been a tear in the First Amendment right now, and it's widening," Pence said. "The only way you patch it is to do as many states have done and pass a federal statute that clarifies the boundaries." More here. ... President Bush on Dec. 20 named arch-conservative TV writer and GOP contributor Warren Bell to fill the remaining vacant seat on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board. The recess appointment came after the Senate took no action on Bush's June nomination of Bell. The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester called the appointment a "Christmas gift to the right wing of the media establishment." But he noted that the term is only until the next Congress adjourns and that "Bell will have little room to maneuver with Ed Markey staring them down." Markey, D-Mass., the presumptive chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, is one of public broadcasting's strongest supporters. Bell's criticisms of public broadcasting have included reportedly wanting to dismantle it. More here and here.
SPJ national update II: 32 journalists die in Iraq in 2006; and time to rev up FOI laws. With murder the leading cause, at least 32 journalists were killed in Iraq in 2006, the highest one-year toll ever in a single country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report Dec. 20. Three more Iraqi media workers were shot to death last month. The Middle East nation, torn by war and sectarian violence, was the world's most dangerous for the news media for the fourth straight year, according to CPJ, a New York-based advocacy group. The committee said its latest yearly count brings to 93 the total killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, with 37 drivers, messengers and other press support staff also slain. More here. ... The senator who will oversee the powerful Judiciary Committee as a Democratic majority takes the chamber says strengthening open government will be its priority. In a little-noticed speech at Georgetown University Law Center, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., lamented the congressional acquiescence to the Bush administration's secrecy, and promised to restore the constitutional balance between the executive and legislative branches of government. He said he will work to provide more congressional oversight of the White House. More here.
SPJ national update III: A tough job gets tougher; shield law sought to protect Texas journalists; and inquiry vowed into fake news. U.S. network and cable news reporters say the escalation in sectarian violence and uncertainty about the U.S. role in Iraq have caused Iraqis to be more wary of them and have made an already dangerous assignment even more perilous. Reporters say their ability to paint a full picture of Iraq is increasingly difficult because of safety restrictions that they or their news organizations have imposed. Elizabeth Palmer of CBS: "We now have the 15-minute rule: We never stay anywhere longer than 15 minutes, to reduce the chance of kidnapping or attack." More here. ... Texas needs a shield law to protect journalists and encourage whistle-blowers to come forward with material the public needs to know, media representatives told a state legislative committee. "We virtually have no protection at all right now, and the general public is being harmed," said attorney Laura Lee Prather, testifying for state newspaper and broadcast associations. Under a proposal the news groups call the "Free Flow of Information Act," government agencies generally could not force a journalist to disclose legally obtained information from a confidential or nonconfidential source. More here. ... FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have promised an investigation into each of the 46 television stations revealed in the Center for Media and Democracy's report "Still Not the News" to have used undisclosed video news releases. Adelstein criticized TV stations for broadcasting "corporate propaganda" and flagged the need for tighter FCC scrutiny. "If the flock ignores the shepherd," he said, "it is time to build a fence." More here.
SPJ national update IV: Democrat intelligence chief doesn't know his Hezbollah from a hole in the ground; and college papers launch nationwide protest. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, whom incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Asked whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered, "They are probably both," then ventured, "Predominantly -- probably Shiite." Actually, al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics. Reyes also could not answer questions about Hezbollah, a Shiite group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations that is based in southern Lebanon. More here. ... More than a dozen college newspapers carried the same editorial Dec. 8, denouncing the denial of reappointment for the editor of the Daily Trojan, the student-run newspaper at the University of Southern California. The editorial was produced collaboratively, but through the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson. The university had vetoed the staff vote for another term for editor Zach Fox. More here.
SPJ national update V: FCC defends cussing crackdown; and a newspaper chain sees its future -- it's online and hyper-local. Saying broadcasters have "only limited First Amendment protection," that the v-chip is "ineffective" and that the industry had ample notice that the policy on swear words was changing, the FCC defended both its profanity findings against cursing in Fox's Billboard Music Awards and the underpinnings of its entire indecency enforcement regime. A filing Dec. 6 in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals responded to a broadcaster challenge of four profanity rulings issued in March. More here. ... Newspaper giant Gannett, which publishes USA Today, is directing its 90 newsrooms to focus on the web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Reader-generated content, such as pictures of your kids with Santa, are encouraged. More here.
SPJ national update VI: In a brave new world, citizens and cellphones. It's 2010, and an underground subway station in the center of London has been bombed. Within minutes, a British businessman leaving on a trip receives a text message alerting him to the incident. The cab driver takes an alternate route to the train station, while the businessman logs onto BBCNews.com via a computer portal that is now standard equipment in London cabs and sees the first pictures of what appears to be a major terrorist attack. After boarding his commuter train, the businessman checks his phone throughout the journey for updates. On the scene, one of the victims, a 20-year-old college student, staggers out of the station. Though dazed, she contacts the BBC and goes on the air live, reporting via a camera on her phone even before the emergency responders arrive. As the week unfolds, she will produce a video blog each day that documents her recovery, an online feature attracting many well-wishers from around the world. This is the state of information technology just three years from now, according to a video that aired Oct. 6 at the Online News Association conference in Washington, D.C. In the keynote address, Adrian Van Klaveren, deputy director for BBC News, outlined a scenario in which a mix of citizen participation and emerging technologies will increasingly shape the future of news. More here.
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PEOPLE & PLACES
The TCU Schieffer School of Journalism's Suzanne Huffman is one of nine professors selected to the 2006-07 Journalism and Mass Communication Leadership Institute for Diversity. Dr. Huffman, chair of the school's division of broadcast and news-editorial journalism, will attend administrative training sessions and discussions with other journalism administrators. Huffman has reported, anchored and produced news at TV stations in Tampa, Fla.; Santa Maria, Calif.; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She taught broadcast journalism at three universities before joining the TCU faculty in 1999. ...
The Network of Hispanic Communicators has elected new officers -- Stella Chavez, president; Marissa Alanis, print VP; and Katherine Leal Unmuth, secretary. ...
Stretching the envelope. New eChaser advertiser Martin & Co. in Haslet recently installed a printing press dedicated to envelopes, a printing service in high demand. About 10 percent of Martin's orders are for envelopes, a number that the company says is continuing to increase. Its new Ryobi press can produce about 12,000 envelopes per hour, with sizes ranging from 3x5 up to 12x15. ...
