The #s, @s and ABCs of
Today’s State and Local Government Reporting
SEPTEMBER 27-28, 2012
HOWARD JOHNSON PLAZA HOTEL MADISON, WI
Conference overview Take time to learn from leading experts and colleagues - veterans and innovators alike - during “The #s, @s and ABCs of Today’s State and Government Reporting,” a joint fall conference set for Sept. 27-28, 2012 in Madison, Wis.
This conference, sponsored by Mid-America Press Institute and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation, has been planned to include strategies for both daily and weekly journalists. The day and a half conference will be held at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel in Madison. We’ve negotiated a great $69 room rate, which includes a complimentary breakfast buffet. So plan now to join us or send some staff members to the conference.
Conference speakers & panelists Scott Angus, editor, The Gazette (Janesville) and vice president of news for Bliss Communications Todd Berry, president, Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance
Mary Burke, assistant attorney general, Wisconsin Department of Justice James Debilzen, managing editor, Milton Courier
Phil Brinkman, city editor, Wisconsin State Journal
Chris Hardie, executive editor, La Crosse Tribune and River Valley Newspaper Group Lauren Hasler, public engagement director and reporter, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Nick Heynen, web editor, social media coordinator and data reporter, Wisconsin State Journal Margaret Holt, standards editor, Chicago Tribune
Bob Dreps, media attorney, Godfrey & Kahn
Erik Kass, chief financial officer, Madison Metropolitan School District
Lucas Graves, UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Reid Magney, public information officer,Wisconsin Government Accountability Board
Kate Golden, reporter and multimedia producer, Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism Andy Hall, executive director, Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism Dee Hall, reporter, Wisconsin State Journal
Bill Lueders, money and politics project director, Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism Mary Spicuzza, reporter, Wisconsin State Journal
Registration & Accommodations Register online Register for the conference online today:
http://www.formstack.com/forms/WNA-state_local_reporting
Conference registration fee is $50 and includes continental breakfast (both days) and Thursday lunch. Pay online using PayPal, send a check to the WNA Foundation at 1901 Fish Hatchery Road, Madison, WI 53713-1255 or call Mary Marksmeier at the Iowa Newspaper Association 515-244-2145, extention 131, with your credit card information. Questions? Call the WNA office at (608) 283-7620.
Accommodations The conference will be held at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel, 3841 East Washington Ave., Madison. Call the hotel directly at 608244-2481 for reservations. When making room reservations refer to the room block name: Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Reservation cut-off date for the WNA rate is Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012.
“44 Plays for 44 Presidents”
Join Madison’s SPJ for a night out Thursday Conference attendees are encouraged to join Madison’s Society of Professional Journalists on Thursday evening for Forward Theater Company’s “44 Plays for 44 Presidents.”
Forward artistic director Jennifer Uphoff Gray will address the group from 6:15-7 p.m. to discuss playwriting, dramaturgy and directing. The discussion will take place at Fresco, the Overture Center rooftop restaurant, 227 State St. Drinks and meals will be available. The play begins at 7:30 p.m. at Overture Center, 201 State St., Madison.
SPJ has arranged for a group discount of $20 per ticket so long as a minimum of 10 people attend. Forward can accommodate about 20 people in our group. SPJ invites journalists, their spouses, partners and friends to attend as part of the group. Interested individuals should contact SPJ president Mark Pitsch by Sept. 7 to reserve tickets. Email: mpitsch@madison.com.
Mail a check for $20 per ticket, paid to SPJ-Madison pro chapter, c/o Mark Pitsch, 1901 Fish Hatchery Road, Madison, WI 53708. Direct questions to Pitsch at 252-6145.
