“I gratefully accepted a Sunshine Award from SPJ for work on the ‘Censorship through PIO’ issue,” tweeted Kathryn Foxhall, a Washington, D.C., SPJ Pro chapter board member.
Inside the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville, Foxhall said journalists need more direct access to government officials. With the role of the Public Information Officer, government officials are much less inclined to speak with journalists.
Foxhall, a freelance journalist, thanked the audience at the Excellence in Journalism national convention, Sept. 6.
More than 950 journalists who attended EIJ 2014 were able to choose from more than 50 workshops and breakout sessions. The Sept. 4-6 convention also highlighted the outstanding achievements of journalists working in media: digital, broadcast and print. It was a joint convention of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Aside from networking and catching up with colleagues, journalists got the opportunity to hear from reporters working under dangerous conditions.
Two journalists covering the Mexican drug violence and border issue spoke on a panel: “The Danger in Mexico and Around the World — Journalists at Death’s Door.”
Angela Kocherga (@akochergaborder), border bureau chief of Gannett Broadcasting, shared her video story examining an abandoned and destroyed home because of drug violence. In the video, she spoke Spanish to her interview subjects.
Alfredo Corchado (@ajcorchado) works as the Mexico City bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News. He explained the extreme challenges of reporting, including getting accurate information (what sources say vs. what the Mexican government says). He said his life has been threatened to the point where he had hours to escape.
Moderator Robert Buckman, an associate professor on the Department of Communication at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, said he had tried to put the panel together for more than two years. The Mexican drug issue is not just a border issue, he said. Rather, it is a global issue with implications of terrorism
Sara Rafsky (@CPJAmericas), from the Committee to Protect Journalists, said reporters have increasingly disappeared or died after such reporting and that perpetrators are targeting reporters with impunity.