By Kai Dambach
Philip Merrill College of Journalism, UM SPJ Chapter
For the second year, SPJ members from all over the country were able to make their voices heard in the election of the organization’s board of directors. While many SPJ members were able to make the trip to Anaheim, Calif., Aug. 24-26 for this year’s “Excellence in Journalism” conference, those who couldn’t attend were still able to cast their vote via e-mail ballot – the system everyone used to vote for national board members.
The “one-person, one-vote” election process is only for selecting national board members. Business matters still are decided in votes cast by chapters’ designated delegates.
The change from strictly delegate voting for board members to every member having a say in who they want to lead the organization as board members is due largely to the work of former DC Pro Chapter President Andy Schotz who helped lead the fight for “one person, one vote.”
Schotz, an editor with the Gazette newspapers in Montgomery County, Md., and SPJ’s former national ethics chair, knows a little something about the importance of being counted.
Schotz said he previously lived in upstate New York where it was impossible for him to vote in SPJ elections (he wasn’t an SPJ member yet). “People were not represented in many parts of the country, including upstate New York. There were no SPJ chapters north of New York City. If you did not belong to a chapter, you did not have a vote,” said Schotz.
Schotz, who was elected to serve as Region 2 director during the elections in Anaheim, worked together with chapters across the country and previous leaders of SPJ to put the “one person, one vote” issue before the delegates at the convention in 2011. The proposal was not without opposition, with some arguing that the voting process would be too costly, for example.
But the proposed voting change easily passed. Now all members of SPJ — student, rookie and veteran — can have their say in the yearly elections, regardless of their ability to attend the convention.