Lots of local color involved at the 2018 SPJ national convention
By Amy Fickling
With the 2018 national SPJ convention set for Baltimore, “just up the road,” I decided early in the year that I would attend, as I had not been to one in several years. No airports to deal with. No need to take off work for a travel day.
The last convention I attended was in Ft. Lauderdale in 2012. That’s where I met Al Leeds, who was on the national SDX Foundation board and lived in Arlington, Virginia, but was not active in the DC Pro Chapter at the time. At my suggestion, he started attending chapter events later that fall, though. Not long after that, he was persuaded to run for a director position on the chapter board, and served for several years before retiring to Florida in 2017. At EIJ18, I spotted Al at a distance in the cavernous convention hotel hallway, but didn’t have a chance to catch up with him as he walked on. It was fun to see a DC Pro Chapter alum, and muse about how sending delegates to these conventions (I was a DC Pro Chapter delegate) forges so many productive professional interactions, usually helping to advance our chapter’s business at the same time. By the way, Al ended his 12 years of service on the national SDX Foundation board at this year’s convention.
Well . . . already I am rambling . . . like how my morning was proceeding on several tracks Thursday, Sept. 27, the first day of EIJ18. I needed to simply head “just up the road” to the convention. It was about an hour away, with my selected driving route along I270 to I495 to I95. Afternoon rain was forecast. I couldn’t be sure the WiFi situation would be reliable immediately upon arrival. So I elected to do my scheduled editing from home first, then get on the road, with an eye toward rolling into the convention hotel for most of the late afternoon lineup and well before the start of the opening night reception.
This let me become mesmerized while working and keeping one eye on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation proceedings that were underway, featuring Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony and then his. The situation put me in mind of similarly being swept up in the confirmation proceedings for Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court, and Anita Hill’s testimony, which I especially remember because of a DC Pro Chapter program I helped organize on the topic of the media circus around that confirmation process in 1991, the year I was chapter president. It was carried on C-SPAN. Up the road, the convention was underway, and it so happened that the student news team covering EIJ18 also was keeping an eye on the Blasey Ford testimony. It was to become good conversation fodder for between EIJ18 sessions, too.
I’d been in drizzle and road spray all the way to Baltimore, once I got started up the road. So, dealing with that was old hat on the walk from Slider’s Bar & Grille, where some of us chapter stalwarts celebrated our Circle of Excellence awards, over to M&T Bank Stadium for the opening night party. Inside the Club level there I saw DC journalists who aren’t members of SPJ in the crowd, which I thought was a good sign for prospective attendance at EIJ20, when the convention will be in DC. DC Pro Chapter member Len Lazarick, who lives in Columbia, Maryland, and was planning to commute each day to the convention, gave me a ride back to the convention hotel from the stadium as the party was winding down, so I avoided walking back in the drizzle. Good to catch up with him and hear about the latest with his Maryland Reporter online publication that focuses on state government.
I had put out a good deal of publicity locally encouraging DC Pro members and friends to register for EIJ18, so was well aware of the navy blue and orange theme colors in use. It carried over to the large name badges we were to wear on lanyards around our necks during the convention (note them in several photos). But I began to be distracted by how that color scheme was lifted from the very carpet at the Hilton Baltimore, where we were gathered. On Saturday, my skirt even clashed with it when I looked down to snap the blue and orange. I was, however, dressed in theme with some of the stage setups for the supersessions!
Up the road in Baltimore, I was, and on Friday, Sept. 28, sitting in supersession “On the Road with Steve Hartman: Lessons in Unique Storytelling,” with hundreds of others. Not far along into the program, the curtain behind Hartman and interviewer Scott Libin (seen in photo on right in second row above) rustled. The audience tittered and at least one person Twittered. From my seat on the front row, I saw a familiar face emerge through the curtains on the left in the darkened room, and then DC Pro member Steve Goodman took a seat. After the entertaining and thought-provoking, even tear-jerking session ended, I went to ask Steve if he realized he and the person he walked in with had created a minor stir. He hadn’t, just thought he was coming in a side door, even though he’d walked half the length of the stage curtain before finding the opening to walk through. Once he learned the whole room probably saw that maneuver, he said to just refer to him as “the man behind the curtain. You can call me Oz.”
Comedy gold! That lets me add a yellow brick road (note first photo on this page) to my “up the road” and “On the Road” musings!
And segue into a commercial break. I was in a hotel room a little while on Friday for more reliable WiFi access when I noticed out the window the sound of what I imagined was Snoopy as the Red Baron attempting to get h
is dog house aloft. Alas, it was a small plane towing a banner. I know SPJ members can take advantage of a membership benefit of GEICO discounts, but was this flyby for us or the folks beginning to gather at adjacent Camden Yards for the Orioles game? Maybe it was a two-fer. But probably not a coincidence.
