Meeting held July 15, 2021
Virtual meeting held via videoconference on Zoom.
Present: President Randy Showstack; Treasurer Dan Kubiske; Vice President Dee Ann Divis; Corresponding Secretary Amy Fickling; Recording Secretary Kathryn Foxhall; board members Julie Asher, Jacqueline Fuller, Selma Khenissi, and Celia Wexler.
Special Guests: Stephenie Overman, SPJ Region 2 coordinator; Kathleen Burns, student chapter liaison; Marcel Reid, whistleblower coordinator; Michael McCray, Whistleblower Summit coordinator; and SPJ member Andy Schotz.
Excused absences: Ken Jost and Denise Dunbar.
Call to Order
President Randy Showstack called the meeting to order at about 6:47 p.m.
Minutes
Treasurer Dan Kubiske moved that the minutes of the June 17 board meeting be approved as submitted by email earlier. Vice President Dee Ann Divis seconded the motion. The board voted to approve the motion.
Financial Report
Kubiske moved that the financial report he had sent to the board by email earlier be approved. Board member Selma Khenissi seconded the motion.
During discussion, Kubiske added there would be expenses submitted from Dateline Awards contest coordinator Jane Giles for printing and mailing out the award certificates, and that her stipend will be sent to her after she finishes the report on the contest.
A question was raised as to whether the chapter is all caught up on getting its local membership dues sent from national headquarters.
Kubiske said quarterly checks are arriving, but maybe not exactly at the end of each quarter. He said the amounts from the latest dues checks that are designated for the SDX Foundation of Washington scholarship fund will be sent to SDX-DC soon.
The board voted to approve the motion.
Programs
Khenissi said she is still working on her proposal for a program.
Kubiske said he will put together a program for September 22 on the Supreme Court decision Times v. Sullivan because there a couple of cases coming forward that could challenge that decision and at least two of the current justices want to overturn it. The program would give an overview in advance of the next SCOTUS session convening the first Monday in October. Board member Ken Jost is to moderate, with media attorney Chuck Tobin and Washington Post media columnist Erik Wemple on the panel.
Corresponding Secretary Amy Fickling asked board members for ideas on an outdoor venue for having the annual membership appreciation meeting/event we’ve been discussing. She suggested mid- to late September, after the SPJ 21 Conference, so that a conference report can be part of the agenda for the meeting, or as late as early October, so the weather will probably still be nice. Some board members suggested waiting until October, due to some other journalism conferences in late September. Board member Julie Asher said she’d assist Fickling with researching and selecting a few sites. The aim is to have a suggested time and date by the August board meeting, in hopes of finalizing plans then.
Whistleblower Event
At 7:05 p.m., Showstack welcomed Marcel Reid, whistleblower liaison, who joined the meeting to talk about the upcoming Whistleblower Summit and Film Festival and the chapter’s cooperation with that event.
Reid thanked everyone in the chapter who planned to participate. The event will feature the 50th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers with whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
She also noted the planned panels on student debt, police reform in Illinois and interference with reporting through PIOs, a panel that SPJ-DC is hosting on July 26.
Board members agreed that the chapter would send out a press advisory on the event and DC Pro co-sponsorship.
Another of the event planners, Michael McCray, joined the meeting shortly afterward. He said that some technical issues with accessing panel descriptions on the Whistleblower Summit’s website should be worked out soon.
Reid and McCray left the meeting at 7:20 p.m.
Committee Reports
Censorship by PIO. Recording Secretary Kathryn Foxhall, leader of the chapter’s Freedom of the Press Committee and “Censorship by PIO” project, reported on work on restraints on reporting, including forced oversight by PIOs. She reported that national SPJ is leading a coalition to send a letter to President Joe Biden’s Scientific Integrity Task Force. She pointed out that Biden is only the second Democratic president who has had these restrictions to the extent they are now. She also reported that Open the Government is beginning a project on the issue.
Foxhall asked the board for permission to send a press release on behalf of the chapter when the coalition led by SPJ and the Society of Environment Journalists sends the letter to the Scientific Integrity Task Force. She also asked for a sense of the board that it is OK for her to send a press release on the SPJ-sponsored session on the PIO restrictions at the Whistleblower Summit.
The sense of the board was to let Foxhall prepare and send those two press releases on behalf of the DC Pro Chapter.
She reported that Open the Government is planning to apply for a $5,000 grant from the SPJ Foundation, a move she has encouraged. She would like the board to show its support for the application by writing a letter of recommendation.
Foxhall moved that the SPJ DC Pro Chapter board send a letter of recommendation to the national SPJ Foundation in conjunction with the application of Open the Government for a $5,000 grant to work on a project involving PIO censorship research.
