We’ll get rolling with a session focusing on the venerable St. Louis Journalism Review. The publication has been analyzing the local media scene since 1970, and thanks to a new partnership with Southern Illinois University in Carbondale it’s looking to a long future and a wider scope for its coverage.

We’ll hear from SJR co-founder Charles Klotzer and editor Roy Malone about where the review has been, how it has survived and where it’s headed.

The luncheon will be at noon Thursday, Sept. 16, at Lucas Park Grille, 1234 Washington Avenue. Cost is $12 for members; $15 for nonmembers.

Interested in attending? Please send your RSVP via e-mail to SPJ chapter president David Sheets at dsheets@post-dispatch.com, or chapter programming director Lisa Eisenhauer at leisenhauer@post-dispatch.com.

David Nicklaus

The annual award, which recognizes SPJ members who have made significant contributions to their SPJ chapters and regions, is named for Howard S. Dubin, a longtime SPJ member who remains active with the national organization, local chapters and the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, the educational arm of SPJ.

Nicklaus, one of two recipients this year, will be recognized Oct. 5 during the president’s installation banquet at the 2010 SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference in Las Vegas.

“I came to know Howard Dubin when we both served on the SPJ board in the 1990s, so I’m both humbled and deeply honored,” Nicklaus told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “This is also a great recognition for the St. Louis chapter, which a lot of people worked hard to revive in the past five years. I’m just happy to have played a small role in that success.”

Nicklaus first became an SPJ member through a student chapter at Drake University. Thirty-five years later, he is still a member, and still deeply involved with the organization. He has served three times as president of the St. Louis Pro chapter and spent four years as SPJ’s Region 7 director. He has helped to support numerous programs with panels and speakers, acted as liaison with national and regional SPJ officials, and maintained the chapter’s finances.

After the local chapter became inactive, Nicklaus helped restart it, recruiting new members and working with an ad hoc committee to get the chapter back on its feet. He has been on the chapter’s board of directors since 2006, doing everything from organizing trivia teams for the chapter’s annual fundraiser to co-chairing the Region 7 conference in 2009.

Nicklaus has been in the news business for more than 30 years. Currently a business columnist, he previously had been business editor at the Post-Dispatch. Before coming to St. Louis, he was a copy editor at the now-defunct Des Moines Tribune.

There’s a great moment in Ron Howard’s movie THE PAPER, in which Robert Duvall tells Glenn Close, “If you try to make this job about the money you’ll be nothing but miserable, because we don’t get the money. Never have, never will.” This is more true now than ever, as newspapers everywhere are trimming budgets, laying off staff and even making the paper smaller.

There is a tendency among us all to cut out what we consider to be superfluous: training, and professional organizations like SPJ. But now is when SPJ is the most useful, when we need intelligent programming and thoughtful discussion among our peers.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve had a crash course in making gold out of hay, as outgoing chapter president Kelsey Volkmann and I have worked with our small-but-mighty board for the St. Louis chapter to provide relevant and useful training in monthly luncheons. Our guest speakers and topics have ranged from how to moderate comments on newspaper web sites to the trials and ethics of covering a natural disaster to a crash course in freelancing.

We don’t have any money in our little chapter. But we have a lot of ideas, and we know how to beg, borrow and cajole to get good people to come talk about the work they love. Each month, we see people filling our little luncheon, and we always come away reinvigorated with new ideas and a renewed sense of purpose.

SPJ can give us that reinvigoration. While my current membership extends only back to 2009, I’ve been unofficially involved with SPJ since my college days in the 1990s, and always supported the philosophy of journalists helping journalists - particularly in a time when we rank below politicians and used-car dealers in the public trust.

We need that more than ever in a time when our profession is riding out a paradigm shift in our very nature. We need solid grounding in journalism standards and ethics for the newcomers to our profession, which is why I am honored to be a part of the Ethics Committee as well. But even we old hacks need SPJ and the resources it offers: we know that there is no end to the new things we can learn from each other. It is too easy, day in and day out, to feed the beast and lay out the front page and look no further than the next web posting.

