Fort Worth SPJ: 2011 Mass Media Communication Career Conference

Faculty-for-a-Day Presenters

Advertising/Public Relations

Carol Glover is an award-winning creative director at the Balcom Agency in Fort Worth with more than 15 years experience in print, broadcast and interactive. A short list of her clients includes Alcon, Justin Boots, J.P. Morgan, the TCU Neeley School of Business and the Boys & Girls Clubs. A former VP/creative director at Witherspoon, she holds an M.A. in English and a B.S. in journalism from TCU and teaches occasionally in the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism.

Scott Kirk is director of account services at Concussion, which was recently named Fort Worthʼs No. 1 advertising/marketing agency. A past president of the American Advertising Federation – Fort Worth, he earned a marketing degree at TCU and began his copywriting career at RadioShack, eventually becoming director of corporate communications. He moved to agency life in 1999.

Karen Raskopf is senior vice president for corporate communication at Dunkinʼ Donuts/Baskin-Robbins headquartered in Boston, responsible for all aspects of the companyʼs global public relations. She is a former senior vice president, corporate communications, for Blockbuster and head of corporate communications at 7-Eleven. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Dallas.

Broadcast

Brett Shipp has been an investigative reporter at WFAA-TV since 1995. Following his four-year inquiry into faulty natural gas couplings linked to fatal explosions dating to the 1980s, the state ordered the fittings removed, and new safety standards were adopted. Brett subsequently was awarded the two most coveted prizes in broadcast journalism — Columbia University’s 2008 duPont Gold Baton (the first given to a TV reporter in the Fort Worth-Dallas market) and the 2008 George Foster Peabody Award. Brett has received three duPont awards and three Peabody awards since 2003, and in 2002 and 2005 he was a finalist for Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. He was the first local reporter on the scene in New York City following the 9-11 attacks. He is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University.

Aaron Chimbel is a five-time Emmy Award winner and assistant professor of professional practice in the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism. He previously worked at WFAA-TV as the mobile journalist and online sports editor, and at KWTX-TV and Texas Cable News. He was on the WFAA team that received a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Aaron earned a broadcast journalism degree from TCU and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Community Journalism

Bob Buckel has been publisher since 1987 of the Azle News and the Springfield Epigraph, both weeklies northwest of Fort Worth and both recipients of regional, state and national awards, including the Texas Press Association Sweepstakes for best newspaper in its size category. A second-generation newspaperman and graduate of Lubbock Christian University, Bob earned first place in the National Newspaper Associationʼs 2007 serious column writing and editorial writing competition. He was president of the Texas Press Association in 2002-2003 and serves as Texas’ representative to the National Newspaper Association.

Andrew Chavez is the new-media specialist in TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism and associate director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism. He previously was a regular contributor to the Star-Telegram and a staff photographer for the Clovis (N.M.) News Journal. As two-term editor in chief of the TCU Daily Skiff, Andrew oversaw development of dailyskiff.com, which SPJ has twice named the top college internet news site in Texas and Oklahoma. Under his leadership, the newspaperʼs coverage of TCU inviting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to speak attracted national attention. Andrew holds a masterʼs degree in journalism from TCU.

Randy Keck is the owner, editor and publisher of The Community News in Aledo. His first newspaper job was as a carrier for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He has a degree in political science and speech but took a liking to community journalism in the mid-1990s; after struggles early on, a high point came when he won first place in General Excellence from the National Newspaper Association. Over the last seven years Randyʼs publications have placed first, second or third in Sweepstakes at the Texas Press Association convention (first place in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010). Randy was the founding president of the East Parker County Chamber of Commerce and has served on the board of the Texas Press Association and the North and East Texas Press Association. Away from journalism, he is on the board of Freedom House, an organization in Parker County that assists victims of family violence.

Magazine/Book Publishing

Robert Francis has been editor since 2008 of the Fort Worth Business Press, where he has won three Katie Awards. He also is editor of Research Texas and the Energy Report. He has freelanced for a number of publications, including American Way, Brand Week and Manufacturing Automation, and was a reporter or editor for the technology magazines Computerworld, InfoWorld and InformationWeek. He began covering the energy business in 1985 for Fairchild Publications. A TCU graduate, he directed a documentary about body piercing called Navel Academy, which premiered at the Fort Worth Film Festival in 2000.

