Utah SPJ

Utah Headliners board meeting Oct. 12, 2013

Attending: Sheryl Worsley, Chad Curtis, Don Meyers, Linda Petersen, Lisa Carricaburu, Nate Carlisle and Tom Haraldsen

Guest: Joel Campbell

Regional Conference March 28 & 29

The regional conference will be held at the BYU Salt Lake Center. They will allow us to bring coffee in.

Joel  had some speaker ideas:
1. BYU and other schools are participating in a New York Times program that brings NY Times reporters to town. Joel said Utah Headliners could piggyback on them to get quality speakers for free. Possible speakers would be Brian Stelter who started a news program in college or David Carr.
2. -Mary Beth Tinker  of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District fame (suspended for wearing  black armbands to school) is doing the Tinker Tour to “to promote youth voices, free speech and a free press.”She would be willing to come to Utah for $2,000 – $2,500. Joel thinks he can raise that through sponsorships by local law firms and possibly the Journalism Education Association or the ACLU.
Chad made the motion to go after these speakers; Nate seconded. All aye
Lisa & Sheryl will help Joel with fundraising.
The point was made that we need to really promote to the schools because the above programs are heavily college-oriented.

Outreach to schools:
Sheryl will reach out to the dean at the U. of U. and instructor Kim Mangum
Lisa will connect with Also Emily Andrews, Chronicle editor and UVU
We need to reach out to Weber, possibly Sheree Josephson (Don?)
McKenzie will reach out to SUU. She is putting together a packet for them and will share it with the board when it is done.
Chad will reach out to Dixie.
Sheryl will call Suzanne Dean at the SanPete Messenger about Snow College. (Suzanne mentors some students there.)
Each will invite the students to regional conference and see if we can help them with anything.

Tentative regional conference schedule:
Friday night reception at the Tribune; finger foods. Speaker or panel Friday night
Possible subjects to be discussed:
A) Immigration reform
B) Government misbehavior
C) WVC/Lisa Steed – how to cover this kind of situation
The board voted and unanimously approved option C.
Nate Carlisle, Janell Steckelien and Pat Reavy were suggested for a panel.
Nate will reach out to Danielle Willard’s parents or possibly the ACLU if parents can’t come.
Lisa will ask Jennifer Napier-Pierce to moderate.

Tentative Saturday Schedule:
There was some concern about capacity at BYU-SL. The main auditorium holds 150 chairs which should be enough. There are also several classrooms available.

There will be student critiques throughout the day.
9 a.m. Coffee, juice, doughnuts
Sessions

9:30 – Mary BethTinker
10:30:
Medical marijuana

11:30 NSA center – Spying hits home (Mike Hiesstand)

12:30: Lunch
Box lunches

2 p.m. – NY Times Carr?

3 p.m. –

Don informed the board that SPJ national wants all regions to have a session on the SPJ Code of Ethics need to be changed. The following is being considered as a session:
Does the existing code of ethics cover the realities of today’s journalists?
Afterward, the board would draft a position paper to be sent to national.

Programming: Upcoming events
LGBT Coverage
Thursday, Nov. 21
Sheryl will invite several groups from the LGBT community to meet with journalists to tell us how we’re covering their community and where our coverage is lacking.
It will be held at the Salt Lake City Library.

Boot Camp – Jim Fisher/McKenzie
Sat. Feb. 22, possibly at UVU

Other events (dates not set)

 PIO event  – Linda/Sheryl
This would be marketed to PIOs (private and government) who could find out from a panel of journalists how best to pitch their ideas. Journalists would also have a chance to educate PIOs on how best to work with us.
It would be a fundraiser where the PIOs would be charged to attend.

Special awards night – Lisa
This would be a night to honor all the winners of the special awards: ethics, FOI etc.
Probably a dinner where awardees could invite their families and friends. Also a fundraiser

Board positions
McKenzie has agreed to be both membership &  publicity chairs
Tom made the motion to approve; Nate seconded it. All aye
Don was nominated as the new ethics chair
Lisa made the motion to approve; Nate seconded it. All aye

Fundraising at NM regional conference was discussed.  The board came up with two ideas we’d like to copy for our regional conference: silent auctions and schwag. Tom volunteered to see what schwag he could acquire.

Nate gave an update on how the judicial committee on opening up search warrants is doing. (See attached document)
Sheryl  asked if the media could receive notice when warrants with an indefinite seal are opened. Nate will make an inquiry. The  next committee meeting will be in November. Nate didn’t have a specific date yet.
Lisa made a motion to support the proposal; Chad seconded it. All aye
Nate will track the unsealing of search warrants on behalf of SPJ so we can have data in the future. Sheryl, Linda and others will also keep track. Joel suggests a brown bag at some point to learn how to track them. Sheryl assigned Mackenzie to do après release letting everyone know the open comment  period  goes through November.

Joel is working with a couple of legislators on getting the administrative procedures of the judiciary covered by the Open Meetings Act.

Headliners has been asked (by Jeff Hunt?) to file an amicus brief in a case  where the school district is using FERPA to stop a father from seeing video footage of what happened in an incident  at school which caused his son to be suspended from school.
The board supported it. (No formal vote) Sheryl said we need to send out press releases about this and other efforts.

Next board meeting: Salt Lake Tribune, Saturday, Nov. 9, 9:30 a.m.