Peter Dunlap-Shohl: Limits make you creative

If you missed the real-time version of Dunlap-Shohl’s talk on how he navigated medical and professional brick walls to come out the other side into one of his most creative periods ever, you didn’t really. Thanks to cyberspace, you can listen to his UAA talk here. Your experience will be greatly enhanced by going to his blog and reading the entry titled “Exiled from my comfort zone: Finding creativity where I least expected it.” There you can follow along with the speech and open the links to the artwork (political cartoons, evolving into animation and films as he progressed).

Dunlap-Shohl’s hardships and subsequent resilience are absolute metaphors for the news industry today. As he learned how to use new tools to do what he used to do, he discovered the tools could do far more. He describes an awakening—“Why would I use a $2,000 machine to reproduce a 19th century version of my work.” Instead, he used the computer to “move into the 21st century.”

More on Anne Kilkenny

The Press Club has announced a special recognition of Anne Kilkenny for her citizen involvement in providing information during the 2008 presidential election campaign on vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Kilkenny wrote an email to friends answering basic questions about Palin; her email rapidly went viral in a climate that was hungry for information about this suddenly emerging Republican VP candidate.

For those wishing to refresh their memories on Anne's original email, you can still find it on the Anchorage Daily News site here.

In addition, below is a later FAQ that Anne provided, threaded with many additional links to information about Sarah Palin.

November 5, 2008

Hello,

Thank you for emailing me with your thoughts and questions about Sarah Palin. I have received over 14,200 emails in response to my email of 8/31 which "went viral"!

I apologize for the hideous length of this "FAQ" email. If I don't address one of your questions it is because I don't know the answer. (I do not open attachments, as some have attempted to send me viruses, so I cannot comment on anything in your attachment.)

I know Sarah Palin in her public roles, not socially, so I don't know about--and am unwilling to research—personal, family, and church issues; I suggest that you buy the National Enquirer if those issues are of interest and importance to you.

I had already been a college graduate for over a decade when Palin was point guard on the Wasilla High basketball team; we didn't go to school together. My husband's youngest sister was one of her classmates, however.

Who are you?
I am a real person, part of the Kilkenny Family of northern California, who has lived in Wasilla, Alaska, since 1981. Wasilla is about 45 miles from Anchorage, on the road to Fairbanks. And, yes, if you've taken the train to Denali or driven from Anchorage to Fairbanks, you've been through Wasilla.

Since the beginning of September you might have seen clips of me on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, the Today Show, and Good Morning, America. You also might have heard me on NPR, Pacific Radio, and several satellite radio programs. All of these organizations approached me, thanks to those of you who forwarded my email to them.

I am the writer of an email dated August 31, 2008, about Sarah Palin that went “viral." SOME PEOPLE HAVE RECEIVED A DISTORTED, EDITED VERSION OF THIS EMAIL, and there was no photo attached to my email. I urge you to go to the website listed below to see what I actually wrote (with an Addendum I wrote on Sept 9th) and confirmation that I am who I say I am. (My original email and addendum are also included at the end of this email.)

_ HYPERLINK http://community.adn.com/adn/node/130537

On Sept 4th, I asked the Anchorage Daily News if they would post on their website my original email. I asked them to do this for several reasons:

1) They are the largest newspaper in Alaska;
2) They are not aligned with either party;
3) I was being told that people were changing what I wrote; and
4) Importantly--they know me. When I go to City Council meetings there is always a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News there; they can verify that I am a resident of Wasilla and frequently to go City Council and other meetings.

If you go to Snopes.com you will see that they have updated their report and apologized to me.

I HAVE NEVER BLOGGED. I DO NOT HAVE A WEBSITE. If you find other things with my name attached, it is campaign dirty tricks. I've also just been informed that if you click on some google links in my name some disgusting, dirty material is automatically downloaded. I have NOTHING to do with this garbage!

I am NOT working for either campaign; however, by now I assume they both are aware of my email as many of you have told me that you have forwarded it to them. I am not a spokesperson for any group. Nobody connected with either campaign suggested that I write my email, nobody has paid me, and nobody has asked me to stop answering my email. Sitting next to my keyboard as I type, however, is the most beautiful bouquet of flowers which were sent to me by a total stranger in Connecticut in appreciation for the time I put into writing it!

I always vote. My commitment to my family has precluded me from running for office until my family is grown.

How and why did you write your email?

My piece about Sarah Palin evolved over a three-day period in response to questions I got from friends and relatives who live outside Alaska. By the afternoon of the third day I was getting replies from friends of friends of friends—in other words, people who didn't know me—and they were asking, "Who are you?" and "Why did you write this?" So I added sections to my email to address those questions and then sent it out to about 30 people on my email list with whom I had not yet communicated. Within a couple of hours, somebody posted against my wishes this version of my email on a website. From there, it was posted on numerous other websites.

I had no idea it would "go viral." For years, I had drafted PTA newsletters that went electronically to hundreds of people, and they never went viral! In fact, I have reason to believe most of the time they weren't even read! Ha!

What has been the feedback from people who just received your email randomly, and in Wasilla?

When I wrote my email I asked that it not be posted because I thought there were a lot of kooks out there. Yes, there are kooks, but they are vastly outnumbered by wonderful people. America is full of unsung heroes, people who have made huge sacrifices for the common good: I know, because many of them have sent me their stories. I doubt that anything I'll ever write will ever be read by so many, but if that should happen, I will not fear it.

On September 30, 2008, there was a story in the LA Times about all the email I have received; that story gave the IN-accurate impression that I have been inundated by "hate" mail. (I should have suspected that a distorted story was being concocted when the reporter only wanted to see the nasty emails that I had received.) The vast majority (92 percent) of people who reply to my email tell me that it helped them decide whom to vote for.

