Four SPJ National Candidates Meet With Local Board

For sure. Well, first of all, thank you. I feel like I’m running around. I’m in my son’s bedroom. So, I apologize for the Halloween poster back there. But anyway, thank you so much for inviting me. I’m sorry. I have like three deadlines in my head. So I’m thinking about that, too.

I am running for president-elect. I don’t know how many of you know me, but I have been with the organization more than 10 years.

I’m your current secretary treasurer and the SPJ diversity chair. And let me tell you something. I’ve been a part of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for since 1986.

I have been a reporter for 39 years. I’m still working.

I love what I do. But what really kills me is that people are leaving our business. And that means if they leave the business, that means they leave us too. And we need to stop the hemorrhaging. And I want to do that.

I want to show that look, look at all of us. Whether we’re educators, whether we’re reporters on the beat, whether we’re editors, whether we are producers. We need to not only have the people that are thinking, “You know, maybe it’s time to change careers, go into something else, to stay with us.”

But at the same time, I think that all of us, because we’re part of SPJ, because obviously we care about the organization, I think that we find a way to, to really just not keep the organization alive, but continue to be the place to go to.

I have several ideas, if I’m lucky enough to become the president elect. I get things done. Look, if you want me to do something, I’ll do it.

I have always counted on board members in the past, not only SPJ but NAHJ, where they make promises to get votes and it doesn’t happen.

I’m not going to make any promises. I have goals. For people who work in newsrooms or classrooms. I have goals for the chapters. Because I am part of the Fort Worth Chapter. Sometimes I felt neglected by national.  I thought, hey, what am I the stepchild?

I think we need to have a better relationship with chapters. Really tap in and see what’s going on. How can I help? You know, what’s your strength of your chapter that maybe makes national stronger? Because I know Fort Worth’s strengths. I know them.  But I also know their weaknesses. And who else can help but national?

Some of the goals that I have is, I want membership fees to be lowered. I think that right now we need to give our members a break. You know, it cost like $100.  I mean, you join for $75, then it’s another $25 for the chapters. Maybe we give more to the chapters. But we need to lower that fee. Because I think we’ll bring in people that have never thought of joining an organization. At the same time people right now that are thinking, “Gosh, do I have to pay this this bill? Or do I pay SPJ membership?” That’s one thing.

Diversity inclusion is big, you guys, for me. Obviously. I’m Mexican. And when I look around SPJ, it’s still not diverse. But what I love about that SPJ and especially many of the chapters is, it’s not that we don’t want to be diverse. It’s because I know you guys have open hearts and open minds. I know.

But I think there’s got to be a way and sometimes it’s working with the committees, trying to tap into the.  You know, just because I’m Mexican, it doesn’t mean I have solutions for racism and everything else. I want ideas. We have some of the best chapters and committees. What ideas do you have? How do we make things happen?

Because let me tell you right now. There’s no way in hell we are going to solve all the problems that involve diversity, racism, inclusion. Because we’re not. I grew up in this. My parents were undocumented workers turned green card holders. One became an American citizen. My dad died before it became his dream.

But I know. But I also know there’s a lot of open-minded people out there. And I think that, you know, we can make it happen. We can.

Another thing, too, is: I don’t know about you guys. I was also on the board with the Fort Worth chapter. But man, sometimes we beg people to go on the board. It’s like, begging please, please join the board. And you know, I think we need an SPJ leadership mentoring program. Meaning, you know, find two people that maybe don’t see the leadership in them. But you know that they are leaders. You just kind of give them a little nudge, and mentor them to that.

I’m telling you when I was on the Fort Worth board, I mean, I even I even got a call to run for president of the Fort Worth board, this time. Because we shouldn’t be begging. I mean, we should all make sure that, we all know leaders out there. We are leaders. We should find them, mentor them.

You know, so then we have good competition, because I’m glad I have competition. I hate winning by default. I don’t like that. I want good competition. I know I have competition and I know she’s a very competent woman. So that is another thing.

How much time do I have?

Randy Showstack

Well, we want to leave time for questions. So, if you can wrap up your introductory comments, then we could have some questions.

Rebecca Aguilar

Look, my whole plan is laid out on the SPJ page. So, feel free to look at it. I hope we can collaborate also with other organizations, which I think is important because right now, we need to survive this pandemic.

