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ASPA would like to thank our financial supporters: Alabama Press Association • Dow Jones News Fund • UA Center for Community Based Partnerships • Mercedes-Benz Endowment• UA College of Communication and Information Sciences • UA Department of Journalism • Southern Interscholastic Press Association • National Education Association Foundation • The Selma Times-Journal and its board members! President: Melissa Dixon, Oak Mountain High School, Birmingham Vice President: Connie Nolen, Pelham High School, Pelham Secretary: Nikki Minoso, Vestavia High School, Vestavia Past President: Erin Coggins, Sparkman High School, Harvest
ASPA 2012-2013 CALENDAR OF EVENTS December 14: Deadline for all media for competition and critiques. January 31: Senior award deadlines: Bragg, Thomson, Stevenson and Journalist of the Year awards. Administrator and Adviser of the Year award deadlines. Feb. 22-23: ASPA’s State Convention April 1: Deadline to apply for the Multicultural Journalism Workshop June 14-16: The Long Weekend summer camp June 14-23: Multicultural Journalism Workshop
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Fall Regional Workshop Montgomery, Ala. Convention Center Renaissance Montgomery Hotel Sept. 25, 2012 The Alabama Scholastic Press Association offers special thanks to: Dr. Loy Singleton, Dean of the College of Communication and Information Sciences Dr. Jennifer Greer, Chair, the University of Alabama Department of Journalism Alabama Scholastic Press Association Director Emeritus Marie Parsons.
Welcome!
8:30 a.m.Welcome and introductions, Riverview 2 Meredith Cummings, Director, Alabama Scholastic Press Association Keynote Speaker, David Joyner
Keynote speaker
David Joyner is vice president of content for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., based in Montgomery, Ala. He works with publishers, editors and journalists who cover 150 communities in 24 states in the South, East and Midwest. Joyner has led the staffs of daily newspapers in Massachusetts including The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, where he was senior managing editor; The Salem News, where he was managing editor; and the Gloucester Daily Times, where he was editor. Previously he was projects editor for four Massachusetts dailies. He also worked as a reporter for newspapers in Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama, as well as news organizations in Washington, D.C. Joyner was a political communication major at The George Washington University, where he worked on the independent student newspaper, The G.W. Hatchet. He was the Donald W. Reynolds Nieman Fellow in Community Journalism at Harvard University during the 2011-12 year. Joyner is an officer of the Alabama professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Sessions
Session 1 9:30-10:30 Things We Should Have Learned About Redesigning Our Publications, Bruce Watterson, Riverview 4 Take isomorphism – how students’ own memories and experiences play into their interpretation of publication design. Why we use certain graphics, why we don’t. Also, a look at type, color, photos, graphics and the basic grid pattern to best showcase them. High-Impact Journalism: Making what you write and the stories you tell count, Mark Potok, Riverview 3 Basic steps to finding out information about people, business and institutions. Where the law allows journalists to go, and what you’re allowed to report. Session 2 10:30-11:30 Creative Possibilities, Bruce Watterson, Riverview 4 Too few choices? Think again. There are hundreds of untold ways to add dynamic photos and graphics to your publication and foster a unique approach to the coverage of sensitive issues, lifestyles and social media activities. You’ve just got to know where to look and how to draw in the readers. Gran it and go!, Meredith Cummings, Riverview 3 Why not try to emulate some of the best of the scholastic press? This session will take a look at some of the country’s best high school papers and look at why. Students will learn ways to adapt what they see to their own papers. Session 3 11:30-12:30 The Best Yearbooks I’ve Seen This Year, Bruce Watterson, Riverview 4 Why some staffs seem to nail a great concept while others fail to hit the mark. A look at the best of 2012 with an eye to 2013. Finding and Telling Stories: Where do you find news? Rick Harmon, Riverview 3 Whom do you talk to? We’ll discuss ways to spot stories – some happening right in front of you – as well as some basics
Session leaders Meredith Cummings is the Director of the National Elementary School Press Association, the Alabama Scholastic Press Association and the Multicultural Journalism Workshop at The University of Alabama. In that capacity, she works with K-12 students around the state to help them create better broadcast, newspaper, magazine and multimedia journalism through training, workshops and a mentoring program for teachers. She is a journalism instructor at UA, and served as the Community News Editor at the Tuscaloosa News where she was a member of the editorial board, planned and edited the teen section, Pulse, edited the weekly newspaper, T-News Weekly and wrote a weekly health column on the lighter side of life with diabetes. She was a 2010-11 Faculty Fellow in Service Learning awarded by the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Southern Interscholastic Press Association. A newspaper, website and magazine reporter for 16 years before joining academia, Cummings currently writes for al.com where her blog, The Up Beat (http://blog.al.com/upbeat), covers good news from around Alabama. Cummings freelances, and is an officer in the Alabama Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. After working three years for the Birmingham News, Rick Harmon joined the Montgomery Advertiser, serving as courts reporter, film critic and columnist, then entertainment editor, features editor and for the past four years state and local government and business editor. He is also tasked with spearheading the newspaper’s watchdog journalism efforts. While at the Advertiser he has won seven first-place writing awards from the Alabama Press Association and Associated Press Managing Editors. These include a series on Alabama’s misleading dropout rate that won best education story or series in 2011 and a series on the struggles of Alabama residents to obtain information from state and federal entities that won the best freedom of information story or series in 2012. Harmon was one of four staff members who wrote the 1996 project “A Violent Age: Children in Crisis,” which the National Association of Black Journalists named its first place winner for enterprise or series. He is also a lover of great movies, incredibly bad movies, baseball, football, comic books, pulp fiction and the belief that good reporting, particularly watchdog and investigative reporting, will lead to the survival of journalism. Mark Potok is one of the country’s leading experts on the world of extremism and serves as the editor-in-chief of the SPLC’s award-winning, quarterly journal, the Intelligence Report, its Hatewatch blog, and its investigative reports. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Mark has appeared on numerous television news programs and is quoted regularly by journalists and scholars in both the United States and abroad. In addition, he has testified before the U.S. Senate, the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and in other venues. Before joining the SPLC staff in 1997, Mark spent 20 years as an award-winning journalist at major newspapers, including USA Today, the Dallas Times Herald and The Miami Herald. While at USA Today, he covered the 1993 Waco siege, the rise of militias, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the trial of Timothy McVeigh. Having taught in 47 states and multiple countries around the world, C. Bruce Watterson enjoys working with aspiring young journalists to create thought-provoking and creative publications. He claims he has never met a pica he didn’t like. As chairperson for Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Judging Standards and Practices Commission, he oversees hundreds of entries in the Association’s annual Circle and Crown competition annually. Known for advising the country’s first desktop yearbook in the ‘80s, Watterson pushes staffs to re-write, re-design and re-shoot in order to successfully reward their readers Dr. Watterson recently won the Joseph W. Murphy Award for service to collegiate and scholastic journalism presented by Columbia University. He believes Mark Twain was right when he said, “the almost-right word is simply not the right word...it is the difference between lightning bug and lightning.” For Watterson, the same applies to photos, design, use of color, content and the