Here, in Wasilla, many people have thanked me for providing them with answers that they could give to the many inquiries that they are getting from friends and relatives in the Lower 48. There have been awkward moments, but no one has been nasty.

Critics of my email who like and agree with Sarah Palin have not been able to identify a single compliment that I failed to give her. Critics of my email who dislike and disagree with Sarah Palin have mentioned to me many negative and critical things that I either didn't know about or considered not important enough to mention.

I do not know the writers of other widely distributed emails about Palin; none of the writers of the emails I've seen went to City Council meetings regularly.

What do people say about you in your town?

People in Wasilla say that I have long been an active and involved citizen who does her homework. Some people in positions of authority who don't like to have anyone questioning them would say I can be a pain. One of Palin's best friends calls me a "nut case."

Would you say that you dislike Palin, or respect her?

I have tremendous respect for Sarah Palin—for what she has accomplished, for her political skills, for her energy, her time management skills, her speaking ability--there's lots to admire!

There is a difference between disliking and disagreeing.

I don't agree with Palin on social issues and political philosophy because I am a fiscal conservative and social liberal.

Some people have picked up on my irritation, but most are mistaken as to its cause. I am very frustrated about the incessant "spin" and "image control" that permeates campaigns. What gets me is when people claim to be—or are portrayed as—something that they aren't!

What would happen if you ran into Palin in the street?

Sarah and I always had friendly social conversation. I don't know what would happen if I ran into Sarah Palin on the street now because it appears that running for VP has changed her. She is being "handled" now. For my part, I would apologize for my use of the word "hate.” (See my addendum to my email for an explanation of this.)

How do you know anything?

I have been a Wasilla resident since 1981. In 1996-97, during Palin's first year as Mayor, I went to many City Council meetings because I was the author of a new chapter in the City of Wasilla Municipal Code, and it took about a year to shepherd this new code through the City Council. (It passed unanimously). Prior to and after that, I went to meetings sporadically: when there was something on the agenda of interest to me and around election time.

Can you verify the truth of what you wrote?

Your request for facts to check is appropriate and fair. I have been interviewed by many (three dozen???) newspapers, and NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN (but not FOX yet). I have supplied them with all the names of the individuals involved in each of the situations I describe so they could fact-check what I wrote. I suggest that you go to the following sites to check out what the mainstream media has reported. (I am so impressed with the reporters I've met; they are literally working around the clock to get to get up to speed and to prove/disprove the things I wrote about.)

I have become aware of some factual, grammatical, and personal errors in my email which I have shared with several fact-checking websites. You be the judge if these errors are substantial and significant. These errors are addressed below and in the addendum to my email which is posted on the Anchorage Daily News website referenced above and is included below.


THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE WRITE UP OF SARAH PALIN is in Wikipedia at:

_ HYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

I've read many Palin biographies since she was named, and this is one of the most complete, but it is rather lengthy:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/10/uselections2008-sarahpalin1

A shorter story dense with facts and information about Sarah Palin's first six months as Mayor can be found at:

_ HYPERLINK http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008163431_palin070.html

Another story about her mayorship can be found at:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/17/palin_mayor/

A more comprehensive look at her terms as Wasilla's Mayor and her 20 months as governor can be found in a NY Times story that appeared 9/14/08, and can be accessed at the website below:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1221415398-aXQkakmNv2hz9SVPQ1KEuw



This is a fact checking site that covers many Palin topics of interest:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/09/palin_v_reality.php

To read what Sarah Palin has said on various hot topics, you can go to

_ HYPERLINK http://www.ontheissues.org/sarah_Palin.htm#Immigration

I'm sorry, but I cannot validate any of the many other quotes that have been attributed to Palin that people have asked me about.

Politifact and Factcheck have checked out my revenue and expense numbers for the City of Wasilla. You'd think that numbers would be the easiest thing to check: NOT! I said general government expenditures rose 33%, Politifact says 55% and Factcheck says 23%. I said tax revenues increased 38%, Politifact said 43% and Factcheck said 29%. You can check out their reports for yourself at:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/705/
_ HYPERLINK http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_about_that_anne_kilkenny_e-mail.html


ABOUT THE LIBRARY BOOK BANNING ISSUE. . . .

Below is a link to a segment from Good Morning, America on Sept. 10, 2008, which
covers the attempted book banning and attempted firing of the librarian.

It is accurate to the best of my knowledge; however, I can't confirm or deny that the named books were the target(s).

_ HYPERLINK http://www.acakadut.com/videos/v-VcdqcXZ1jqU/Ross-on-Palin-ABC-09-10-09.html

Did the Mayor ask the Librarian about removing books from the Wasilla Public Library?

Yes. Members of Palin's church had been pushing for the removal of some books for sale at bookstores, were checking books out of the library and not returning them to remove them from circulation, and were redacting sections of books that they found offensive. I was a witness to one of the occasions on which Mayor Palin asked the Librarian about removing books from the collection. My recollection was that Mayor Palin stated that there were books in the library that shouldn't be there, and she asked the Librarian what the procedure was for removing books from the collection.

Stories in the Anchorage Daily News & Frontiersman newspapers report that Mayor Palin asked such a question. Snopes reports that the McCain campaign also acknowledges that she did this.

Was there a list of books?

Not as far as I know. I've always said I didn't know of any, Gov Palin says there was no list, and the list in circulation looks bogus because some of the books on it weren't even published at that time. In recent weeks, many people I respect have come forward to say that the members of Palin's church who were pushing book banning were focused on books about homosexuality; I find this believable, but cannot confirm it.

Were any books removed from the Library?

No. Not as far as I know. The City also says books were never removed. If you read carefully what I wrote, you will see that I said that she "attempted" to censor the collection, not that she actually was able to.

What does Palin say?

