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J-Week 2010 Radio Track

THURSDAY, May 6 – APTI

Conference Room, APTI Building, 3877 University Drive
8:30 a.m.: Light breakfast and introductions.

9-10:15 a.m.: Making basic stories more interesting, with NPR’s Tom Goldman: How to find the human elements, real-world impacts and other aspects of otherwise dry topics.

10:30-11:45 a.m.: Concise radio reporting, with Northwest News Network’s Tom Banse: Identifying the most important elements of a story amongst a myriad of possibilities. How to stay on track, avoid tangents and identify which audio to use. (Bring a script to edit.)

Noon-1:15 p.m. Lunch group listening session, with NNN’s Tom Banse and NPR’s Tom Goldman: Our guest trainers play and discuss reports that serve as examples of new, different or just plain great radio news approaches.

1:30-2:30 p.m.: Sweeten the sound, with APRN’s Dave Waldron: Audio processing with Adobe Audition and CoolEdit, plus how to get better sound in the first place, including phone audio.

2:45-4 p.m.: APRN in the present and future, with APRN’s Lori Townsend: What’s happening with the network, what it can do to better support station news staff, and what station news staff can do better to help APRN. Also, plans for series or other group projects.

4-5:30 p.m.: Listening session #1: One-on-one coaching (sign up early) sessions with NPR’s Tom Goldman, NNN’s Tom Banse, CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld, KTOO’s Rosemarie Alexander or APRN’s Dave Donaldson. Those not in individual sessions can be part of a group listening session. Bring scripts and reports for feedback.

FRIDAY, May 7 at APTI

8:30 a.m.: Light breakfast and introductions.

9-9:50 a.m.: Multimedia options for small radio stations, moderated by APRN’s Annie Feidt: What works best to enhance online coverage. With Annie Feidt on video, KMXT’s Jay Barrett on posting scripts and Ed Schoenfeld on links, photos and extra audio.

10-10:50 a.m.: The ethics and practice of editing audio, with CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld: How and when to make actualities shorter and more concise. Keeping context and the speaker’s voice while editing to make it easier for the listener to hear and understand.

11 a.m.-noon: Listening session #2: One-on-one coaching (sign up early) sessions with Tom Goldman, Tom Banse, Ed Schoenfeld, Annie Feidt, Lori Townsend or Rosemarie Alexander. Those not in individual sessions can be part of a group listening session. Bring scripts and reports for feedback.

11 a.m.-noon: Covering the Capitol, with APRN’s Dave Donaldson: Tips and tools for covering local or regional issues in the Legislature and the Capitol from your location station.

FRIDAY, May 7 afteroon – Radio track moves to UAA

Move to University of Alaska Lee Gorsuch Commons, 3700 Sharon Gagnon Lane, west of Elmore Road between Tudor Road and Providence Drive.

1:30-2:50 p.m.: Making local sports more interesting, with NPR’s Tom Goldman: Moving beyond scores and coach interviews. Using but not overusing sound. Bringing a broader approach to sports reporting.

3-4:20 p.m.: On the road again panel, moderated by CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld: Reporting from communities you don’t know well without falling into the traps of parachute journalism. How to plan and explain your role to people who don’t understand how news media works. With Northwest News Network’s Tom Banse and APRN’s Annie Feidt.

SATURDAY – Radio track continues at UAA

Saturday, May 8, University of Alaska Gorsuch Commons, Sharon Gagnon Lane

Noon: Native issues panel, moderated by APRN’s Lori Townsend: Three panelists to be announced.

J-Week writing workshop leader provides story links for session

Kevin Fagan, reporter from the SF Chronicle, is teaching two workshops for print journalists at JWeek 2010. One session is on the art of storytelling and truthtelling; the second one is on how to keep a fresh perspective despite contracting newsrooms and declining resources. This reporter says he's having a great time being a reporter after 30 years on the job, and can report that the SF Chronicle is no longer losing $1M a week. Kevin says they've turned the corner and are making money, thanks to a blend of print and online strategies.

Here are the two story links he'll talk about in the Storytelling workshop:

Giants' Villalona enmeshed in hometown slay case
Shame of the City, Homeless Island

Here are three shorter essays that address the 2nd workshop on keeping a fresh perspective:

Why I go to executions
Writer misses Jill's skinny hugs
Reason to smile, Rita Grant's teeth were a raw reminder of her brutal years on the streets

The full workshop schedule will be posted by Friday.

Alaska Press Club list of presenters for J-WEEK 2010

Lots of info here on our keynote speaker Robin Sloan, and our array of presenters. Panels are still coming together, and we may still have a few presenters surface. Next step is working them all into a coherent schedule. H-E-L-P!

Anyway, here is the link to take a look and start thinking about who you want to meet and talk to at J-Week, May 6-7-8.

http://alaskapressclub.org/index.php/conference/

NY Times Blog, Bay Area, says this region is ground zero for nonprofit journalism

Story link:
Bay Area emerges as center for nonprofit journalism

Besides being interesting in light of this new if shaky environment for journalism, I point out this story because it mentions SF Public Press.