I also teach, so it’s important for me that educators also get their needs met. It’s important.

Right, so open up questions.

Randy Showstack

Rebecca, thanks again, so much, on your deadline to come here. We really appreciate that and thanks for the very good introduction. So let’s go to questions. Does anybody have some?

Amy Fickling 

Just wondering about what you can tell us what you might have been able to accomplish during this year as secretary treasurer. I know it’s been a trying year because of changing the executive director. Anything that you learned about the finances? Did it give you any kind of pause as far as, you know, running for president, basically.  If you’re running for president-elect, I guess you would be president. You know, how does what you’ve learned in the current position you have held inform what’s going be going forward?

Rebecca Aguilar

That’s a great question. I’m so glad you asked that. First of all, we have a very competent accountant. We have an excellent executive director. One of the things that they looked into right away because, you know, there’s some things in the financing that needed to be straightened out.

And so, one of the things that I noticed is that we really need to keep focused on what’s going on with the chapters and their finances. And are they having enough money to, you know, even have, well, we can’t have events right now. You guys know that.

But you know, even just like, money that’s needed.

You know, I don’t know what you guys need. But right now, I think with our finances, yeah, you’re right. We’ve had it just because of the pandemic. I mean, you know, the conference. We were gonna make a certain amount of money. That’s gonna change right now. Because you know, sponsors and things like that.  The fortunate thing, we were able to lower the registration fee, the $45. But that’s going to be the challenging question that in the coming year, in the coming two years. Because a pandemic has really affected everything, I think. But I think we’re pretty good financial standings. I want to make sure that all the chapters feel–and I’m sorry, if this camera is wiggling is because I’m on this bed. I’m hoping all the chapters, if they’re having financial struggles that they can tell us. Because if we don’t know, if we don’t know, if somebody doesn’t say, hey, Rebecca, we are having problems. And you know, we can’t help.

But let’s talk about what I accomplished. One of the things out in the West, some of the chapters, you know, somebody had taken some of their money.

And, they felt SPJ had not addressed it. And so when I came in, suddenly I get these emails: hey, somebody took our money. I don’t want to get into details, guys, because I know maybe this is recorded or, or whatever.  But I got on it right away, because nobody steals from us, nobody. And so I was able to get on the investigation, with the help of, you know, several chapter leaders out there and even the regional director. And piece something together. Contact the cops. Now that person who, you know, took our money is paying with a payment.

But that was important. You know, again, I was totally surprised. I was like, what, what happened? And, and I was able to help them get their money. They’re getting their money back.

And, you know, I still want that person prosecuted for what they did. That’s all there is to it.

I’ve also been working on the Diversity Committee. We’re going to call it the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the future. But making sure that stays strong, you know. I keep in contact with all the diversity fellows, which the SPJ Foundation paid for.

Yeah, the pandemic has affected us. But, you know, I continue doing as much as I can. Because like I said, I’m not about lip service. I’m about getting things done.

Randy Showstack

So, we’re running out of time. Does anybody else have an urgent question that can be asked and answered in about a minute?

Dee Ann

You said that you wanted to lower the fee to join SPJ. We have a virtual conference, sponsorship issues, and a lower fee. How do you balance out the financial demands and the fact that you may be facing a financially difficult situation with your goal of lowering membership fee?

Rebecca Aguilar

First of all, I didn’t say we’re facing any financial difficulties. Okay. So let’s make that clear. Are we like super rich and throwing enough money. No.

But one of the things that I noticed from NAHJ when I was their Vice President for four years. We lowered from $75 to $35. We almost doubled our membership, which meant money came in and even more money. And I’m not saying I want SPJ to lower it to 35 bucks. Maybe 50 bucks. But here’s the beauty of it. More people will join. And when more people join, those people out there, the funders, the foundations want to give money. Let me just say, when NAHJ was saying, we only have 1000 members to 2000, more people come around. More people want to fund it. I know it because I saw it with NAHJ. So, I think it helps us and it helps our chapters, too.

Since the time is short, I’m just going to be really brief. As you know, many of you know, I’ve been, I was a member of the DC board for about a dozen years. But I’ve been in SPJ since I was a sophomore at the University of Maryland, which was then Sigma Delta Chi and you had to be nominated and elected to be a member of SPJ or SDX. Little did I know, although Maureen Beasley was my professor in Maryland, I had no idea she was among the first women to become a member of SPJ. So, it was quite a shock to me to know that I, I just assumed women, women got in.