Conflicting things. At the time that all this happened, Palin acknowledged to both of the local newspapers that she had asked the librarian about removing books from the library; she said that her questions were "rhetorical". After she was named the VP candidate, the campaign acknowledged that Palin had asked about removing books. However, ABC News broadcast video of her telling Charles Gibson that all of this was an "old wives tale" and on 10/24 she told Brian Williams, " . . .my alleged attempts to censor books: of course, that never happened."

What remains in dispute?

Mayor Palin's motives for discussing censorship of the library collection remain in dispute. Palin claims her questions were rhetorical. Her question sure didn't sound rhetorical to me!

A rhetorical question elicits an explanation in response, and after an explanation is received the question doesn't need to be asked again, but this question was, by Palin's admission, asked more than once. A challenge elicits a defense; the librarian responded defensively. Now, too, it seems that Palin disputes that she ever asked the librarian about removing books from the collection.

Palin also says that the community reaction to her attempt to fire the Librarian had nothing to do with the fact that she fired the Librarian one day and rehired her the next.

What about Palin's approval rating?

The reason for Palin's past high approval ratings in Alaska and her ability to draw people to campaign rallies are similar. Governor Palin is a very attractive, warm person, with lots of charisma. People who have met her on the campaign trail or know her only socially generally like her. It is in her official roles that she becomes the pit bull in lipstick.

Few people have the time to observe government in action. She used to work at the largest TV station; media coverage here had been pretty complimentary prior to her announcement as McCain's running mate. It was thanks to reporters from outside that we learned how she claimed per diem while living in her own home because she didn't want to live in the governor's mansion.

Local polsters are predicting that her approval rating in Alaska will be below 50% by the election if current trends continue. Recent news that she uses personal BlackBerries for transacting state business so she won't have to supply copies of her emails has many questioning her claim to "open and transparent" decision-making and governing. Her claim that she was "vindicated" in the Troopergate report (see below) has people questioning her intelligence and/or veracity. Her approval rating has dropped 20 points since 9/2, to 62%, and even in Wasilla there is widespread disenchantment about her.

What do other Alaskans say?

A pro-Palin story by an Alaskan can be found at:
_ HYPERLINK http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_deb_frost_on_palin.htm

This link is to a story by an Alaskan who is not a Palin fan:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/11/sarah_palin_alaska/print.html


On Sept 13, 2008, pro- and anti-Palin rallies were held in Anchorage and the anti-Palin rally was the larger; some say this is because there had been many pro-Palin rallies already.

Reporters tell me that they are having a very hard time finding anyone in
Wasilla who will speak on record in support of Palin: this is the exact opposite of how it was here 3 weeks ago. The following story may shed light on why this is so.

_ HYPERLINK http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-troopergate21-2008sep21,0,829160.story


What about aerial wolf-hunting in Alaska?

I personally oppose aerial hunting for sport. The recent aerial wolf hunting issue on the ballot was not about sport hunting. It was about whether or not only State Fish & Game employees would be allowed to shoot wolves from planes when there are emergencies and packs of wolves are roaming through villages, threatening kids and eating alive family pets while they are chained, or when there is the danger people will be unable to find adequate meat due to excessive wolf preditation.

It is hard for people who have not been to Alaska to grasp how remote and inaccessible many of our small villages are; aerial hunting is the only practical way to address such emergencies in the bush. This was NOT a hunting issue; it was a prey management issue. I think it highly unlikely that Palin has participated in any aerial predator management hunts.

What about Palin’s funding for students with special needs?

It is true that the Alaska State Legislature increased funding for Special Needs education this year; this was on the recommendation of a special education task force that Palin set up. When Palin took office in 2006, the state was spending about $27,000 a year per child. The budget she signed this year raised that funding to about $49,000 per child. In three years, the amount will rise to about $74,000, which is roughly equal to the yearly per-child cost of educating special needs children.

So, yes, there was an increase; however, since the increase in funding for educating students with special needs doesn't yet cover the cost, there will be no improvement in services. And, given the inflation we are seeing, by the time the amount of funding covers the current cost, the cost will be higher! (The deficit in funding is made up by shifting funds for general education to special needs education.)

Since having declared herself an advocate for children with special needs, I expect Palin will start taking a leading role in improving services and funding.

The reduction in the Wasilla property tax rate didn't reduce education funding. School funding is the responsibility of the State Legislature. The Borough (county) contributes about 25% from BOROUGH property taxes. City property taxes pay for city government and services, not schools.

What about charging rape victims for tests?

Yes, during Palin's mayorship it was the policy of the City of Wasilla to have rape victim's insurance pay for their rape tests. When this was brought to the attention of a member of the State Legislature, he authored legislation, which was passed, making this practice illegal. At that time, the media reported that Palin's Police Chief fought this legislation, saying it would cost the City $4,000 to $15,000 to pay for rape tests.

I don't know why Police Chief Fannon said it would cost $4,000 to $15,000 unless he had already billed women that much; however, the City is saying that it can't find any evidence anyone was ever charged. (Unfortunately, former Police Chief Fannon is not answering questions.) Mayor Palin reviewed all department budgets line by line; I find it hard to believe that Palin wasn't aware of this issue, especially when Cheif Fannon was being quoted in the press about it.

I find it amusing that campaign operatives who couldn't even have found Wasilla on a map a not long ago now profess to know all about what was going on here during Palin's mayorship up to 12 years ago!

This is a link to a video on the rape kits issue:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.wasillaproject.com/

Why do Alaskans favor drilling in the pristine areas of Alaska?
Does Sarah?

Like most Alaskans, Sarah Palin accepts the necessity of drilling in ANWR.

Let's put drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) into perspective. If Alaska was superimposed over the lower 48 states, the Aleutian chain would extend west into the Pacific Ocean beyond San Diego, the southeastern panhandle would be in northern Florida, and I'd be somewhere in the midwest. So, do I object to drilling in northern Minnesota? No. Put this way, do you?