Conference schedule: Thursday, Sept. 27 8:30 a.m. - REGISTRATION, CHECK IN 9-10 a.m. - KICKOFF SPEAKER • Scott Angus, editor, The Gazette (Janesville) and vice president, Bliss Communications 10-10:15 a.m. - BREAK
REPORTING AND ENGAGING READERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA 10:15 - 11:15 p.m. - PART I: BEST PRACTICES • Lauren Hasler, public engagement director and reporter, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism • Nick Heynen, web editor, social media coordinator and data reporter, Wisconsin State Journal • Mary Spicuzza, reporter, Wisconsin State Journal Social media should not be a mystery. Learn how to best use Facebook and Twitter to engage and communicate with readers. Learn how to determine what’s relevant and what’s not. How does one best report and verify information through social media? 11:15-11:30 - BREAK
11:30 - 12:30 p.m. - SOCIAL MEDIA PART II: POLICIES AND ETHICS • Phil Brinkman, city editor, Wisconsin State Journal • Margaret Holt, standards editor, Chicago Tribune How can a newsroom go about building a social media policy for its journalists? What should go into such a policy? Why are social media policies and procedures necessary? 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. - LUNCH
1:30 - 2:30 p.m. - FACT CHECKING • Lucas Graves, UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication • Margaret Holt, standards editor, Chicago Tribune Discuss why fact-checking organizations have arisen and the relationship between fact checkers and journalists. How do the ethics of the two types compare? What will be the role of fact checking as digital media evolves? 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. - ESSENTIALS OF RESPONSIBLE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REPORTING • Todd Berry, president, Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance • James Debilzen, managing editor, Milton Courier • Dee Hall, reporter, Wisconsin State Journal • Chris Hardie, executive editor La Crosse Tribune and River Valley Newspaper Group • Erik Kass, chief financial officer, Madison Metropolitan School District
Revisit the basics of responsible government reporting and participate in a how-to breakdown of reading and interpreting budgets.
• Tips for covering local government & politics. • Best practices for reporting how money is spent in your community. • What are the best questions to ask? How can you identify the best sources?
3:30 - 3:45 p.m. - BREAK
3:45 - 4:45 p.m. - BASICS OF WISCONSIN’S ELECTIONS FROM THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD • Reid Magney, public information officer, Wisconsin Government Accountability Board Learn how to find federal, state and local campaign finance information. Determine how much local elections cost taxpayers. Find out how big your voter turnout is, what to expect at the polls in November and more.
Conference schedule: Friday, Sept. 28 9 - 10:20 a.m. - FOLLOWING THE MONEY: TOOLS FOR REPORTERS AND EDITORS With three representatives from the Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism: • Kate Golden, reporter and multimedia producer • Andy Hall, executive director • Bill Lueders, money and politics project director
In this session, the panel will explore resources for reporting on the intersection of money and politics, looking at public databases on campaign fundraising, spending and lobbying activity in Wisconsin. Consider the ethical uses of information about spending meant to influence the political process - the need to draw distinctions between spending by candidates versus special interests. Learn innovative ways to present findings through maps and other graphics.
10:20 - 10:30 a.m. - BREAK 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. - PANEL DISCUSSION: OPEN MEETINGS AND OPEN RECORDS • Mary Burke, assistant attorney general, Wisconsin Department of Justice • Bob Dreps, media attorney, Godfrey & Kahn • Bill Lueders, money and politics project director,Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism
This session will entertain audience questions about the state’s open records and meetings law. The goal is to use real-life examples to cover certain ground, including: • The basics of the laws • How to go about getting records • What to do if a records request is denied or a meeting was inadequately noticed or improperly closed
Faculty bios Scott W. Angus is editor of The Gazette (Janesville) and vice president of news for Bliss Communications. Angus and The Gazette staff have fielded dozens of requests for information and interviews from media around the world since Janesville native Paul Ryan was named Mitt Romney’s running mate. The paper has accommodated most of the requests, and staffers have logged more time on radio and TV than at any time in the paper’s history. The Gazette created a special section on Ryan in the 24 hours after the announcement and has published dozens of stories since.
