Will there be anyone left?

Well, with the announcement that Rhonda McBride is going to work for the state, I count at least four Alaskan journalists in the employ of Governor Sarah Palin.

I feel like starting a pool as to who'll be next....
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Any interest...?

I've been talking with some other bloggers around the state, a few of them reporters (past and present), about pitching a blogging seminar for next year's J-Week.

I'm thinking it might contain some nuts-and-bolts about how to get started as well as discussion on bloggers-as-journalists and the stickiness that arises when a reporter blogs.

Any interest?

Contest results

If an entry says there are no results as of press time, it could be the results never arrived to the judge, or the judge did not return comments on time or at all. That happened with two big categories in the 2006 contest. If that happened to you and I'm not aware of it, please notify me as soon as possible.
More often, the judge just didn't get results back in time for the awards banquet, but they are returned and winners get their certificates.
I hope that helps.

A question about award judging...

I got this e-mail this morning from a reporter who asked that I post it for discussion. I didn't have any answers for her, given this blog is all I do for the Press Club.

Feel free to chime in with the comments section and we can get a conversation going. Just keep it civil -- we all know how easy it is for internet comments to get insensitive and out of hand.

Hi Jay,

I just had a question that … concerns the Press Club awards. Every year there are categories that say "no results available as of press time" or something like that. If we pay entry fees and send in stories, it seems fair that we should at least get results, if not by the time of the banquet, certainly at some point. As far as we know, there are still no results for those categories.

Can you give us some insight? This question came up a lot, the question of what constitutes "good" reporting. The judges who say "none of these stories warranted an award" seems short sighted and frankly, ignorant, given that our logistics are so different in Alaska.

Ok, all of this rambling is to say, people are starting to feel that it isn't worth paying the entry fee to get absolutely no feedback, or to be criticized by people who have never tried to report in rural Alaska. Constructive criticism is great, but to slam a whole slew of reporters from small Alaska stations seems counter productive.

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Links and questions...

On the right I've put links to some Alaska news outlets, but it's not complete; please let me know of other news outlets I overlooked or don't know about. I'm especially foggy on commercial broadcast outlets with news in Southeast and Fairbanks (and may have missed some in Anchorage). Just reply to this post or e-mail me at jay.barrett@kmxt.org.

Regarding blogs... The New York Times and Anchorage Daily News have jumped into blogs with both feet, so blogs by reporters seems like a no-brainer. But what about independents? The question kind of gets to the heart of if bloggers are journalists. There are blogs more about commentary and punditry than about news... should their like be listed?

Questions, questions. I'm sure there'll be more.

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Our blog

I am looking for suggestions of what to make of our blog. Ideas are recent controversies or problems. For example, last week the Sitka Sentinel dealt with an issue about how the assembly had construed the open meeings law. They went into executive session, but never came out and voted on what they had discussed, which is what is supposed to happen.
I would like to see discussions and postings of events. Another recent example: Jim Avery, a University of Oklahoma professor of advertising who has done a lot of research and creative work around the world, was in Anchorage last week. We could have posted that and gotten more people from journalism or even from the business side of journalism to attend.

I'm excited about this blog, but our mission now is to tell people about it.

I'd also like to get more photos of Alaska journalists in action on the site and links to Alaska journalism Web sites or other media blogs.

Thanks!

Jay,

Thanks for creating this Alaska Press Club Blog. Hopefully, we'll be able to use it to keep folks up to date about J-Week... and discuss journalistic issues that affect us all.

Thanks for stepping up to do this.

Rhonda McBride

Welcome

Welcome to the new Alaska Press Club blog.

Paola will be posting here soon with what direction she'd like it to take, and I think it'll include having members post as well. Feel free to share your ideas in the comment section.


-- Jay

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