Do I want the drilling pad to be kept as small as possible? YES! Prudhoe Bay IS ugly: very, very ugly! But what's our choice? The reality is that drilling isn't pretty, but we need oil. Where else are we going to get oil? Shall we pay through the nose to get it from foreigners?

The Anchorage Daily News characterizes Palin as "a very pale shade of green." Some say that the only thing green about her is her lack of experience.

What about Wasilla’s Multi-use Sports Complex?

Mayor Palin has taken credit for having built the Wasilla Multi-use Sports Complex, so it seems to me that she should take the responsibility for its costs. When Palin ran for Mayor part of her platform was infrastructure improvements and small government. The Mayor controls the agenda of the City Council. She put bonding for a sports complex on the agenda and she encouraged the Council to pass it so that the voters could vote on it.

She did this knowing that passage of these bonds would make it impossible for the City to bond for any other project (like the sewage treatment plant) for many years. The bonds and increase in sales tax passed with a margin of under 20 votes. Palin then directed the construction of this complex before clear title to the land had been obtained; settling the title issue has cost us about $1.3 million so far.

How would you characterize Palin in one sentence?

I consider Palin a very successful, extremely attractive and charismatic social conservative who has campaigned on—or put aside—her core values as was politically expedient and who has overseen expanded government and budgets that were financed with tax increases, borrowing and earmark appropriations.

Other various questions

•Yes, Palin received $17,000 "per diem" for living in her house rather
than in the Governor's mansion. This was legal.

•Yes, the AP reports that the taxpayers of Alaska paid over $21,000 for travel expenses to send the Palin children to events.

•Wasilla has a strong mayor form of government; the mayor is full-time and
is paid $75k (now, $64-68 then), significantly more than the local average
income. The Administrator Mayor Palin hired to run Wasilla (pop. 4,800-5,400)
was also full-time and paid well by local standards ($50k).

•In 2006, Palin won 114,697 (48.33%) to 97,238 (40.07%) for governor in a three-way race.

•I've been repeatedly asked if I could verify the accuracy of a racist, sexist comment that is being attributed to Palin. I cannot either confirm or deny that she made this crude comment.

•Her husband (Todd Palin) was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (not Sarah); she did attend the AIP convention in 1994. AIP party officials have retracted their statement that Palin was a member at one time.

•Yes, Palin’s husband is part Alaska Native (Yup'ik Eskimo)

•Palin’s children attend public schools. Wasilla High's enrollment is approaching 1,300.

•According to Wikipedia, Sarah Palin attended four colleges and took five yrs to complete a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication-Journalism in 1987. For more info on her college years go to:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/05/palin_well_traveled_during_her_college_years/


•Yes, the Palins were members, until 2002, of the evangelical and non-denominational Wasilla Assembly of God church, where some speak in tongues. This church was the largest church in the area at the time and among the most politically involved; however, it was/is not a part of any of the local church-sponsored organizations (Food Bank, Valley Christian Coalition, Family Promise, etc.). Now she attends the non-denominational evangelical, though not Pentecostal or charismatic, Wasilla Bible Church.

While in Juneau, Palin attends an Assemblies of God church. More information about her church affiliations can be found at:

_ HYPERLINK http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122048406528596987.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_leftbox


•No, the photo of Sarah in a bikini with a rifle is not real; it was a photoshop job.

•She said "no thanks" to the "Bridge to Nowhere" only after Congress had abandoned it and had agreed to let Alaska keep the $223 million anyway. The money went into the State's transportation budget pot.

•The deal with the jet is that Palin TRIED to sell it on ebay, but it didn't sell, so she sold it through a broker, at a loss.

•Yes, I did use KidsVoting one year (1996), but after that developed a more specialized and localized program which also covered local and state offices and was based on Alaska Voter Registration documents and used actual sample ballots.


About Ethics

•It's true: the man she blew the whistle on when she chaired the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, Randy Ruedrick, is STILL the state chair of the Alaska Republican Party. No party reforms have been made.

•It was the FBI that brought indictments against Alaska’s corrupt legislators; Palin had no role in this whatsoever.

•The ethics legislation which was passed was championed by a bipartisan coalition led by the State Senate President, Lyda Green, a Republican and an early mentor of Palin with whom Palin now spars and has sought to unseat.

"Troopergate"

Troopergate is about an abuse of power and violation of Alaska's ethics law. This spring Palin fired Alaska's top cop, Walt Monegan. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him. An independent legislative investigator, however, determined that prior to the firing, Palin, her husband, and members of her staff abused their power by pressuring Monegan to fire Palin's sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper.

The report says that Palin "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda," that she violated the ethics law, and abused her power. The independent investigator's report was released by the Legislative Council of eight Republicans and four Democrats. A review of the investigator's report can be found at:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/us/politics/11trooper.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Had Palin initiated reforms, rather than attacked one rogue trooper, there would have been no "Troopergate." A piece about what Palin could have done—but didn't—to reform the troopers can be found at:

_ HYPERLINK http://www.adn.com/opinion/comment/story/560649.html

My errors and omissions (Factcheck identified these AFTER I reported them.)

•Contrary to some reports, Palin did not endorse ANY of the candidates in the race for Mayor of Wasilla after she was term-limited out. I should have identified Faye Palin (one of the candidates) as Sarah Palin's STEP mother-in-law.

•Laura Chase, Palin's campaign manager when Palin first ran for mayor, has convinced me that Palin had intended from the outset to hire an Administrator and was not "pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers", as I stated.

Forwarding/editing/blogging

Yes, you may forward my email to your friends and others who you think might be interested in its contents; thank you so much for asking! PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE IT OR EDIT IT IN ANY WAY, and that also means please DO NOT remove my name and email address!