One of our 2010 J-Week presenters, Suzanne Yada, is a member of the steering committee for SF Public Press where she is a social media strategist for them. Suzanne was a full-time professional newspaper copyeditor in Visalia, California, doing feature and A-1 news layouts, when she decided to go back to school. She will graduate in May with a B.S. in journalism and a minor in business. She moderates a weekly nation-wide Twitter conversation from 8-10 p.m. Monday nights on college journalism under the Twitter hash tag #collegejourn. Recently she was invited by a University of Oregon journalism professor to participate in an online panel on Twitter and journalism. Her blog provides the link, and a window into how new journalists are thinking about breaking news.

Her bio:
Suzanne Yada is a social media strategist for SF Public Press, an independent nonprofit news organization in San Francisco. She is also the online editor for the Spartan Daily, San Jose State University's daily newspaper. She comes from a print background, having been a copy editor and designer at a daily community paper in Central California for three years. She's also been involved in at least eight different media-related startups. She blogs and tweets about the future of the journalism industry at suzanneyada.com and twitter.com/suzanneyada.
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Stay tuned, more info will be coming onto the blog and onto the Alaska Press Club Web site over the next week as we highlight the presenters coming for the conference May 6-7-8 at APRN/UAA.

Poynter Institute visual journalist offers free workshop in Anchorage on April 16

Who: Poynter visual journalist Sara Quinn will be in Anchorage/Fairbanks April 12-16 as a visiting Atwood Professor.

What: She is giving a free workshop for any and all interested local media on VISUAL JOURNALISM in Anchorage on Friday, April 16 at the UAA campus. This workshop is co-sponsored by the Alaska Press Club.

When: Friday, April 16, 2-4 p.m.

Where: UAA Fine Arts Building, Room 117.
Parking is free on the UAA campus on Fridays. There is a ginormous parking lot and a parking garage right next to the UAA Arts Building, so quick arrival and quick getaways will be easy. Enter the campus at the traffic light at Providence Drive and Alumni Way (close to the UAA Consortium Library). Another entrance is off UAA Drive, turn left BEFORE you go under the overhead spine, and follow that road around until you see the Arts Building and the Arts Building parking structure at the far east end of the campus.

Workshop Description: This workshop is suitable for anybody looking for a visual way to tell a story. She will talk about appropriate media that fit the story -- from print graphics and lists, to audio, video and non-linear multimedia storytelling available only on the Web. She's been given a list of local news Web sites to peruse before her arrival. She was excited to get it, so I suspect she will take a look to see what sort of visual storytelling is going on here online and may refer to some local sites in her talk. Not a definite, but she seemed very willing to take a look. She is also hopeful the session can be interactive, not one-way.

This workshop is available to anyone who needs to tell a story with the newest tools.

Link: Sara Quinn's page at Poynter is http://www.poynter.org/seminar/faculty.asp?id=84220

Public Talk at the Wendy Williamson: Quinn will address the new direction of journalism on Monday, April 12 at 7:30 pm at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium, with a dessert reception beginning at 7. This event is free and open to the public. Her topic that evening is New Challenges, New Passions for a New Journalism, about how young media professionals can prepare themselves for careers that have yet to be clearly defined. She’ll explain how the forms of storytelling and business models will change, but how the need will always be there for people to understand the world around them. She is spending a week at UAA as the visiting Atwood Chair for the Department of Journalism and Public Communications. Through the Atwood Foundation, created in 1962, Bob Atwood funded the Atwood Chair with yearly donations to further the cause of educating the next generation of Alaska reporters and editors.
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Being an entrepreneurial journalist: more free training

At the J-Week conference May 6-7-8 in Anchorage we will have a session on the journalist as an entrepreneur (necessary due to the decline of journalism institutions that employ journalists). Here is a free interactive, online workshop for business journalists who want to understand this concept. If you are starting out in your career, this may be a tool you want in your toolkit.

Sign up for it here. Below are some details from their Web site. The seminar is in August, one hour a day, available at two times during the day, for five days.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

Monday: Figuring Out the Nuts and Bolts – Maya Smart will lead you through the legal and accounting aspects of setting up a journalism-based business, including how to structure and incorporate your business; what to watch for in contracts, including the issue of electronic rights; getting health, libel, and disability insurance; and figuring out what equipment and software you need.

Tuesday: Maintaining Your Social and Mental Health – Maya Smart offers tips on relationship building, dealing with isolation (home office or not?) and rejection, as well as handling ethical concerns. Are there worthwhile organizations to join?

Wednesday: Marketing Yourself – Maya Smart tells you how to find clients who will pay you well and on time and discusses whether you should specialize in a niche to make yourself more efficient. What topics are selling well now, and does multimedia reporting pay?

Thursday: Branding Yourself – Joe Grimm will teach you how to define your brand as a journalist, including what you need to do to establish yourself as an expert and how to promote your brand via social media and other means.

