PRSA local update IV: Arlington school district communications specialist Michelle Clark, formerly an account executive at Witherspoon Advertising and Public Relations and an adjunct professor at TCU, has replaced Andra Bennett on the Board of Directors as PRSSA liaison. Bennett completed her term in August, following the second successful year of the PRSSA Mystery Tour and with the TCU PRSSA chapter continuing to grow. Lindsay Houghton, the 2004-05 PRSSA president, is expected to attend her second International Conference as a PRSSA member in New York this fall.
PRSA local update V: The nominations committee (Kim Speairs, APR; Kristie Aylett, APR; Heather Senter, APR; Pamela Smith and Roger Partridge) proposes for Greater Fort Worth PRSA the 2005 slate of officers: president, Heather Senter, APR; president-elect/membership, Holly Ellman; VP/programs, Marc Flake; secretary, Krista Brown; treasurer, Glenda Thompson; treasurer-elect, Laura Van Hoosier. Directors: term ending 2005, Gary Morey; '06, John Hoffmann; '07, Theresa Davis. Assembly delegates: term ending 2005, Kristie Aylett, APR; '07, Mary Dulle, APR, Fellow PRSA. The election will be at the luncheon/annual meeting Oct. 13.
SPJ national update: Journalists are dying; difficult news days; can't breathe and the water's foul, but at least we're secure; and he must not have been a Republican then. Attacks on journalists worldwide have increased sharply since the war in Iraq, with the first eight months of 2004 approaching the total casualties for all of 2003. See here. ... Advocates say federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision to punish five reporters for refusing to identify their sources for stories on nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee will chill vital newsgathering at a time of increased government secrecy. See here and here and here. ... About a dozen journalist organizations complained Aug. 16 that the Homeland Security Department proposes to ditch some routine environmental oversight in the name of security. "It must not be assumed that a choice needs to be made between the environment and security," the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government wrote in response to the agency's directive. More here. ... Deal W. Hudson, publisher of the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis and a close ally of the Bush White House, resigned as an adviser to the reelection campaign because of allegations that he sexually harassed a Fordham University student a decade ago. Hudson, 54, had been a key player in the Republican effort to attract Roman Catholic voters. See here.
SPJ national update II: Troops are dying; no color, no credibility; they forgot to vet the mayor; and libel cases down, wins up. ... The 488 Americans killed in Iraq this year died in just 239 days (2.04 daily average), while the 482 killed last year died during 287 days (1.68 daily average); not only has 2004 been bloodier than 2003 in absolute terms, but in relative terms as well. One hundred twenty-one American troops have died since Iraq became "sovereign." More here. ... If it weren't for their blue suits and red ties, there'd be barely any color at all in the Washington press corps, asserts a study released Aug. 4 at the Unity 2004 convention of minority journalists associations. Not quite 10.5 percent of reporters, editors and bureau chiefs sent to Washington by daily newspapers are journalists of color, the study found. More here and here. ... Crawford may be the heart of Bush country, but Mayor Robert Campbell likes John Kerry for president. "I don't see where I'm better off than I was four years ago," he said. "I don't see where the city is any better off." ... Newspapers and other news organizations are going on trial for libel less often and winning more, according to the annual report by the Media Law Resource Center. First, the number of libel trials involving newspapers has declined significantly while the number of trials against broadcasters has risen slightly. Second, juries are warming to media defendants. More here.
SPJ national update III: Fighting back; zoned out; and FOI equals terror. Washington bureau chiefs have united to better cover federal secrecy attempts, and the AP CEO envisions an open government lobbying center in Washington, D.C. Tom Curley: "You don't need to have your notebook snatched by a policeman to know that keeping an eye on government activities has lately gotten a lot harder." See here. ... A growing grassroots movement seeks to make the country a USA Patriot Act-free zone, one city at a time. More than 300 cities and four states have urged Congress to repeal or change parts of the act. Barring that, they resolve that their communities will uphold the constitutional rights of the people should federal agents seek help tracking residents. More here. ... Public safety concerns in Ohio and Texas have led to suspicion of people who make open records requests. In Texas, a university student's request for info on tunnels under the school sparked an investigation. Parma, Ohio, adopted a short-lived policy of maintaining detailed information on people who request public records; Parma would have passed on the information to law enforcement officials. See here.
SPJ national update IV: In praise of storm-tossed journalists; workplace less safe? that's a standard; and CBO proves tax-shift assertions. Nearly every newspaper in Charley's path across Florida published regular, or even special, editions the day after the hurricane struck. A staffer at the Charlotte Herald Sun, near the storm's epicenter, likened the experience to "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride," a ride across the state at Disney World. See here. ... In the past 3.5 years, OSHA, the Labor Department branch in charge of workers' well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting President Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan. See here. ... Since 2001, Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal taxes from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office says in an Aug. 13 report. The wealthiest 20 percent, with incomes averaging $182,700 in 2001, saw their federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total payments that year to 63.5 percent this year. For the top 1 percent, earning an average $1.1 million, their share fell to 20.1 percent, from 22.2 percent. Over that same period, taxpayers making $51,500-$75,600 paid a higher percentage of federal taxes; households earning around $75,600 had the biggest jump, from 18.7 percent to 19.5 percent. Put another way, the bottom 20 percent of households received an average refund of $250 each, the middle 20 percent got $1,090, and the top 1 percent pocketed $78,460. The tax cuts this year will boost the income of millionaires by 10.1 percent and of middle-income families 2.3 percent. A former senior economist in the Bush White House, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, heads the CBO. See here.