Susan Petty is editor of the TCU Press and has worked for museums and art galleries in Fort Worth and Dallas. She did graduate work in art history at SMU, lectured at the Amon Carter Museum and taught art history. While working at Harcourt Brace College Publishers, she was developmental editor of Gardnerʼs Art Through the Ages, 10th and 11th editions. Susan has written for Fort Worth, Texas magazine and the Star-Telegram and is the author of “For the Price of a Good Cigar” in Grace and Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women. She is active in the greyhound rescue program.

Brian Sweany is deputy editor of Texas Monthly, where he started as an intern in the publisherʼs office and advanced to copy editor in the editorial department nine months later. He earned a bachelorʼs degree in English literature from the University of North Texas and a masterʼs degree in English literature from UT San Antonio. He has been a journalism assistant professor at Ithaca College in New York and a senior editor at D Magazine, and he’s active in a number of civic and volunteer organizations.

Newspapers

Steve Knight is a general assignment reporter at the Cleburne Times-Review covering Cleburne, Burleson, Crowley and other Johnson County cities. As a student at Tarrant County College and editor of The Collegian, he was honored by the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, the Texas Community College Journalists Association and SPJ Region 8 for his reporting and editorial writing. He was an SPJ Mark of Excellence Award finalist last year in editorial writing, in-depth reporting and general news. Steve holds bachelorʼs and masterʼs degrees in music education from Texas Tech University and was a successful band director in Texas public schools before changing careers.

Gayle Reaves-king is the editor of Fort Worth Weekly, following noteworthy stints at the Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News. An honors graduate of UT Austin, she was on the Morning News reporting teams that won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award. Under her leadership, Fort Worth Weekly has won numerous regional and national awards. She is a past president of the Journalism and Women Symposium and current president of Fort Worth SPJ.

Barry Shlachter has been a reporter, columnist and editor at the Star-Telegram, which he joined in 1987 after more than 16 years in Asia and Africa, returning to the U.S. on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. Shlachter began his career as an editor at an English-language newspaper in Tokyo, The Japan Times, and freelanced for U.S. and European publications. His photographs appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek and Time. An Associated Press correspondent for 13 years, he interviewed Indira Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and gorilla expert Dian Fossey. He has made 13 trips into Afghanistan, including three with mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation, and covered the U.S. battle against al Qaeda at Tora Bora in 2001. The Austin Headliners Club named him Star Reporter of Texas for his post-9-11 coverage. And he wrote a weekly beer column for seven years and runs a boutique publishing house, Great Texas Line Press, which currently has 22 titles.

Broc Sears is professional-in-residence/news media at the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism, teaching web and print design. He was senior editor for design and graphics at the Star-Telegram for more than 20 years and, before that, art director at the Dallas Times Herald, The Dallas Morning News and in the University of North Texas public information office. He led extensive redesign projects at the Star-Telegram, Times Herald and DMN. A graduate of Kansas State University, he has taught at UT Arlington and SMU.

Online/Convergence

Jake Batsell teaches reporting and digital journalism and manages the convergence newsroom as an assistant professor in the SMU Division of Journalism. He also advises the multi-platform Daily Mustang. Jake previously worked as a staff writer for The Seattle Times and The Dallas Morning News, where he shot and edited videos as the Metro deskʼs “hybrid” reporter, and for the Chicago Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Arizona Republic, Washington Post, Star-Telegram and Austin American-Statesman. He holds a B.A. in journalism from Arizona State University and an M.A. in government from UT Austin.

Kent Chapline is executive web producer at CBS 11 and TXA 21, managing all operations except advertising on the station website, cbsdfw.com. Before he “went digital” in 2005, Chapline spent 13 years as a television news producer in Fort Worth-Dallas and other markets. He has a masterʼs degree in journalism from TCU and teaches reporting in the Schieffer School of Journalism.