Friday: Live Chat with Successful Journalist Entrepreneurs – Joe Grimm will host a live chat with five successful business journalists turned entrepreneurs. Listen as these entrepreneurial journalists tell their stories to Joe Grimm.

Free Investigative Business Journalism workshop, Portland, May 7

May 7 in Portland, Ore.: Join Pulitzer winner Gary Cohn and former Washington Post investigative reporter Alec Klein in this daylong workshop, “Investigative Business Journalism on a Beat,” as they walk you through the steps to successful investigative business stories. These two top reporters turned journalism professors will take you through the investigative story from start to finish: refining and pitching an idea, developing and interviewing sources, plumbing public documents, and organizing and presenting the story effectively in multimedia. Come with an idea for an investigative project, and leave with a story pitch to take back to your editors. The emphasis will be on pursuing investigations while still covering your beat.
· June 9 in Las Vegas: Come an afternoon early for the Investigative Reporters and Editors annual conference and polish your investigative business reporting skills with Alec Klein in this condensed version of “Investigative Business Journalism on a Beat.”
Both free workshops are sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, but you must sign up at BusinessJournalism.org. Space is limited.

Poynter visual journalist Sara Quinn will be visiting Atwood Professor

Here's is an early head's up on some free web visual training in Anchorage. The committee that oversees the Atwood Chair at the University of Alaska Anchorage has decided to bring up a visual journalist for a week of residency at UAA and a visit to UAF. Her name is Sara Quinn and she teaches at the Poynter Institute. She'll visit classes at both university campuses and give a public talk on Monday, April 12. But there are now plans afoot for her to give a free workshop to local media on Friday, April 16 from 12:45-3:45 p.m.

Whether you write, video, photograph or plan layouts for the web, this class could be useful to you. We'll update as the specifics are nailed down.

The Alaska Press Club is a co-sponsor of this open workshop. It will likely be held in Fine Arts Building, and parking at UAA is free on Fridays. Quinn's visit is being arranged by Dr. Fred Pearce of the Journalism and Public Communications Department on behalf of the Atwood Chair committee.

All expenses paid seminar on covering the 'Green Economy'

Seminar dates: June 28-30
Deadline to apply: April 26
Where: Arizona State University, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm
Why:

“The volume of press releases and other pitches that business journalists get from companies saying they are doing something to be green has exploded in recent years,” said Linda Austin, executive director of the Reynolds Center. “Those attending this seminar will be better prepared to question those claims and assess the responses.”

Who is paying: McCormick Foundation
Link to press release

This is entry week for Alaska Press Club

Friday, Feb. 19 is the postmark deadline for entries in the Alaska Press Club. Entries should be from Jan. 1 2009-through Dec. 31, 2009. You can mail them to the Press Club PO Box on the entry form, or drop them at the Associated Press office at 750 W. Second Ave in downtown Anchorage. Thank you AP!

Note, we did not arrange the protocols with APTI for radio entries to be filed on their servers, so radio entries need to be mailed in or dropped off.

Thank you!

Feb. 4 is deadline for Alaska Professional Communicator's 2010 contest

This note comes to us from Alaska Professional Communicators, a local group that affiliates with a national press association and its annual competition. Here is the deadline and rules for their annual competition, as provided by their member, Elise Patkotak:

See How Your Work Compares With the Best!
Have you done something at work this past year that you're especially proud of? Ever wonder how it would stack up against the best in Alaska and the nation? Then the Alaska Professional Communicators' 2010 contest is for you.

Alaska Professional Communicators, formerly Alaska Press Women, is made up of both women and men in journalism, writing, photography, public relations, and related fields. For more than 30 years the organization has offered a contest in many categories of communication with winning entries going to the national competition run by the National Federation of Press Women.

The contest is open to all Alaska resident communicators, not just APC members. (Contestants who win first place at the state level must join APC to compete nationally.) The contest includes 78 categories for print journalists, Web writers, book authors, photographers, and more. There's a separate Collegiate Contest for college undergraduates.
Winners get feedback from recognized experts from outside Alaska, as well as certificates and recognition from their peers. Entry fees are low--$20 for APC members, $30 for nonmembers.

The deadline for entering is Feb. 4. Complete contest information is at http://www.akprocom.org/commcontests.php.

Alaska Press Club 2010 news

Thank you for your patience as the Alaska Press Club organizes for J-week 2010, the journalism competition and the annual conference of workshops and banquet.

Here's some current information:

CONTEST DEADLINE: Alaska Press Club entries must be postmarked by Friday, Feb. 19, 2010. The membership form and the contest entry form are both available as PDFs for download from this page. Review contest rules in the December 2008 Polar Bear available by PDF on this page.


CONFERENCE DATES: J-Week will be Thursday through Saturday, May 6 - 8 in two locations. Thursday, May 6, with a focus on radio, will be held at APTI (home of APRN, KSKA, KAKM). While the focus is on radio reporting, all APC members are welcome. The conference moves to Rasmuson Hall on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus for May 7-8, Friday and Saturday. We have the option of using this space on Sunday, May 9, if we have any spillover workshops.