There were intersections in the road and the Hilton hallways.
At a scenic overlook were DC Pro members Stephenie Overman and Hazel Becker, who coincidentally (or not) continued the blue and orange color scheme in their clothing selections. They joined with other leaders and members of the SPJ Freelance Community to staff the SPJ Freelance Corner at EIJ. Hazel reported that “as in past years, traffic was brisk,” and that they met many independent journalists from across the country — answering questions, counseling newcomers, and making connections for freelancers seeking resources to make their freelancing efforts more successful. Public service announcement: Go here to find out more, and to join the Freelance Community.
Thinking back, DC Pro had a program with women sports writers from the Washington Post talking about covering professional and college sports teams in the DC market on Sept. 25, a couple of days before EIJ18 started. I know this is a coincidence, but Kimberley Martin (who recently left the Post for Yahoo Sports) was certainly dressed in the right color and sat in the right chair that night — in theme with the upcoming convention.
DC Pro’s SDX Foundation of Washington, D.C., scholars were also representing at EIJ18. Angelique Arintok, a student at George Mason University involved in the student SPJ chapter there and a current SDX Foundation of Washington scholarship recipient, was on hand Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Region 2 meeting to accept applause for her chapter being named Region 2’s student chapter of the year. I also chatted
with Brett Hall, a past SDX-DC scholarship awardee, who graduated from the University of Maryland and is working at WAVY TV in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, back in Region 2 after working in the Syracuse, New York, market. He said he was glad to be back close to his home town while attending EIJ18. He also was a student representative on the national SPJ board several years ago.
The indefatigable Andy Schotz was trying to make sure he had everyone’s back – or at the very least, a First Amendment T-shirt for everyone’s back, backing the First Amendment. He’s done a great job of getting these sold, with all the proceeds going to the Capital Gazette. As of the convention, $10,000 had been raised from shirt sales. You can still get a shirt for $20, and the proceeds still are designated.
I made a little detour into a session on “Phone Photography in the Newsroom: Gimmick or the Future?” I was expecting something more in line with the simple, hand-held variety, but presenter Mike Castellucci of Michigan State University hoisted something way more complicated. Still, he insisted his setup is less bulky than the usual broadcast camera crew equipment, and less intimidating to some story subjects. University of Maryland journalism teacher Chris Harvey captured a lot of the technical stuff on her Twitter feed. Castellucci observed that in Europe phone photography is more prevalent, whereas in the U.S. there are not even enough users for it to be considered a gimmick yet. But big-time Hollywood producers have embraced the phone technology as cheaper. The basis of his funky “setup” is a basic iPhone 10. Then he added a wide-angle lens, a couple of different microphones and the necessary tripod. A colleague told the audience that “you can do a lot with the technology, but to get the results Mike showed us, you have to have mad skills, so the person behind the camera really determines the outcome.”
Saturday night, during the closing SPJ dinner, there is a fair amount of speculation leading up to the announcement of the latest winner of the Wells Key, the Society’s highest honor. DC Pro has a connection to the 2018 awardee, as Andrew Seaman contributed to the DC Pro Chapter board of directors while he was a student representative on the national SPJ board and in town for a summer working at USA Today. I went over to congratulate him after the dinner, and he brought that up immediately. Good to know, because he’s young and he’s been in New York a while, and sometimes it’s hard to remember these things when so many new experiences are being piled up on top of the older ones. Andrew also served as national SPJ’s Ethics Committee chair for four years, and turned over the reins to Lynn Walsh at this convention. He wrote about that experience, and tweeted about the Wells Key honor.
Also during the dinner, NBC’s Chuck Todd was named a Fellow of the Society. One of the first things he said after getting to the podium was: “We’re all in this together.” DC Pro’s Kathryn Foxhall, who crusades against “Censorship by PIO,” said she approached Todd after the dinner and gave him some printed material about SPJ’s surveys and efforts to get federal agencies to loosen restrictions on reporters’ access to employees who do the first-hand work on reports and produce data. She hopes that Todd will take note, and use his high profile to talk about the issue.
The President’s Installation dinner usually marks the end of the road for each convention. I did remember to snap the dessert before it was demolished. Just to show that it was not navy blue and orange. But it was good nonetheless. I savored it and the closing gathering.
I am already planning to hit the road to Texas for EIJ19 in San Antonio, Sept. 5-7. Not sure if I’ll try driving to that one. But already looking forward to EIJ20 in DC, much closer to home.