If you want something shorter, write your own white paper and put YOUR name on it.

This may seem strange, but I'd rather you plagiarized me than quoted me out of context.

I remain very conflicted about giving permission to post my email on a website. I don't have time to check out all the blogs and websites that have requested permission to post it. Yet, I don't want to penalize the considerate and conscientious people who ask when so many (800+ I'm told) have not.

So, I am not going to give permission, but I am also not going to do anything if someone posts it without my permission. How you introduce what you post will influence how it is read. I tried to write a balanced piece; I hope you will respect that intent. I would prefer that you post the Addendum as well if you chose to post my original email.

I hope that I have adequately answered your questions and been a help to you in deciding which ticket you want to vote for. In this imperfect world there are no perfect candidates--unless one wants to run for office oneself!

Bottom-line is: Is Sarah Palin the person you want second in line for the presidency and able to handle our present financial crisis and two wars, if necessary?

I encourage you to get involved in the campaign of whichever candidate you support. The best decisions are made when people are informed and everyone participates. Hope lives so long as good people don't give up doing what they can to make this a better world. As someone who emailed me said, "It takes each of us to make a difference for all of us."

Anne Kilkenny
November 5, 2008

More info on David Cohn, banquet keynote speaker

The image at left is off David Cohn's online resume. Click through to find clips of his work, his social media experience, and the citizen journalism and crowdsourcing efforts he has been involved with.

"Our mission is to make sure that journalism survives the death of so many of its institutions."-- Spot.us founder David Cohn

• Spot.us is a nonprofit project of the Center for Media Change launched by David Cohn. He explains it:

  We are an open source project, to pioneer “community funded reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. All donations are tax deductible and if a news organization buys exclusive rights to the content, your donation will be reimbursed. Otherwise, all content is made available to all through a Creative Commons license. It’s a marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organizations can come together and collaborate.

  Cohn further explains the concept via YouTube video from the October, 2008 News Innovation conference at City University of New York.
  
• Digidave, his ongoing blog about journalism and where it's headed.
• David Cohn interviewing Leonard Witt of Representative Journalism.

Alaska Press Club J-Week March 26-29, 2009

This just in! Here's the latest on J-Week...

DATES:

Thursday, March 26th: Evening Reception
Friday, March 27th: Daytime Workshops, Evening Panel Discussion
Saturday, March 28th: Daytime Workshops, Awards Banquet.
Sunday, March 29th: Morning Workshops hosted at local news media outlets.

LOCATION: Most workshops and the banquet will be held at the Anchorage Senior Center. But a few workshops will be hosted at local news media outlets.

J-WEEK THEME:

ALASKA JOURNALISM IN TRANSITION: Finding New Ways to Make a Difference in Your Community.

Alaska journalists, like their counterparts across the nation, wonder what the future holds. How much of journalism as we know it today will exist tomorrow? How do we keep from becoming dinosaurs, yet evolve to keep alive the values that help us make a difference in the communities we serve? Many of this year's workshops will explore how to turn today's challenges into opportunities. Come to learn, reflect and recharge. And then go home to make a difference in your community.

WORKSHOP FEES: J-Week is FREE to Alaska Press Club members. Annual membership is $25 for working journalists. Daily Rate: $30 a day for non-members. $10 for students enrolled in high school or college. No charge for Anchorage Senior Citizen Center members.

BANQUET: Doors open at the Senior Center at 6:45pm. $30.00 in advance. Tickets at the door and for non-members: $35.00. To reserve tickets, email: rhonda9hats@mac.com.

BANQUET KEYNOTE: DAVID COHN. Written for Wired, Seed, Columbia Journalism Review and The New York Times. Founder of Spot.us, a non-profit that explores new models to pay for investigative reporting and public service journalism that has fallen by the wayside as mainstream media struggles to stay in the black.

PRESENTERS LINED UP SO FAR:

RICK BOWMER. Veteran photojournalist who works out of the AP Bureau in Portland. Bowmer has made the jump from still photography to incorporating video in AP?s multi-media efforts.

BILL DRUMMOND. Professor at University of California at Berkeley Covered the civil rights movement at the Louisville Courier-Journal. At the Los Angeles Times, worked as a local reporter, a bureau chief in New Delhi and Jerusalem and later a Washington correspondent. Founding editor of NPR?s Morning Edition. Currently researching ways to reduce stress in newsrooms.

ROBERT MEYEROWITZ. Snedden Professor at UAF. Former editor of the Anchorage Press. Worked for the Associated Press in Nicaragua and covered the civil war in El Salvador for National Public Radio.

CLARK MISCHLER. Well known Alaska photographer will present a workshop on photography basics, thay even experienced photojournalists say they find helpful.

LISA MARGONELLI. Writes about the global culture and economy of energy. Her book about the oil supply chain, Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank, was published by Nan Talese/Doubleday in 2007.

DEBORAH POTTER. Former television network news correspondent and founder of News Lab.

ED SCHOENFELD. News Director of Coast Alaska. Back for an encore. Will be developing sessions tooled to the needs of Alaska?s radio journalists.

PATRICK YACK. Current Atwood Fellow and leader of Florida?s highly successful open meetings and records movement.

More speakers, workshops and information to follow soon.

J-Week is coming up in March

The dates are set for March 26-28 (Thursday through Saturday), 2009.

Tune in for more details about J-Week.

In the meanwhile, you can join us in the social mediasphere on:

Twitter

Facebook

MySpace

Friend, follow, fan!

Obama, Bush, Clinton & Lincoln inaugurals as word clouds

A friend sent me this link to ReadWriteWeb,which created a word cloud of the Obama inaugural address, and provides it alongside Bush's, Clinton's and Lincoln's inaugurals. Words used the most appear largest.