So, I have been involved as a student. As a local chapter, I was president of the Maryland pro chapter for three years. It’s all there. I don’t want to really chew up too much time going into except to say that I believe in the foundations of SPJ. I spent the past nearly 20 years as a faculty advisor at the University of Maryland, students, and I continue to be involved with that chapter.

I look to the future. There’s not really a day that goes by that I don’t hear from my students who are working in the field. I got a call from one of them today. He’s just gotten a job as a sports guy at WDVM in Hagerstown, so I am very much in touch with the students who become young professionals. And I’m well aware of the challenges that they face.

So, I want to be able to lead SPJ into the future. And in doing so, with the awards committee: Andy, of course, chaired for the past several years. I had chaired it, previous to that [inaudible] chair. And we are trying to, to shake things up a little bit to better address the evolution of what is taking place within our industry, and to make certain that good journalism is awarded, regardless of the form it takes. So, I welcome a lot of questions.

Randy Showstack

Wonderful. So, with that, thank you, Sue, for that brief introduction. And I think that all of these candidates would like our board’s endorsement. That’s a question that the board will need to take up later in the meeting when the candidates are offline. But if anybody now has questions for Sue, please go ahead.

Amy Fickling

Were you on the board, or maybe vice president of chapter affairs, I think it originated is on the board. And then I’m on the national bylaws committee and we had to re-write the language as far as reducing the size of the board. I can’t remember exactly where that originated. I’m thinking it was on the board. Were you on the board when that?

Sue Kopen Katcef

Yes, that was, Patty was already the chair. And I was on the board at the time. I fought hard because I was concerned that the student representation and the students’ interests were going to be completely obliterated. And to some degree, frankly, I think they have, which is unfortunate. You got to have folks there. I mean, this was an organization that started as a student organization. So yeah, we made some accommodations there.

But it’s only the first year of the shakedown. So ,you know, I’m not sure where it’s gonna go, but I was there.

Randy Showstack

Are there any other questions for Sue?

Dee Divis

As president, what would be your top two priorities in the year: Leading up to and the year that you are president?

Sue Kopen Katchef

I will give you some sense but I’ll tell you, with the pandemic so much has changed within the industry, with contractions. And the eliminations, we are in such flux, and we are bleeding journalists.

So, this could very easily change, you know, once we get to some final resolution with how the industry is being, really, to a large degree decimated.

I mean, I live in Annapolis, and the Capitol, as you know, is losing its own newsroom. I mean this is an organization that already had five members go, you know.

None of us I don’t think would hopefully be subjected to what they’re subjected to. And they don’t get pay raises. And there’s not much the SPJ traditionally has done in this way. This has been discussed in years past on the floor.

One of my top priorities is to broaden our [inaudible] membership. I think we tend to be stuck in a very traditional model of journalists. And I think there are a lot of others who are contributing to the journalism product that we have to let them know that there’s a home here. We represent their interests, and we will work to bring them in, engage them.

And there are two other things. I think our legal defense fund and our ethics hotline are two resources that are underplayed. I’d venture to say most members have no clue as to what either one of them does. And I think that they are terrific assets for SPJ and journalism at large. And so, I’d like to see a little more effort put into servicing both of those. I think the LDF is a gem for what we do in the way of providing funds for folks and in supporting others in amicus briefs on matters that are before the court.

Randy Showstack

So, I think we have time for maybe one more question, maybe two if they can both be really short and brief.

Celia Wexler

The question will be short, but I don’t know if the answer will be. What’s your assessment of the current national?  I don’t know how diplomatic you want to be.

Sue Kopen Katcef

Here’s my thought: you’ve got good people on the board. But that’s, it’s changing. I mean, that, it was kind of a transition period.

Look, we’ve gone from this massive board down to nine. And I think there are still going to be a couple of years of shaking down to figure out where things go. I think that’s important to keep in mind. That’s why you need strong leadership. And that’s why I think, I bring to the board, which I was always talking about the various things that we have gone through in our transitions. And I have been a member for 47 years, which is really scary for me to think of. I don’t think of myself in that vein quiet.