Angus has been at The Gazette for more than 30 years and was promoted to editor in 1990 after being a reporter, city editor and managing editor. He was named VP at Bliss, The Gazette’s parent company, in 2005. The Gazette has been named best newspaper of its size in Wisconsin numerous times, and Editor & Publisher selected the paper as one of “Ten That Do It Right” in 2004. Angus served on the board of the Associated Press Managing Editors from 2001 to 2007 and has been a member of the Wisconsin AP Editors Executive Committee for 15 years. He also serves on the board of visitors for the University of Wisconsin’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Todd Berry has been president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX) since 1994. His experience spans the public, private and non-profit sectors. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was assistant secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and executive director of the Governor’s Tax Reform Commission. From 1983 to 1993, he was a marketing executive with one of Wisconsin’s oldest family firms. Berry served as a member of the non-partisan Dane County Board, the Jefferson School Board and the CESA #2 Board of Control. He also served 14 years on the North Central College (IL) Board of Trustees. With bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from UW-Madison, Berry also holds master’s degrees in planning/policy analysis (Harvard) and business administration (University of Chicago).
Mary E. Burke is an assistant attorney general in the State Programs, Administration, and Revenue Unit at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Burke joined the Department of Justice in 1992. Much of her current practice involves the Wisconsin Public Records Law: advice to state clients, other government officials, and members of the public; representation of state clients in public records litigation; and public outreach and education. Mary also represents state clients in other complex civil litigation, often involving human services issues.
Burke previously practiced in the Department of Justice Criminal Appeals Unit, including three years as Unit Director, and as bond counsel at Ice Miller Donadio & Ryan, Indianapolis. She has served on the State Bar of Wisconsin Board of Governors, Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation, Wisconsin Federal Nominating Commission, and the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access Oversight Committee. Mary is an honors graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and earned a master’s degree in Public Policy Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Faculty bios Phil Brinkman has covered state government for the Wisconsin State Journal since December 2000. Since joining the paper in 1993, he has also covered courts and schools and worked as a general assignment and special projects reporter. He previously worked as a reporter for The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale, Ill. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Brinkman earned a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1984 and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1989.
James Debilzen has been the managing editor of the Milton Courier since August 2012. His previous experience includes serving as the managing editor of the DeForest TimesTribune and the Poynette Press for two-and-a-half years and as a city reporter for the Daily Jefferson County Union for two years. He is a 2007 graduate of the University of WisconsinWhitewater with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. Debilzen was a Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation scholarship recipient in 2005.
Robert J. Dreps is a member of the Litigation and Media Practice Groups in the Madison office of Godfrey & Kahn. He is an experienced litigator whose practice emphasizes media law including defamation, privacy and access cases; health care litigation; political law; and insurance litigation including defense and coverage issues. Dreps graduated in 1984, first in his class, from the University of Wisconsin Law School where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and the Wisconsin Law Review. Following graduation, he served as law clerk to the Honorable John W. Reynolds, then Chief U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Kate Golden is a reporter and multimedia producer for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Golden specializes in science and environmental stories, and is handy in print, radio, video, photo and online media. She came to the Center from Alaska, where she reported on natural resources and business for the Juneau Empire. Before she got into journalism, Golden spent a year studying lowland gorillas in central Africa and collected oral histories in Zanzibar; she has also worked as a photographer. Her work has appeared in Marketplace, washingtonpost.com, and many an Alaska news outlet. Golden has degrees from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Faculty bios Lucas Graves is a PhD candidate in Communications at Columbia University, where his dissertation studies the fact-checking movement in American journalism as a window onto changes in journalistic work and the world of news production. He is also a research fellow at the New America Foundation, where he has helped to produce a series of events and reports on misinformation and political fact-checking, including a comprehensive overview of the fact-checking universe in 2012. Graves has worked closely with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia’s School of Journalism, co-authoring its inaugural reports on the changing business of journalism in a digital age.
Graves has worked as a technology and media analyst with Digital Technology Consulting and before that with Jupiter Research, in New York and in São Paulo, Brazil. He is also a longtime magazine journalist, on the masthead of Wired magazine. Graves holds an MA in Communications and an MS in Journalism from Columbia’s J‐School, and a BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He joined the faculty of the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at UW-Madison this fall.