It's amazing what pictures technology can paint.

Deadline extended

The deadline on the Alaska Press Club annual contest entry has been extended until Wednesday, Jan. 28. Again, have your entries postmarked. We need to have them in hand on Friday, Feb. 6.

You can also bring them to University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Journalism and Public Communications, in the Professional Studies Building, Room 203F. Call me first to make sure I'm here, 786-4194. I'm not here Monday or Wednesday afternoons.
Thanks.

First Amendment Award renamed after Alaska journalists

Written by Susan B. Andrews and John Creed

Note to readers: Do you have someone in mind for a First Amendment Award for 2009? Nominations close on the same day as our contest deadline on January 21, 2009. Please email nomination letters to board secretary Kathleen McCoy at kmccoy@gci.net.

KOTZEBUE-Alaska’s largest press association has renamed its esteemed First Amendment Award after two crusading journalists who changed the course of state history in the latter half of the 20th Century

In 1962, Tom Snapp and Howard Rock started a modest statewide newspaper, Tundra Times, which would prove central to the run-up and then passage nine years later of the largest Native American land claims in U.S. history.

The Alaska Press Club board in early December voted to re-name its annual First Amendment Award after these two courageous newspapermen.

The late Tom Snapp, a Korean War veteran and native of Virginia who would never lose his lilting southern drawl, first came to Alaska to visit his sister with no plans to stay. As a journalist, Snapp took a keen interest in Alaska, including Native issues. The late Howard Weyahok Rock grew up in the remote Inupiaq Eskimo village of Point Hope in Northwest Arctic Alaska, located a couple hundred miles up the coast from Kotzebue. An Army Air Force veteran, Rock served in North Africa during World War II.

Rock was a lifelong artist who knew little about journalism when he and Snapp launched Tundra Times in Fairbanks in the early 1960s. But only if Rock would be the paper’s editor and publisher, said Massachusetts philanthropist Dr. Henry S. Forbes, a descendent of American author Ralph Waldo Emerson, would Forbes capitalize the project.

Snapp, Rock Joined Forces

Snapp agreed to train Rock in newspaper publishing. The pair created the first issue of Tundra Times after setting up shop in Snapp’s sister’s trailer in Alaska’s small, rough-hewn Interior city of Fairbanks, where the paper would publish throughout Rock’s editorship but eventually move to Anchorage.

In the fight for passage in the U.S. Congress of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, Tundra Times grew into a potent and unifying voice for Alaska Natives. Rock’s little newspaper picked up enormous political clout in the 1960s throughout Alaska and in Washington, DC.

ANCSA recognized Native land claims and made way for construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on Dec. 18, 1971, ANCSA granted Alaska’s Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts title to 44 million acres of land. For lands lost in the settlement, Natives received $962.5 million to capitalize some 206 village corporations and 13 Native regional corporations, which today continue to wield considerable social and economic influence in Alaska.

Neither Snapp nor Rock ever made much money for themselves in the journalism profession. Indeed, they were lucky to cover living expenses-if that-as they dedicated themselves to shoe-leather, against-the-grain journalism in an era when reporters still filed their stories using manual typewriters. The age of computer and Internet ubiquity, round-the-clock news cycles, and a media-saturated society was still decades away in Alaska as elsewhere in the 1960s, 1970s, and even into the 1980s.

Making History

The two journalists had history on their side. They worked feverishly in their craft at a time of dramatic social and economic change in Alaska and nationwide. That afforded them the opportunity to shape, not just report on, major events in Alaska history.

Fearlessly, they advanced the values so crucial to a functioning democracy and more equal society, particularly freedom of the press and freedom of speech, two of the five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Lael Morgan worked for Rock and wrote a short history of Tundra Times as a 1972 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.

“Starting a Native paper at this time was very rough because there was distrust against us,” said Rock for Morgan’s 1972 article. “It took a lot of nerve, really. We had things thrown through the door at night, and I was threatened with beatings and things like that, but somehow we just kept right on going.”

“We got into all kinds of trouble along the way,” added Snapp. “One thing, the utility company asked for a much larger deposit because none of the incorporators had a credit reference. Once when I placed a long distance call that cost more than $100, the operator called back and told us we had to come down and pay the bill at once . . . in the middle of the night!

“Then there was the cost of printing. Outside I’d paid $3,000 for printing 32 times a year. Here, for 24 issues, they wanted $28,000.

“We were stepping on some awfully big toes,” said Snapp.

First Amendment Nominations Now Open

The Alaska Press Club board believes Tom Snapp and Howard Rock embody the kind of spirit and belief in journalism and democracy the press club seeks to spotlight in fellow Alaskans every year. The organization seeks to recognize courageous journalists or non-journalists who are fearless when promoting or exemplifying First Amendment values.

The press club inaugurated its First Amendment Award in 2007 by recognizing Alaska’s premier First Amendment attorney, D. John McKay, after McKay’s decades of advancing and defending press freedom and freedom of speech on behalf of countless Alaskans and media organizations.

In 2008 the now-former Anchorage Daily News political cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl took home the club’s second First Amendment Award.

Who will be 2009’s First Amendment Award recipient? The Alaska Press Club is soliciting any and all interested Alaskans to participate in this decision. You do not have to be an Alaska Press Club member to nominate individuals or organizations for the 2009 Snapp Rock First Amendment Award. Click here for the details.

The Alaska Press Club will present the Tom Snapp Howard Rock First Amendment Award at its annual awards dinner on Saturday, March 28, as the final event of the club’s annual journalism conference, often called “J-Week.” In 2009, J-Week is scheduled for March 26-28 at the Anchorage Senior Center. Journalists, student journalists, bloggers, citizen journalists and the general public are welcome to attend any and all conference activities, including the awards dinner.