Matt Stiles is a computer-assisted-reporting specialist for The Texas Tribune in Austin, covering government politics with a focus on data journalism and interactives. He previously was a government reporter at the Houston Chronicle, where he won the newspaperʼs Jesse Award for service journalism and beat reporting; he also was named the Chronicleʼs Reporter of the Year in 2007. Before joining the Chronicle he was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News. He and his wife, Texas Tribune reporter Elise Hu, will move to Washington, D.C., in mid-February where she will join NPR and he will remain on the Tribune staff as data applications editor.

Visual Communication

Kael Alford is a documentary photojournalist whose work has appeared in many European and American newspapers and magazines. Her photography from Iraq is part of the book and exhibition Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq. Since returning to live in the U.S. in 2005, she has shifted toward long-term projects and teaching photojournalism and documentary photography. She’s currently working on a project for the High Museum of Art on Louisiana Gulf Coast communities facing dislocation because of coastal erosion. Kael holds an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri and was a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University in 2008-2009.

Thorne Anderson has worked internationally as a freelance photojournalist represented by Corbis/Sygma since 1999. His work has appeared regularly in newspapers and magazines including Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Stern, People, Playboy, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe. He and Kael Alford are co-authors/photographers of Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq. Thorne holds an M.A. from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. In 2009 he joined the University of North Texas as assistant professor in the Mayborn School of Journalism where he teaches photojournalism and multimedia storytelling.

Mei-Chun Jau is a freelance photographer for a variety of business and personal clients as well as publications such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and FD Luxe. She worked as a staff photojournalist at the Star-Telegram in 1996-1999 before joining The Dallas Morning News. Her many honors in photography include multiple Katie Awards from the Dallas Press Club and the Vivian Castleberry Award for “A Lesson in Living,” which documents a fifth-grade teacher's battle with breast cancer. The Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities recognized Mei-Chun with the Barbara Jordan Award for photojournalism, and her acclaimed series “For a Moment, Family,” increased awareness of Chinese orphans with disabilities who seek adoption in the United States. With photojournalist Kim Ritzenthaler, Mei-Chun helped chronicle the life of conjoined Egyptian twins. Mei-Chun also received a regional Emmy Award for Interactivity as part of a team entry for the multimedia documentary “Faces of TYC: Abuse and Scandal Plague the Texas Youth Commission.”