After a second, the board voted to approve the motion.
Membership. Showstack noted that he has a planned survey of the membership coming up, with a door prize of a complimentary registration for the September 2-4 SPJ 21 Conference in New Orleans from a drawing from among those who respond to the survey. While he does not have a sample survey to share tonight, he said he can send something around by email in a few days.
Kathleen Burns, student chapter liaison, was recognized to discuss her proposal about sending recruitment letters to people who entered the recent Dateline Awards contest, with separate letters to people who won and those who did not.
She said that while she is on medical leave until October she could do some of the work on a mailing if supplied envelopes, stamps, and address labels with people’s names and addresses.
Region 2 coordinator Stephenie Overman counterproposed that she and Burns do work on student chapters during the time Burns is on leave. Burns said she would be happy to work on both projects.
Fickling, who as corresponding secretary is head of the Membership Committee and who also has served as liaison with the Dateline Awards contest coordinator, said she thinks it may be a little early after the presentation of the awards (June 15) to approach award entrants about joining SPJ. Many of them are not members of SPJ, but since membership is not a requirement for entering the contest, they seem satisfied with entering the contest year after year as their connection to SPJ.
She also noted that we may not have addresses for all the entrants because a fair number of entries are submitted through persons in charge of entering contests at various media outlets, which means we have a general contact address rather than individual contacts in a lot of cases.
Several board members supported the concept of recruitment but favored a different approach to it than what Burns suggested.
Fickling moved to table the discussion. Khenissi seconded the motion. The board voted to approve the motion.
SPJ 2022 Conference in Washington. Overman suggested the board provide funds to create wearable buttons promoting next year’s SPJ 22 Conference in Washington, to be given out during the New Orleans in-person gathering portion of the hybrid SPJ 21 Conference Sept. 2-4.
Showstack suggested Overman get back to the board with the price estimates for the buttons, and perhaps a vote by email could occur before the next board meeting.
Proposed National Bylaws Changes, Upcoming Delegates Meeting
SPJ member Andy Schotz joined the meeting at 7:35 p.m., and Showstack thanked him for the work he has done with the current discussion within SPJ nationally about proposed changes in the national bylaws, and the petitioning process allowed in the bylaws. The chapter board had voted by email to support bringing the proposed changes before the national convention of delegates during the Sept. 2-4 SPJ 21 Conference, joining with other chapters to make that happen.
Schotz said that in the history of SPJ only once before have members used the bylaws provision that allows the votes of a minimum of 10 chapters to override the national board and bring an issue before the delegates. The national board had voted on the matter, but a tie vote there meant that the proposals did not move forward.
He said that when the proposed amendments come before the delegates they may be debated, amended, pulled apart and perhaps even defeated. However, he asserted, the delegates’ meeting is the venue for the discussion.
Schotz said some of the things in the package of proposed changes are innocuous and should be passed without discussion. However, he said the SPJ board had previously voted in a way that meant the whole package was not approved for consideration during the convention.
Board members asked that the board discuss the substance of the proposed changes at the August board meeting, to potentially instruct chapter delegates on how to vote on them during the convention.
Showstack said the chapter has been allotted three delegates for the September SPJ convention, meeting during the SPJ 21 Conference. The number dropped from four delegates last year due to a decrease in chapter membership.
Schotz said there are several (now former) DC Pro Chapter members who have moved their membership to unaffiliated. He said he will apply to be a Region 2 delegate from among unaffiliated national SPJ members in the region because he wants to be part of this discussion at the during the convention of delegates.
He noted that about 41 percent of SPJ members are unaffiliated with a chapter and in recent years a national bylaws change created a system to have one delegate for every 50 unaffiliated members in each region.
Ratification of Email Vote on Proposed National Bylaws Changes
The chapter board, with a unanimous affirmative electronic vote by nine participating board members on June 28-29, approved a motion saying, “The SPJ DC board supports sending the national SPJ Bylaws Committee’s proposed bylaws changes to the delegates at this year’s national convention.”
Showstack made the motion by email, and it was seconded by Jost. All but two board members participated in the e-vote, which was conducted by Google Forms vote, according to the chapter policy on e-voting.
Fickling moved that the board ratify its unanimous affirmative electronic vote June 28-29 to support sending the national SPJ Bylaws Committee’s proposed bylaws changes to the delegates at this year’s national convention. Kubiske seconded.
The board voted to approve the motion.
Adjournment
Kubiske moved and Divis seconded a motion that the board meeting be adjourned. The board voted to approve the motion.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:48 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathryn Foxhall
Recording Secretary