Virginia’s Tom Snapp Meets Alaska’s Howard Rock

Like many who migrate to the Far North from the Lower 48, Tom Snapp never expected to make Alaska his home. Snapp was merely visiting the state while on break from journalism graduate school at the University of Missouri. But the local paper was desperate for a reporter, so he hired on. By November 1961, Snapp found himself covering a statewide Native conference in Barrow, Alaska’s farthest north settlement. Coincidence or not, Rock and Snapp were roommates in Barrow.

Toward the end of the Barrow meeting, Snapp kept hearing his own name popping up amid the Yup’ik and Inupiaq languages being spoken at the conference. As a newspaper reporter, Snapp was more than curious about his name getting repeated over and over.

Native leaders were discussing the possibility of Snapp working with Rock, certainly an accomplished artist but decidedly not experienced in journalism. But Rock had been destined for distinction since birth.

Village Shaman Predicts Newborn’s Fate

Indeed, when Rock was born in a sod igloo in Pt. Hope in 1911, “a shaman predicted that this boy would become a great man,” writes Rock’s biographer Lael Morgan.

That prophecy was thought curious among villagers, given that Rock was born a frail child who preferred art and books over the community’s mainstay for survival, hunting and fishing. In fact, Rock would go on to study art at the University of Washington where he would develop admirable artistry and writing skills.

Nevertheless, his most enduring legacy would not take flight until he was a middle-aged man in his early 50s.

At the Barrow conference in 1961, Eskimo leaders wanted Snapp and Rock to start some sort of publication focusing on Native issues. Native leaders did not believe the Alaska press was giving their issues a fair shake when mentioned at all.

For example, in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Alaska, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and its head, Edward Teller, were pushing a bizarre scheme called Project Chariot. The AEC wanted to blow out a deep-water harbor between Kivalina and Pt. Hope in Northwest Alaska by detonating up to six thermonuclear bombs.

The people of Point Hope fiercely opposed Project Chariot. They feared such a potent nuclear blast-many times more powerful and than the atomic bombs the Americans dropped on Japan during World War II-would contaminate traditional fishing and hunting grounds with radioactive waste while causing unimaginable, devastation to their traditional homeland.

Not to mention the potential for radioactive fallout to be carried by prevailing winds hundreds if not thousands of miles from the blast site.

Powerful Forces Back Project Chariot

Nevertheless, representatives of major institutions in Alaska passionately endorsed Chariot, including: business, political and religious leaders; Anchorage Times publisher Bob Atwood ("It is a wilderness with no trees, no nothing!” wrote Atwood. “Nobody would want to live there."); Fairbanks Daily News-Miner publisher C.W. Snedden; and former University of Alaska President William R. Wood, whose administration fired two professors after they publicly opposed Chariot as dangerous and wrong-headed. (One of the professors, William O. Pruitt, in order to find work in his field, was forced to emigrate to Canada, where he eventually became a citizen and prominent scientist.)

In news and editorial pages both, Alaska’s press cheerleaded Chariot. In those days, Alaska Native viewpoints received scant attention in the state’s existing press.

According to author Dan O’Neill’s history on Project Chariot called The Firecracker Boys, News-Miner reporter Albro Gregory repeatedly referred to the homeland of the Inupiat in and around the proposed Chariot site as “this bleak outpost.” In the Aug. 21, 1959, issue of the News-Miner, Gregory proclaimed, with no evidence beyond AEC’s claims in its press releases, that “these Natives, largely living a primitive life, would not be disturbed by the proposed action or suffer future ill effects.”

The reporting and editorializing by Alaska’s traditional press on Project Chariot had compelled Alaska Natives and a budding environmental movement in Fairbanks, led by pilots/conservationists Celia Hunter and Ginny Wood, to find alternative ways to circulate another point of view.

“When the top blew off the reactor at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, the explosion released 40 million to 86 million curies, according to one estimate,” writes O’Neill. “But the Project Chariot detonation, at its smallest configuration of 280 kilotons, would have vented fission products into the atmosphere totaling 1.5 billion curies . . . That much radiation would equal the amount vented by seventeen to thirty-eight Chernobyl accidents.”

Project Chariot became a major motivator to establish a statewide newspaper outside Alaska’s existing political and economic power structure. In October 1962, less than a year after the Barrow conference, Snapp and Rock launched Tundra Times, which Rock would edit and publish in Fairbanks until his death in 1976.

Snapp Instructs Rock

Snapp and Rock struck a deal when launching the Tundra Times.

“I said that I would train Howard in all phases of journalism, but after a year and a day I would leave, and that’s what happened,” Snapp explained in a 1989 documentary on Rock’s life called Portraits of Leadership: Chief Katlian and Howard Rock.

“After a little while, he was better than I was on make-up (page design) . . . with his artist background,” Snapp said. “The make-up was very good in that paper.”

As a Tundra Times reporter, Snapp wrote about the environmental dangers of Project Chariot. After Snapp left the Tundra Times, he continued in various journalism ventures in Fairbanks until in 1970 he launched the All-Alaska Weekly, a feisty independent paper that would grow into a fearless, often hard-hitting local institution over the next 17 years.

Tundra Times never quite regained the same prominence it enjoyed under Rock after his death in 1976. (He died within days of putting out his final issue.) As Alaska modernized, other technology such as radio and satellite television began offering more communications option beyond print journalism, especially in rural Alaska. Other regional newspapers sprouted as well.

Consequently, the need for a Tundra Times-like statewide newspaper gradually lessened and finally officially died in 1997 after a 35-year run, according to the website of Barrow’s Tuzzy Consortium Library, where the newspaper’s archives are kept.

Remembrance

In declining health, Snapp sold his beloved All-Alaska Weekly in 1987. A series of publishers tried to make a go of the paper until each ran out of operating funds, including Tom Alton (today an editor at UAF’s Alaska Native Language Center); Brian Rogers (currently University of Alaska Fairbanks interim chancellor); Andy Williams (former News-Miner city editor); and Joe Sitton (former state legislator). Snapp’s paper finally folded in the early 1990s.

Once an unstoppable fireball of energy, in later life Snapp suffered health problems including heart disease, diabetes, and a series of strokes. Snapp died in 1995 at age 66. He was about the same age as Rock when he passed away after a battle with cancer nearly 20 years earlier. Yet never to be forgotten.

Susan B. Andrews and John Creed are journalism/humanities professors at Chukchi College, a Kotzebue branch of the University of Alaska. Creed is president of the Alaska Press Club board.

Check out this journalist's blog for some inspiration

This personal blog by journalist Suzanne Yada is worth a look see for its professionalism and forward-thinking. She was working as a copyeditor in Visalia, CA., then decided to go back to school at San Jose State University to become better at journalism. She is now a journalism major and a business minor. Two of her posts, offering New Year's resolution advice to student journalists, got batted around on Twitter, where I first saw it. Here's the links to her two posts:

Resolutions for journalism students, part 1, BECOME INVALUABLE.
Resolutions for journalism students, part 2, NETWORK LIKE MAD.

Reading her tips for student journalists makes any working journalist rethink his or her own toolkit.

I also think her site is worth taking a look at for its architecture. Note the links to social networks, and her link journalism below that. I'll find out more about Publish2, where her links to articles about the changing field of journalism are posted. She's inspiring in an age when we can use some of that.

More Twitter

Don't miss the specific Columbia University School of Journalism podcast for journalists interested in Twitter, referenced in the blog post below this one. It's fresh, just uploaded to their site on Jan. 8. And once you know what Twitter is, there are sites out there to help you master this new tool.

Here's a site called Twitips devoted to explaining Twitter, including useful Twitter etiquette, how not to waste time on Twitter, good Twitter apps for iPhones etc etc.

Also, here is another Web site with a post devoted to Twitter apps, like how to post photos. I'm new here, can't recommend, but have no doubt some speed demons have already been here. And here's an ever more basic, from-the-ground-up explainer on how to get started on Twitter.

A briefing for journalists on Twitter

If you've heard a lot about Twitter but can't figure out why anyone would bother, here's a link to a recent podcast from Columbia University School of Journalism, defined as a "briefing for journalists on Twitter."

Here's their print intro to it:

The popular micro-blogging service is used by many journalists. We hear how it helped in covering the Mumbai attacks; provided a way to communicate during an LA earthquake; and even helped free an American student from an Egyptian jail.

But there's still a lot of confusion and skepticism about it among most journalists:

How can journalists use it in their day-to-day work?

What are best practices for journalists?

Whose work is worth, in Twitter terms, worth "following?"

Find answers to all of these questions via this webcast featuring several technology journalists and Twitter experts.

So again, here is the link to listen to the podcast -- it is 90 minutes or so, so you might want to download it to iTunes, put it on your iPod and take a walk while you listen.

Sunshine Week needs volunteers

Sunshine Week, the annual spotlight on open access to government documents, needs some volunteers to gather information about what documents are available online.
Please contact me at paola@uaa.alaska.edu.
Thanks.

Annual contest

The annual contest's deadline is Wednesday, Jan. 21. You have to have your entries postmarked by that date. We'll sort entries in early February and get them off to judges very soon because the conference is March 26-March 28 this year, earlier than last year. See the press club's site for details.

Geo Beach hosts new series on the History Channel

Geo Beach, perhaps best known for his column, hosts the new weekly series "Tougher in Alaska with Geo Beach" on the History channel, airing nationally on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Beach, a former logger, firefighter and commercial fisherman, also narrates each hour-long episode and receives credit for additional writing and cameras.

During his journalism career, Beach has won both the Alaska Press Club's award for best radio commentaries for his NPR commentaries and the Suzan Nightingale Best Columnist Award for Large Publications for his "Top o' the Planet" columns in the Anchorage Daily News.

"Beach demonstrates an exhaustive knowledge and understanding of Alaska," says former Los Angeles Times and NPR reporter Bill Drummond, a professor at the School of Journalism at University of California - Berkeley. 

More details at http://www.history.com/minisites/tougher-in-alaska

Check out Jill Homer's blog about snow cycling

Jill Homer is an Alaska reporter based in Juneau. She is doing the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

Her blog is arcticglass.blogspot.com/

KRUA interviews UAA Chancellor Fran Ulmer

University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer will be on KRUA-FM 88.1 Friday morning at 8 taking callers' questions. Call 907-786-6805 to be live on the air and chatting with the chancellor.

Postmark deadline for Press Club contest

Monday, Jan. 21 is a federal holiday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) so get your entries postmarked by Tuesday, Jan. 22. 

Thanks.

Alaska Professional Communicators' annual contest

See how your work compares with the best!

Have you done something at work this past year that you're proud of? Ever wonder how it would stack up against the best in Alaska and in the nation? Then the Alaska Professional Communicators' 2008 contest is for you.
Alaska Professional Communicators, formerly Alaska Press Women, is made up of both women and men in journalism, writing, broadcasting, 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.
Again this year, the contest will be open to all Alaska resident communicators, not just APC members. The contest includes 78 categories for print journalists, book authors, broadcasters, researchers, and more. There's a separate Collegiate Contest for undergraduate college students.
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 most categories is Feb. 8.
Books and related categories are due Jan. 31. Complete contest information.

A worrisome story about the newspaper industry

Miami Herald outsources some advertising production to India

Bob Martinson

Hey Paola, I finally got onto this. It wasn't recognizing my address until now. The Outdoor reporting judges will come from Outside Magazine and they are excited about doing it, Bob.