Sometimes we need a little more. Particularly now, when so many of us consider leaving the profession entirely, believing there is nothing new to be found on newsprint.

I don’t believe that. I don’t believe our profession is dying or obsolete, no matter how many bloggers crop up or how many industry experts declare us dead.

I believe we are in the middle of an exciting change, a synergy between print and electronic media utilizing the best of both worlds, melding the complex reporting and structure of a newspaper with the immediacy and widespread distribution of broadcast news. I believe that when the dust finally settles, we will find that good work always finds a home, that the people will always need news written and reported by professional journalists, and however we deliver them that news, they will respond to it.

That’s why I am deeply honored and humbled to be a recipient of the Harper Scholarship. I never had the honor of meeting Mr. Harper, but I have heard from many who knew him that he was a strong and intelligent leader, an executive directed who placed a high priority on training. It is that philosophy of journalists helping journalists that led SPJ to create the Harper Scholarship, so those of us who lack the means to participate at national will have the opportunity to do so.

I will act as a delegate for the St. Louis chapter to the convention. I will speak on a panel about social networking and ethical journalism, and meet with my fellows on the ethics commission. But I know that I will bring back far more to my newsroom than I give to the convention. I will bring back ideas, answers and more questions, and share them with my colleagues so they, too, can learn something new and improve the craft we love so much.

Thank you to those who saw fit to choose me for this scholarship. It is my honor to accept.

Elizabeth Donald

Vice President, St. Louis Society of Professional Journalists

Now, the Legal Defense Fund that provides such assistance requests your help in return.

At the national convention in October, SPJ plans to have a Legal Defense Fund Auction to generate support for a program that has gone a long way toward making journalists’ jobs easier and safer. And right now, you can donate items for the auction. Contributions of swag from media outlets, for example, are welcome, but so are books, pamphlets — almost anything you think will sell at both the live and silent auctions that are scheduled.

No items will be accepted for auction on-site; they must be mailed to SPJ beforehand, along with a submission form that can be downloaded from SPJ’s website. The deadline for receiving contributions is Sept. 1.

For more information about the Legal Defense Fund or the auction, contact Lauren Rochester, awards coordinator, at 317-927-8000, ext. 210, or e-mail her at lrochester@spj.org.

The foundation constitutes a project to preserve and manage key elements of the region’s print and broadcast history, culled largely from an extensive collection housed at the Missouri History Museum and St. Louis Public Library, and compiled for almost a quarter century by former radio broadcaster Frank Absher.

Dave Garino, a senior vice president and partner at Fleishman-Hillard, will serve as foundation president, the Journal said Monday.

Reports of media restrictions imposed by BP officials and federal authorities have come from CNN and other news outlets trying to cover the spill. Additional reports say media also have been harassed and intimidated while trying to do their work.

Oil spill cleanup spokesman Adm. Thad Allen announced last month that media should not encounter hindrances as they cover the spill. But the Associated Press lists several incidents where journalists were threatened by BP and people claiming to represent the government at cleanup areas.

On Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard announced modification of a policy that kept journalists at least 65 feet away from oil-containment booms laid out in the Gulf to prevent the spill from spreading. Now, journalists carrying credentials are allowed access to containment areas.

SPJ leaders plan to discuss this and other issues at an executive committee meeting in New Orleans on July 24. Journalists and media outlets who wish to express their concerns about information access in the Gulf region, or would like to meet with members of the executive committee, are encouraged to contact SPJ:

Kevin Z. Smith,
SPJ president
304-365-4864
ksmith@spj.org

Scott Leadingham
SPJ Communications Department
317-927-8000 Ext. 211
sleadingham@spj.org

David Sheets
St. Louis Pro chapter president
314-971-0073
dsheets@post-dispatch.com

Patch, which launched last year, already has news and information sites up and running in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Now, Patch is hiring for assorted staff positions in writing, editing at other locations around the country. In the St. Louis area, for example, Patch seeks editors for local news coverage in places such as Ballwin, Chesterfield, Kirkwood, Manchester and Webster Groves.