Andy Hall is executive director of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Hall, a former Investigative Reporters and Editors board member, won dozens of awards for his reporting in 26 years at the Wisconsin State Journal and The Arizona Republic. He began his career in 1982 as a copyboy at The New York Times. At The Republic, Hall helped break the “Keating Five” scandal involving Sen. John McCain. Hall has served as a mentor to the staff of La Comunidad, a Spanish-language newspaper in Madison, and has taught numerous courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication. He currently serves on the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council Board of Directors, Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism Board of Directors, and Indiana University Journalism Alumni Advisory Board. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. Dee J. Hall is an investigative and projects reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, where she has worked since 1990. Before that, Hall was a reporter for eight years at The Arizona Republic in Phoenix. Hall is the winner of more than three dozen local, regional and national awards for reporting on criminal justice, official corruption, challenges facing the mentally ill, conflicts of interest among public officials and other issues. In addition to her work at the State Journal, Hall is a volunteer editor at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit news service based at the UWMadison that she co-founded with her husband, Andy Hall.
Chris Hardie is executive editor of the La Crosse Tribune and River Valley Newspaper Group (Tomah Journal, Tomah Monitor-Herald, Jackson County Chronicle, Vernon County Broadcaster and Westby Times). He started his journalism career in 1983 with the La Crosse Tribune and has worked in a variety of newsroom positions, collecting more than two dozen state and national journalism awards.
Faculty bios Lauren Hasler is public engagement director and reporter for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Hasler joined the Center in January 2011 after receiving her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. A Wisconsin native, her work has focused on environmental and investigative reporting. Hasler previously researched audience engagement as a social media intern for Harvest Public Media and spent two years as a multimedia reporter for KBIA 91.3 FM and the Columbia Missourian.
Nick Heynen describes himself as a new age journalist trying to help the newspaper industry make it in the online era. As web editor, social media coordinator and data reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal since 2010, Heynen specializes in social media brand management and training, data analysis and web content presentation. From 2007 to 2010, Heynen served as data reporter at the State Journal and prior to that he held posts with National Guardian Life Insurance and GE Energy.
As standards editor of the Chicago Tribune, Margaret Holt works closely with reporters and editors about issues of accuracy, fairness and ethics. She has a particular interest in urban issues and diversity of coverage and regularly meets with community leaders and groups to talk about coverage.
A graduate of the University of Missouri, Holt has held a variety of reporting and editing jobs. She joined Tribune Co. in 1987 as business editor of the Sun-Sentinel of South Florida. Holt moved to the Chicago Tribune as sports editor in 1993. In 1995, she began working on customer and accuracy issues and has represented the Tribune in workshops and conferences on accuracy and credibility. A member of the Native American Journalists Association, Holt also is active in the Mid-America Press Institute and is serving as board chair. She volunteers in outreach programs, including youth journalism. Erik Kass is chief financial officer of the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Faculty bios Bill Lueders is money and politics project director for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Lueders is a veteran Wisconsin newspaper editor and reporter who came the Center after 25 years at Isthmus, a Madison weekly. He is also the elected president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a statewide group that works to protect public access to meetings and records. He has received national awards for editorial writing and reporting on animal issues and state awards for investigative, legal, interpretative and business reporting. He is the author of three books: An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll, Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman’s Harrowing Quest for Justice and Watchdog: 25 Years of Muckraking and Rabblerousing. Reid Magney is public information officer for Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (GAB), a post he has held since July 2009, well before it became the political lightning rod it often is now. Created in 2007 to oversee state law on elections, ethics, campaign finance and lobbying, the GAB has been Recall Central since about February 2011, when efforts to remove nine state senators from office began. Magney previously spent 25 years in newspaper and TV journalism in La Crosse, Decatur, IL, Mason City, IA, North Suburban Chicago, IL, and Cedar Rapids, IA. He is a graduate of Cornell College in Iowa and a native of Duluth, MN.
A reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal, Mary Spicuzza is a print, multimedia and broadcast journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Seattle Times, St. Petersburg Times, Los Angeles Times, SF Weekly, Alternet, Frontline/World, Asset Recovery Watch, and other newspapers, websites, magazines and media outlets.
Spicuzza has been honored with awards from Investigative Reporters & Editors, The Overseas Press Club, the Florida Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Press Club of the East Bay, and a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. Her story “Enter the Dragon Head” was awarded a Prevention for a Safer Society (PASS) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency