The D.C. Pro chapter will hold its annual election of officers and board members from May 1 through 21.
If you receive Dateline by e-mail, you’ll get an electronic ballot. Those who receive Dateline through the U.S. mail will receive a printed copy of the ballot.
The following are this year’s candidates:
President (pick 1)
Andy Schotz
I’m finishing a second term as D.C. Pro chapter president. I’ve also been vice president, recording secretary and an 
at-large member of the board.
I’ve been chairman of the SPJ Ethics Committee for more than three years. I joined SPJ in December 2002.
I’ve worked at two newspapers – The Altamont Enterprise, a weekly in upstate New York, for almost eight years and The Herald-Mail, a daily in Hagerstown, Md., since 2000. As a reporter, I’ve covered a variety of beats, including the Maryland State House in 2007 and 2008.
I’m a Long Island native and graduate of the University at Albany in upstate New York.
I don’t have any sweeping changes in mind – the D.C. Pro chapter runs fairly well – but we always could do better. If any members have any ideas, comments, praise or criticism, we would like to hear from you.
The heart of SPJ’s local chapters is programming. D.C. Pro’s goal is to hold a professional or social event once a month, on average. We’ve come close to that the last several years.
Vice president (choose 1)
Julie Asher
Julie Asher is the national editor at Catholic News Service, an international news 
service for Catholic and other publications.
She has been a member of SPJ for more than 25 years. She currently is vice president of the chapter and has served the chapter as treasurer, president and board member.
Asher was Region 2 director on the national SPJ board from 1997 to 2001.
Treasurer (choose 1)
Amy Fickling
Fickling has nearly 30 years of professional experience as a reporter and editor. She currently is editor of a financial-sector newsletter, Platts Energy Trader, targeting traders, marketers and investors in energy markets, in particular the natural gas and electric power markets. Platts is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies that covers commodities markets.
Fickling has been treasurer of the chapter for the past two years and is standing for her third consecutive term.
Her career started in 1979 with a reporting and editing stint at a New York Times Regional Newspaper Group six-day-a-week paper, The Dispatch, in Lexington, N.C. After nine months as a general assignment reporter, she moved up to wire editor. She also spent about a year with another NYTRNG paper, The Times-Daily in Florence, Ala., as a copy editor and layout person for three zoned editions nightly.
Taking a break to get a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs at The American University in Washington, D.C., in 1984-85, she then returned to full-time work, beginning with a four-year turn (1985-1989) at the Gazette Newspapers in Montgomery County, Md., first as managing editor of Olney Courier-Gazette, then as managing editor of Bethesda Gazette when it was started up as a "down-county" extension of the traditionally upcounty circulation area.
She spent three years at The Capital newspaper in Annapolis, Md., as a copy editor.
Then she moved into the Washington, D.C., journalism market, working at such diverse newsletter publishing companies as Stevens Publishing (OSHA and EPA coverage); Telecommunications Reports International, Inc., which is now a unit of CCH Inc. (telecom, specifically Internet and e-commerce applications, coverage); and now McGraw-Hill’s Platts division.
She also spent two years as a full-time assistant news editor with the Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News desk in Washington, D.C. (now McClatchy-Tribune), before taking her current position.
She is a past president of the D.C. Pro chapter, past two-term SPJ Region 2 director, current D.C. Pro treasurer, a member of the chapter’s scholarship foundation, and member of the national SPJ Bylaws Committee.
Also, she is a member of the National Press Club, past chair of the NPC’s Freedom of Information and Professional Affairs committees, and member of the Club’s division championship softball team, which competes in the Metropolitan Media Softball League against Washington, D.C., teams from CBS News, AOL, the Washington Post, ABC News, Comcast, and many more.
She is treasurer and secretary of her condominium association’s board of directors, and treasurer of the board that oversees a foundation dedicated to the upkeep of a lake in her community. When there is time left in her schedule, she participates in local events with her undergraduate alumni association of Wake Forest University.
Corresponding secretary (pick 1)
Sue Kopen Katcef
Sue Kopen Katcef is an award-winning veteran broadcast journalist who is now the broadcast bureau chief for Capital News Service Television at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. 
She also has served as the faculty adviser (and creator) of the award-winning "Terp Weekly Edition," a radio news magazine produced by students at the Merrill College of Journalism for the campus radio station, WMUC. “Terp Weekly Edition” was named the best student produced radio newscast in the country three times in five years. In addition, a reporting team from TWE, under the direction of Kopen Katcef, last year received a prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for a special report on sexual assault and rape at the UM campus.
Prior to coming to the Merrill College of Journalism, Kopen Katcef was a reporter and anchor for WBAL Radio news in Baltimore, where she continues to freelance. She also has worked as a reporter at Baltimore’s WJZ TV and Maryland Public Television.
She is currently the University of Maryland SPJ student chapter faculty adviser, as well as a campus adviser at-large on the SPJ national board.
Kopen Katcef is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation national board. She is president-elect of the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association and will take over as president in June.
She currently is the corresponding secretary for the D.C. Pro chapter.
Recording secretary (pick 1)
Ben Shlesinger 
Ben Shlesinger, the current D.C. Pro recording secretary, currently is assistant managing editor-associations for USAE News, the weekly community newspaper of associations, CVBs and hotels.
He also writes two blogs for examiner.com — one about the Maryland Terrapins and another about D.C. tourism and travel.
Board of Directors At-Large, two-year term (pick 3)
Steve Taylor
Steve Taylor, an adjunct professor of communication at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., is a writer, video producer and media relations consultant based in Arlington, Va.
For 12 years, Taylor was a correspondent for ABC News. He covered the White House as a correspondent for Unistar Radio Network and Satellite 
News Channel and also did White House reporting for National Journal’s CongressDaily and the PBS NewsHour. Taylor also has reported for CNN, CBS Radio and Mutual/NBC Radio.
He has covered Congress, the Supreme Court, federal agencies and the last nine presidential campaigns. He was the first broadcast reporter to win the Merriman Smith Award for Presidential News Coverage from the White House Correspondents Association. For his reporting from New York on 9/11, he won Peabody and DuPont-Columbia Awards as part of ABC News’ coverage.
Taylor was a contributing writer to two books published in 2009: Latinos And The Nation’s Future, edited by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, and Weathering Storms: Human Resources In Difficult Times, published by the Society for Human Resource Management. He is the author of The Hands of The Opposition, a mystery novel set in the press corps of a presidential campaign.
For five years, he was host of Technogenesis, a Comcast television program about innovations in science and engineering. Taylor has a degree in economics from the University of Virginia.
He is currently an at-large director on the D.C. Pro board.
Bill McCloskey
Bill McCloskey is a past president of the D.C. Pro chapter, was SPJ’s Region 2 director, currently serves as an at-large director on the chapter and national boards, and is
a former chairman and is a member of SPJ’s national Bylaws Committee.
He has twice been recognized with SPJ’s “President’s Award” for distinguished service to the Society and in 2008, was awarded SPJ’s most prestigious award for service – the Wells Key.
Until his retirement in April 2007, McCloskey was for 20 years the Washington, D.C., -based director of media relations for BellSouth Corporation.
Before coming to BellSouth in 1987, he worked for 11 years with The Associated Press in Washington, first as assistant managing editor for its 1,100‑station radio network and for the final two years as telecommunications reporter, covering the Federal Communications Commission, telephone and broadcast companies and legislation affecting communications issues on Capitol Hill.
He was assigned to cover the national political conventions in 1976, 1980 and 1984, participating in the logistical arrangements for each. From 1988 to 2004, he organized the BellSouth media hospitality lounges at the party nominating conventions.
He has also represented the corporation at international telecommunications conferences in Geneva and Rio de Janeiro.
McCloskey’s professional career started in 1961, when, as a high school junior, he took a summer newsroom job at Metromedia’s WIP Radio in Philadelphia. He remained with Metromedia in Philadelphia until he was drafted into the Army upon graduation from Villanova University in 1966.
The Army assigned him to the information office of the 1st Signal Brigade in Vietnam, where he wrote press releases about the Army’s telephone system.
Following his tour of duty, he was assigned by Metromedia to set up a news department for WASH‑FM in Washington. From 1968 until 1975, he worked as news director, network correspondent and TV news producer and writer for Metromedia in Washington. During his tenure, he and his colleagues shared several major national broadcasting awards.
Away from the office, McCloskey has been the president and treasurer of the Little Falls Swimming Club in his Bethesda, Md., neighborhood and was chairman of his local Boy Scout troop committee.
He is a member of the Radio‑Television Digital News Association, where he served on the organization’s "Task Force 2000" and on the advisory board of the Radio-Television Digital News Foundation "News in the Future Project." He has chaired the RTDNA Foundation’s annual fundraising dinner. The D.C chapter of RTDNA has honored him with the Peter Hackes award for service and the national organization named him winner of the Rob Downey award for service.
Robert Becker
I have been the chapter’s FOI chair since about 1992, am the D.C.Sunshine Chair, and have served on SPJ’s National FOI Committee. I also represent the chapter on the board of the D.C. Open Government Coalition.
I provide advice and information on access to journalists and others in the D.C. metropolitan area. Most recently, I have been working with D.C. Councilmember Muriel Bowser (Ward 4), who introduced a bill in March to overhaul D.C.’s antiquated, ineffective open meetings law.
In 2000, I worked with the City Council Judiciary Committee on amendments to the D.C. open records law.
I have assisted students at a Montgomery County high school who, as part of their course work, aired controversial programs on the school board’s cable channel and actively opposed proposed restrictions on public access to federal court case files over the Internet.
I would like to continue to expand the chapter’s role in protecting the media’s right to gather and disseminate news and to gain greater visibility for the D.C. Pro chapter on these issues.
I have worked with the National FOI Chairman to develop a program to train journalists, news managers and media outlet owners on the importance of defending public access to government information in the face of claims that individuals have the right to control information about them, even when disclosure of that information would benefit the public.
Board of Directors At-Large, one-year term (pick 1)
Garth Hogan 
Garth Hogan joined the Society of Professional Journalists in 2006. That same year, he began working with the American Society for Microbiology, where he serves as a news and web editor.
Hogan graduated from St. Albans High School in Washington, D.C. He majored in communications at Vanderbilt University and minored in English.
For the past year, he has served on the D.C. Pro board and is currently the new media chairperson.
He is running for another term because he would like a chance to complete the projects begun during the past year.