			Faculty-for-a-Day Presenters Advertising/Public Relations Carol Glover is an award-winning creative director at the Balcom Agency in Fort Worth with more than 15 years experience in print, broadcast and interactive. A short list of her clients includes Alcon, Justin Boots, J.P. Morgan, the TCU Neeley School of Business and the Boys & Girls Clubs. A former VP/creative director at Witherspoon, she holds an M.A. in English and a B.S. in journalism from TCU and teaches occasionally in the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism. Scott Kirk is director of account services at Concussion, which was recently named Fort Worthʼs No. 1 advertising/marketing agency. A past president of the American Advertising Federation – Fort Worth, he earned a marketing degree at TCU and began his copywriting career at RadioShack, eventually becoming director of corporate communications. He moved to agency life in 1999. Karen Raskopf is senior vice president for corporate communication at Dunkinʼ Donuts/Baskin-Robbins headquartered in Boston, responsible for all aspects of the companyʼs global public relations. She is a former senior vice president, corporate communications, for Blockbuster and head of corporate communications at 7-Eleven. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Dallas. Broadcast Brett Shipp has been an investigative reporter at WFAA-TV since 1995. Following his four-year inquiry into faulty natural gas couplings linked to fatal explosions dating to the 1980s, the state ordered the fittings removed, and new safety standards were adopted. Brett subsequently was awarded the two most coveted prizes in broadcast journalism — Columbia University’s 2008 duPont Gold Baton (the first given to a TV reporter in the Fort Worth-Dallas market) and the 2008 George Foster Peabody Award. Brett has received three duPont awards and three Peabody awards since 2003, and in 2002 and 2005 he was a finalist for Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. He was the first local reporter on the scene in New York City following the 9-11 attacks. He is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University. Aaron Chimbel is a five-time Emmy Award winner and assistant professor of professional practice in the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism. He previously worked at WFAA-TV as the mobile journalist and online sports editor, and at KWTX-TV and Texas Cable News. He was on the WFAA team that received a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Aaron earned a broadcast journalism degree from TCU and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Community Journalism Bob Buckel has been publisher since 1987 of the Azle News and the Springfield Epigraph, both weeklies northwest of Fort Worth and both recipients of regional, state and national awards, including the Texas Press Association Sweepstakes for best newspaper in its size category. A second-generation newspaperman and graduate of Lubbock Christian University, Bob earned first place in the National Newspaper Associationʼs 2007 serious column writing and editorial writing competition. He was president of the Texas Press Association in 2002-2003 and serves as Texas’ representative to the National Newspaper Association. Andrew Chavez is the new-media specialist in TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism and associate director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism. He previously was a regular contributor to the Star-Telegram and a staff photographer for the Clovis (N.M.) News Journal. As two-term editor in chief of the TCU Daily Skiff, Andrew oversaw development of dailyskiff.com, which SPJ has twice named the top college internet news site in Texas and Oklahoma. Under his leadership, the newspaperʼs coverage of TCU inviting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to speak attracted national attention. Andrew holds a masterʼs degree in journalism from TCU. Randy Keck is the owner, editor and publisher of The Community News in Aledo. His first newspaper job was as a carrier for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He has a degree in political science and speech but took a liking to community journalism in the mid-1990s; after struggles early on, a high point came when he won first place in General Excellence from the National Newspaper Association. Over the last seven years Randyʼs publications have placed first, second or third in Sweepstakes at the Texas Press Association convention (first place in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010). Randy was the founding president of the East Parker County Chamber of Commerce and has served on the board of the Texas Press Association and the North and East Texas Press Association. Away from journalism, he is on the board of Freedom House, an organization in Parker County that assists victims of family violence. Magazine/Book Publishing Robert Francis has been editor since 2008 of the Fort Worth Business Press, where he has won three Katie Awards. He also is editor of Research Texas and the Energy Report. He has freelanced for a number of publications, including American Way, Brand Week and Manufacturing Automation, and was a reporter or editor for the technology magazines Computerworld, InfoWorld and InformationWeek. He began covering the energy business in 1985 for Fairchild Publications. A TCU graduate, he directed a documentary about body piercing called Navel Academy, which premiered at the Fort Worth Film Festival in 2000. Susan Petty is editor of the TCU Press and has worked for museums and art galleries in Fort Worth and Dallas. She did graduate work in art history at SMU, lectured at the Amon Carter Museum and taught art history. While working at Harcourt Brace College Publishers, she was developmental editor of Gardnerʼs Art Through the Ages, 10th and 11th editions. Susan has written for Fort Worth, Texas magazine and the Star-Telegram and is the author of “For the Price of a Good Cigar” in Grace and Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women. She is active in the greyhound rescue program. Brian Sweany is deputy editor of Texas Monthly, where he started as an intern in the publisherʼs office and advanced to copy editor in the editorial department nine months later. He earned a bachelorʼs degree in English literature from the University of North Texas and a masterʼs degree in English literature from UT San Antonio. He has been a journalism assistant professor at Ithaca College in New York and a senior editor at D Magazine, and he’s active in a number of civic and volunteer organizations. Newspapers Steve Knight is a general assignment reporter at the Cleburne Times-Review covering Cleburne, Burleson, Crowley