Patch employees can work from home with tools provided by Patch, which is owned by AOL. All Patch asks is that employees stay in tune with their communities, be willing to work with other writers, be ready to cover breaking news at any time, and show passion for their work.

Anyone interested in applying should visit Patch’s site and click on the “Apply Here” link at the bottom of the home page, then scroll down to the Missouri job listings on the associated AOL.com Careers site. Patch spokespeople say they hope to get the St. Louis-area pages online before the end of summer.

The awards were given out during a meet-and-greet reception for Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon, who has been selected the Press Club’s Media Person of the Year. Shannon will be the special guest at a dinner in his honor Sept. 29.

Candidates for the scholarships had to be university undergraduate or graduate students attending school in the St. Louis area and pursuing careers in journalism or communications. Each candidate submitted an essay, work samples and a letter of recommendation from one of their university professors.

The scholarships were donated by various local institutions and ranged from $200 to $5,000. Recipients were:

* Chelsea Brandt, Pacific, Mo. — Press Club Summer Internship scholarship, $1,000

* Angela Case, Edwardsville, Mo. — Journalism Foundation Fleishman-Hillard scholarship, $1,000

* Lauren Fisher, Chesterfield, Mo. — Journalism Foundation Press Club scholarship, $1,000

* Nick Gass, Wildwood, Mo. — Journalism Foundation Harold Ferman Photojournalism scholarship, $200

* Joyce Felicia Gates, St. Louis — Journalism Foundation Newspaper Guild scholarship, $1,000

* Brittney Haas, St. Louis — Journalism Foundation South County Times / Webster University scholarship, $1,000

* Liz Lebron, St. Louis — Journalism Foundation Connie Karr Memorial scholarship, $2,260

* Emilie Moeslein, Columbia, Ill. — Journalism Foundation Missouri Professional Communicators scholarship, $1,000

* Lauren O’Brien, Fenton, Mo. — Press Club Summer Internship scholarship, $1,000

* Joseph Roberts, St. Louis — Journalism Foundation Webster-Kirkwood Times / Webster University scholarship, $1,000

* Alexandria Seay, Florissant, Mo. — Journalism Foundation Society of Professional Journalists scholarship, $1,000

* Scott Vicker, Creston, Iowa — Press Club Walter Cronkite broadcasting scholarship, $5,000

* Lauren Weber, St. Louis — Press Club Summer Internship scholarship, $1,000

The Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis promotes scholarship, grants and professional excellence in journalism and communications, and has donated more than $800,000 to students since 1969.

Cuillier leads the national SPJ Freedom of Information Committee, has trained newsrooms around the nation on sifting through bureaucracy for important public documents and other information and is the author of “The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records.” He’s traveling the country this summer to spread more wisdom, and he’s making a stop in St. Louis on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Lucas Park Grille downtown as part of his journey.

I invite you to join us as Cuillier explains how journalists can improve their reporting and their communities on budget and on deadline. He will bring handouts; you just bring $10 to get in the door. Snacks will be provided.

I look forward to meeting many of you there.

David Sheets
2010-2011 president,
St. Louis Pro chapter

SPJ members, be sure to arrive by 1 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 3, for the Opening Business Session, regional meetings, chapter leaders’ sessions and the Opening Night Reception.

Registration is now open and you can book your room at Planet Hollywood at an outstanding rate of $129/night! Please visit www.spj.org/convention.asp to view the schedule, room rates and registration fees.

Finally, three more items that the chapter might be interested are the Terry Harper Memorial Scholarships, the Diversity Leadership Fellows Program and the Robert D.G. Lewis First Amendment Award. All three are fantastic opportunities for members to receive assistance to attend the national convention. Please click on the live links for more information.