But we’ve tried and failed and tried and failed at the personality conflicts. I will tell you this much. I think the personality conflicts, for the most part this year have been subdued, which is good. I mean, you want to be collegial and work together and have a purpose and a goal.

And I think in a transition year, they’re working hard just to keep things rolling, but I’ll give them credit. Again, this pandemic and basically ruining everything we’ve ever had planned. Focusing on providing services, just like the DC chapter has, and online is, is the way to go. In many respects, it keeps people engaged and keeps them involved. You fall off the cliff, they are not coming back.

Randy Showstack:

Did anybody else have an urgent question for Sue before we move on?

Denise Dunbar

I just want her to comment on the PIO/FOIA issue. What she thinks National can do to help Kathryn and other efforts?

Sue Kopen Katcef:

I think Kathryn shared my remarks to her. My thinking is kind of twofold. I think we can probably, I think we should, do more to make journalists aware they can ask, if not demand, to see the regulations which they say prohibit someone on the staff speaking directly to the media.

I think education is essential. I look at younger reporters. We cover a lot in all of our programs. But I think confrontation is not an easy thing. So, I think education is essential to that. Number two, again, I go back to the Legal Defense Fund, which is good when it comes to joining in lawsuits and making arguments before the court because frankly, there are going to be so many these things end up in the court. And that’s the only way.  You’re going to take money. We have some money. I don’t know that we have enough to be able to singularly fund something like that. But we could be, you know, helping to coordinate that. Because the LDF does this all the time.

Randy Showstack 

Wonderful. Thank you very much.

Okay, thanks, everybody for doing this. This actually is a really cool idea to have candidates together. I pitched this for our national convention and it has not worked. So I am glad that it’s happening on a miniature level here.

I would start by saying that I think about both what you’ve done and what you can do, but I also think about who you are. It’s kind of three different areas where as a voter, what I would consider. So, I’ll just talk a little bit about each of those.

To head off the question from the Dee Ann, what’s in the future? I would say there’s a number of things that SPJ stands for and some of them really rise up high right now. One is advocacy, being a forceful advocate for journalists. That means open government issues. When Kathryn said that, this is important, it may not be the only thing, I would agree. I fight for public records access all the time, including today. We went to a state ombudsman to try and push for contract with a county does not want to reveal how much money it’s spending, publicly.

Pro and student press rights. I mean, it’s a huge issue on campus where administration tries to tamp down what journalistic activity students have. It’s really hot issue and in school, at the high school level as well.

Being an advocate for ethical standards, we are considered the gold standard for ethics guidelines, with our code of ethics.

I also look at the state of the industry.

We are in turbulent times. SPJ is trying to evolve by doing a lot more online. The international community has done very well with that. But we have thought about where can we make our mark. We went as far as hiring a Director of Education, which she just started about a week or two ago.

It was a significant investment, but we can tell this is not going away. It’s going to be here for a while and even back in normal times. So how can we adapt?

Internally, stabilizing SPJ’s finances. I am very familiar with our budget and some of the problems that we’ve had. I think we are turning that around. We were still operating at a deficit, though.

I’ve also gotten a chance, as Sue said, to work on the celebration of journalism, which I think is really important. Our awards committee thinks about how we can promote the best in journalism at all levels, whether it’s Pro, whether it’s student, whether it’s looking at diversity issues. I’ve had a lot of experience in all of the areas that I just described.

As far as past accomplishments, I’ve been a regional director for six years, which led me to serve on the board as a regional director [inaudible].

But to me, it’s a lot of the granular and ground level stuff that I find very interesting. I dive into projects that may not be glamorous, but I really feel…. Like updating membership roles. I can’t tell you how many years I spent on that. It’s a big frustration, which I know this chapter has had, about trying to get accurate roles. I think that we are on a very good path right now.

I’m looking at a lot of things from the chapter level being a chapter president to three consecutive terms and being a committee chair, ethics committee chair for three years, being involved with all sorts of different task forces, looking at governance, best practices for finances, things like that.

So, I’ll just conclude with a little bit about who I am. And I put a bullet point list on the candidate collection central page. I’m a big fan of bullet points. I think they help. But having thick skin, being able to work with anybody at any time, being a good listener, not panicking. That’s something I’ve really come to appreciate when I’ve run into managers that just don’t handle pressure well. I don’t understand how they got there. So that gives you a little bit about all three of those areas. I will just stop there and see what else you want to talk about.

Randy Showstack

Thank you very much, Andy, for that introduction. Are there any questions?

Amy Fickling

I got two questions.

Actually, I want to ask you the same question I asked Sue. And it’s actually a two-part question. Were you on the board when that downsizing proposal came up on the board?

Andy Schotz

Yes, I was a regional director. In fact I was one of the last regional directors on the board before they became regional coordinators. If you go back few years, and you can look at the blog that I used to keep, I was the one who—I don’t want to take full credit for this—but I’ve pitched years before it happened, having the regional coordinators removed from the board. I saw it as two different positions that were combined into one. And it forced people to sort of prefer one or the other, because you couldn’t do both of them very well. So, I think this is a much better way to have somebody just focus on the region and somebody focus on being a board member.

Yes, I was there when the first cut was 23 to 16, I think. And now we are at nine.

Amy Fickling

I know another part of that whole downsizing thing was there was supposed to be a committee, I have forgotten, where that originated, a nominating committee to try to get more representation on the board and I don’t know. This may be a hard-nosed question.  But you are a veteran. Some other people are veterans who run. How is it being carried out that we’re getting more diverse candidates to run?

Andy Schotz

That’s a very good question. I can tell you a little bit of background about that, because I know that when the nominating committee was formed, it was meant to be a vetting committee but even like a seal of endorsement committee. I fought hard against that, because to me, it turned it almost into a coronation. I don’t know what the right word was. But the committee itself could have been choosing the candidates or at least weeding through them in a way that candidates they considered good would move on.

I just did not agree with that at all.

So that did not happen. But there is a nominations committee that is supposed to be rounding up candidates. It’s not just, “Hey, you’re the past president, you do it.” But there’s a full committee that takes this seriously. I think a lot of it still comes down to who does the work, because you can have a single past president, who did a great job and I’ve seen that. And you can have a single past president who just fades away and I have seen that, too.

So, I don’t know that the nominating committee on its own is an answer. But they have to do the work to try to find diversity of geography, of platform, of race, of gender, of you name it.  The more that we can find representing the different elements of our group and of society, the better. You’re looking for experience and we are looking for passion and all of that. But having a full slate of candidates matters. And I don’t know that there is a guarantee that a nominating committee would do that.

Amy Fickling

One more question. That was actually a two-part one. Are you running for this position because you think you’ll be a good secretary-treasurer.  I’m sure you do. But is it also you intend to run for this position because it is the first one on the ladder for moving on up? Or, you know, I don’t know that it’s ever happened where somebody and a national secretary treasurer.  Or maybe in the past they were two separate positions–I can’t remember–who ran consecutively, did not want to move up. But anyway, what’s your feeling on that? Why you are running for this particular position?

Andy Schotz

That’s also a good question. I take the advice of Bill McCloskey who said if you’re going to run for that position, first thing is know what that position is:  secretary and treasurer. The secretary part, as the person who takes minutes–talk about quirky little things. I love taking minutes. I’m one to document. I see it in journalistic sense and I actually believe it should be high standards for what we do. Poor minutes can actually hurt.

But then there is the treasurer part, which means paying very close attention to finances. I’ve had that experience as a board member, as a member of our finance committee and even sitting in on our finance committee, just being there to hear what’s going on.

Those are the two parts of the job. And there are more than that, because you’re a board member, but that’s where it starts.

As far as what happens after that, it is very traditional. It’s not unprecedented that somebody becomes secretary treasurer and then doesn’t run.  And it’s not unprecedented that somebody skips over like Sue is trying to do this year and doesn’t start as secretary treasurer. I would like to serve as long as I can. And if that means that I am elected and then I have a chance to run again next year, job willing, life willing, I will do that.

Sure, sure. Well, I appreciate you guys giving me the time to quickly, I know I am seeing your familiar faces and there’s ones that I’ve haven’t had the pleasure to meet yet.

I won’t go too much into the history of my journalism career. That’s available online for you guys to see. I definitely wanted to touch on some points, too. I think when it comes to SPJ for myself, I actually joined SPJ in 2013. And in 2014, I decided to find my community. And this is when I came back from the Middle East reporting and I really was trying to find a place where I could connect with other journalists. And I found that with SPJ, typically at that time was when they were revising International.