and other Johnson County cities. As a student at Tarrant County College and editor of The Collegian, he was honored by the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, the Texas Community College Journalists Association and SPJ Region 8 for his reporting and editorial writing. He was an SPJ Mark of Excellence Award finalist last year in editorial writing, in-depth reporting and general news. Steve holds bachelorʼs and masterʼs degrees in music education from Texas Tech University and was a successful band director in Texas public schools before changing careers. Gayle Reaves-king is the editor of Fort Worth Weekly, following noteworthy stints at the Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News. An honors graduate of UT Austin, she was on the Morning News reporting teams that won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award. Under her leadership, Fort Worth Weekly has won numerous regional and national awards. She is a past president of the Journalism and Women Symposium and current president of Fort Worth SPJ. Barry Shlachter has been a reporter, columnist and editor at the Star-Telegram, which he joined in 1987 after more than 16 years in Asia and Africa, returning to the U.S. on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. Shlachter began his career as an editor at an English-language newspaper in Tokyo, The Japan Times, and freelanced for U.S. and European publications. His photographs appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek and Time. An Associated Press correspondent for 13 years, he interviewed Indira Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and gorilla expert Dian Fossey. He has made 13 trips into Afghanistan, including three with mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation, and covered the U.S. battle against al Qaeda at Tora Bora in 2001. The Austin Headliners Club named him Star Reporter of Texas for his post-9-11 coverage. And he wrote a weekly beer column for seven years and runs a boutique publishing house, Great Texas Line Press, which currently has 22 titles. Broc Sears is professional-in-residence/news media at the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism, teaching web and print design. He was senior editor for design and graphics at the Star-Telegram for more than 20 years and, before that, art director at the Dallas Times Herald, The Dallas Morning News and in the University of North Texas public information office. He led extensive redesign projects at the Star-Telegram, Times Herald and DMN. A graduate of Kansas State University, he has taught at UT Arlington and SMU. Online/Convergence Jake Batsell teaches reporting and digital journalism and manages the convergence newsroom as an assistant professor in the SMU Division of Journalism. He also advises the multi-platform Daily Mustang. Jake previously worked as a staff writer for The Seattle Times and The Dallas Morning News, where he shot and edited videos as the Metro deskʼs “hybrid” reporter, and for the Chicago Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Arizona Republic, Washington Post, Star-Telegram and Austin American-Statesman. He holds a B.A. in journalism from Arizona State University and an M.A. in government from UT Austin. Kent Chapline is executive web producer at CBS 11 and TXA 21, managing all operations except advertising on the station website, cbsdfw.com. Before he “went digital” in 2005, Chapline spent 13 years as a television news producer in Fort Worth-Dallas and other markets. He has a masterʼs degree in journalism from TCU and teaches reporting in the Schieffer School of Journalism. Matt Stiles is a computer-assisted-reporting specialist for The Texas Tribune in Austin, covering government politics with a focus on data journalism and interactives. He previously was a government reporter at the Houston Chronicle, where he won the newspaperʼs Jesse Award for service journalism and beat reporting; he also was named the Chronicleʼs Reporter of the Year in 2007. Before joining the Chronicle he was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News. He and his wife, Texas Tribune reporter Elise Hu, will move to Washington, D.C., in mid-February where she will join NPR and he will remain on the Tribune staff as data applications editor. Visual Communication Kael Alford is a documentary photojournalist whose work has appeared in many European and American newspapers and magazines. Her photography from Iraq is part of the book and exhibition Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq. Since returning to live in the U.S. in 2005, she has shifted toward long-term projects and teaching photojournalism and documentary photography. She’s currently working on a project for the High Museum of Art on Louisiana Gulf Coast communities facing dislocation because of coastal erosion. Kael holds an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri and was a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University in 2008-2009. Thorne Anderson has worked internationally as a freelance photojournalist represented by Corbis/Sygma since 1999. His work has appeared regularly in newspapers and magazines including Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Stern, People, Playboy, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe. He and Kael Alford are co-authors/photographers of Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq. Thorne holds an M.A. from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. In 2009 he joined the University of North Texas as assistant professor in the Mayborn School of Journalism where he teaches photojournalism and multimedia storytelling. Mei-Chun Jau is a freelance photographer for a variety of business and personal clients as well as publications such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and FD Luxe. She worked as a staff photojournalist at the Star-Telegram in 1996-1999 before joining The Dallas Morning News. Her many honors in photography include multiple Katie Awards from the Dallas Press Club and the Vivian Castleberry Award for “A Lesson in Living,” which documents a fifth-grade teacher's battle with breast cancer. The Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities recognized Mei-Chun with the Barbara Jordan Award for photojournalism, and her acclaimed series “For a Moment, Family,” increased awareness of Chinese orphans with disabilities who seek adoption in the United States. With photojournalist Kim Ritzenthaler, Mei-Chun helped chronicle the life of conjoined Egyptian twins. Mei-Chun also received a regional Emmy Award for Interactivity as part of a team entry for the multimedia documentary “Faces of TYC: Abuse and Scandal Plague the Texas Youth Commission.”