SPJ National Conference Highlights
Twitter being discussed at the conference.
By Todd Smith
I recently attended the SPJ National Convention in Indianapolis, Aug. 27-30. I am the web editor for the St. Louis chapter of SPJ and went as a delegate for the chapter.
I attended the Region 7 meeting at the convention and we discussed changes at SPJ and future regional events.
Holly Edgell, regional director, met with members of the Region 7 delegates and we discussed the 2010 regional conference along with chapter changers. A requirement for “meetings” has changed to “activities.” She said this allows room for more creativity in programming for chapters.
There are new options in rankings in which a two-star category chapter can send a delegate to either a regional or national conference in a given year. Also, a waiver option applies to any chapter with legitimate reasons that it cannot send a delegate to a national conference.
She said the site for the next regional conference will be in Omaha at Creighton University in 2010. Dates being considered are in the month of March. The national conference was also brought up at the meeting.
Edgell said that SPJ and the Radio Television News Directors Association will hold a joint conference in 2011 and cities under consideration are Orlando and New Orleans.
She added, the search for the executive director is still under way and has been narrowed to 20 candidates. They are being reviewed in the selection process.
Some personal highlights from the conference aside from the Region 7 meeting included sessions that I attended in the New Media Track.
Dave Carlson and Deb Wegner, both trainers in the SPJ Newsroom Training Program, spoke about resources online that are free. Picnik.com is an online photo editing program, Slideroll.com allows one to put together slideshow of photos. These were just some of the sites that were discussed during their program.
I attended a presentation done by Jeff Cutler, content specialist, freelance journalist and Ron Sylvester, reporter, Wichita Eagle, on 60 sites that can be resources for journalists. Some sites discussed were: Twitter Local - http://www.twitterlocal.net/ - which can be used to watch Twitter on a local basis and Twitter Search - http://search.twitter.com - which can be used to follow Tweets on a specific topic or keyword or Ustream - http://ustream.tv - a video storage site that also lets you create your own video show and air it in real time with a live audience participating.
Illyce R. Glink, founder of ThinkGlink Publishing, spoke about how she has used social media channels to put her name out there. She has developed a presence on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and other social networking sites. On Sunday, I learned about search engine optimization and analytics.
This last program was led by Brent Payne, SEO director, The Chicago Tribune, and Charlie Meyerson, news director at WGN-AM 720. They explained how to get your stories out their on the Google search engine, which involved putting together the right headline for the web and understanding the basics of the complex way Google operates and by going to Google Analytics.