And for me, I think International Community has been something of passion for me, within SPJ. Trying to create a community where we can draw attention to something that’s really important, which is international committees and create a safe space for everyone. And create an opportunity for people to learn more about why international is so important for local audiences and vice versa.

So, from 2014, I believe when someone has just taken over the community, they decided to step down, I knew that I didn’t want it to go away. And I had to step in.  And at that point, I think there were probably 16 people that are interested in the group.

And I was very fortunate enough to have Dan come on board to help guide me and give me some insight as to how to go forward. And at this point, today, we have about 470 plus members within the Facebook group. And throughout the years who’ve done lots of advocacy work. We’ve done a lot of presentations of SPJ International Community abroad.

One that I remember, if I was to reflect on the things that has happened that really stayed with me is:  a few years ago, we had a Syrian journalist in Turkey that had reached out to the International Community looking for help.  And he was going to France and had no one. I reached out to the SPJ community in France, asked if anyone could help this journalist in any capacity. And from that point, a community came together in France, our SPJ members, and gave him a place to stay. And I advocated with them, I reached out to local organizations in France on behalf of SPJ. And ask them to their places [inaudible] make them as a journalist, and after a conversation with them, they accepted him as an SPJ member in that community and having a place to stay for one year.

These are some things I think it’s important to think about when you think about community, I think SPJ has a place in United States and also can have a presence internationally. And one thing that I really did, and present to them was, I hope that when we go forward in making these early [inaudible] that you remember that SPJ has a code of ethics that we have translated into different languages over the years. And as people join from international or from within the U.S. we can help provide those opportunities.

And I think about the pandemic this year, it’s really, and I, [inaudible] really sit down and think about what is our presence as an organization as a whole.

And besides the numbers, I really, you know, I’m glad that those numbers have grown. But I think it really creates a sense of community. And we’ve been creating resources and opportunities for people to connect, with our IC talks that we started just a couple months ago. And really, I was thinking it was going to be a few weeks that it has been every week and with the help of, especially with the help of Dan and the other members of international community.

Every week, we’re bringing in a fantastic talk like Maria Ressa, [inaudible] from CNN. We just had [inaudible] from Al Jazeera. It’s continuing to grow and expand and create an opportunity for SPJ.

And I think these are things that are really important to think about in the future for SPJ [inaudible]. Why would they want to join SPJ? It’s because we’re creating these opportunities to have a sense of community and a place to belong.

And I hope that in the past few years with my experience and my work in international, we have done that.

Another thing that I’m really excited to actually announce today, because I’ve been working on this with Dan, the last week or so, is the international community just got approval to show A Thousand Cuts with Maria Ressa at the conference.

And so, a few of the things that we’re working on and you know, these are really important things to do as opportunities. If you want, as I think that it’s really important if you want to grow the organization, the membership. These are things we can think outside the box that we’ve been doing. And I can’t take all the credit. I really think, honestly, it’s Dan, it’s Robert, it’s Jennifer, it’s everyone that I’ve ever reached out to that has helped guide me in this process. And that’s as a whole, I think, what’s really special about SPJ.

I am a talker, so I won’t say too much. And I will let you guys ask questions, because I will talk for an hour, and I know that is too long.

Randy Showstack

Well, thanks very much for that introduction. I appreciate that. So we have time for a few questions. And does anybody want to go first?

Dee Divis

I will ask the same question I asked before. Not many leadership positions generally seen as a position on the ladder to the leadership of SPJ. Do you have top priorities for overall organization in mind?

Elle Toussi

I think so, you know, I think about some experiences I have had with another organization where currently I’m on the board for the Freelancers Union. And when I came back in the United States in 2014, that was another organization where I was trying to find a place because I’m a freelancer, and I’m an international journalist. And from there, I started just posting gatherings for other freelancers in Los Angeles. Over the years, I’ve shown interest. And I saw this opportunity there. And now, I serve on the board for the past few years.

And so I think when it comes to SPJ, there’s lots of opportunities and I think that I bring to the table, outside of the box thinking. I have worked very well and been creative and thinking about things on my own, but I thrive in a group setting. So, having a board position for me, it’s not something [inaudible], I bring that experience from another organization that is doing really well and I’m hoping that I can bring that for SPJ as well.