Mexico’s Elections and What It Means to Press Freedom and Journalists’ Safety
Mexico goes to the polls in June. What will the election of a new president and legislative assembly mean for the safety of journalists in Mexico and for press freedom?
Join former Associate Press Bureau Chief Katherine Corcoran and founder and editor-in-chief of Tijuana Press Vicente Calderón and they ponder this question and look at what the upcoming election means.
Register HERE.
Drop a note to Stephenie Overman at soverman@spj.org
The SPJ Freelance Community is hosting a free webinar Thursday, July 11 at 7 p.m. ET on how journalists can and should use Artificial Intelligence. Our guest speaker on the topic is the formidable Sree Sreenivasan. We’re quite proud of organizing this and we’d love to see you there.
Sreenivasan has been teaching generative AI workshops worldwide for the past year. He was a full-time journalism professor at Columbia University for 20+ years and served as the chief digital officer at Columbia. He is the 2024 president of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), which he co-founded in 1994.
If you’d like to attend (it’s for all SPJ members, not just freelancers), the Zoom details are below.
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
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International numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdjdLpH023
With a dwindling number of days until the general election, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-by-day minutiae of campaign theatrics, mudslinging and insider politicking — even if that doesn’t help voters understand what candidates stand for, let alone how they plan to accomplish it.
Research shows that episodic, horse-race coverage is driving Americans to disengage with news, and creating gaps in civic understanding at all levels. How to fix it? Shift from the odds to the stakes. Led by Beatrice Forman and Jaisal Noor — two organizers with U.S. Democracy Day — this training will help journalists have working understanding of pro-democracy journalism and its impact, develop reporting plans for thematic election stories, and pull from a set of quick tips to immediately elevate their coverage beyond the horse race.
Beatrice Forman is the project coordinator for U.S Democracy Day, where she oversees programming and operations for a collaborative of 160+ newsrooms across the U.S. committed to producing high impact journalism that spurs civic engagement. She is also a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, covering breaking news and Philly’s unique internet culture. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Beatrice has reported on the creator economy for Vox and built engagement strategies for nonprofit newsrooms in Philadelphia.
Jaisal Noor is the Democracy Cohort Manager for the Solutions Journalism Network. He leads the Advancing Democracy Fellowship, helping newsrooms reinvent the way they cover politics, including deepening their election coverage beyond the horse race. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park. Over the past decade, Jaisal has reported for Democracy Now!, The Atlantic, Bolts Magazine, The Real News Network and Baltimore Beat.
The session will be hosted by chapter president Celia Wexler.
REGISTER HERE.
John Maxwell Hamilton, journalist, author and journalism professor, has agreed to talk about the history of American foreign reporting, local/global story possibilities and his assessment of the current way US media outlets cover international events. We will also get to his book about the cocktail, The French 75.
Register for this event sponsored by the SPJ International Community HERE.
John Maxwell Hamilton, a longtime journalist, author and public servant, is the Hopkins P. Breazeale Professor of Journalism at the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication and a global scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.
As a journalist, Hamilton reported for the Milwaukee Journal, The Christian Science Monitor and ABC radio. He was a longtime commentator for MarketPlace, broadcast nationally by Public Radio International. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs and The Nation, among other publications.
In the course of his career, Hamilton has had assignments in more than 50 countries. In addition to covering foreign news, Hamilton has written extensively on foreign correspondence and sought to improve it. In the mid-1980s, he created and directed a Society of Professional Journalists project to develop techniques for local reporting of foreign news, especially on relations with developing countries. He later contributed to a similar project for the American Society of Newspaper Editors. In the 1980s, National Journal said Hamilton has shaped public opinion about the complexity of U. S.-Third World relations “more than any other single journalist.”
Hamilton is author or co-author of seven books and editor of many more. “Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting.” won the Goldsmith Prize from the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy and the Book of the Year Award from the American Journalism Historians Association/
SPJ INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY GLOBAL FACT-CHECKING WEBINAR: While all good journalists know to fact-check their stories, independent fact-checking organizations have sprung up around the world to address the increased misinformation being promoted in social media and by many political figures. Join the IC for its “Fact-Checking — A Global Update” webinar at 7 p.m. EST Tuesday. Speakers will include Angie Holan, director of the International Fact Checking Network, and Dulamkhorloo Baatar, founder of NEST Mongolia, the Mongolian affiliate with the IFCN. Retired journalist and educator Jeff South will moderate the session. Registration is required.
Join the SPJ International Community and the Washington DC SPJ chapter for an online discussion with Kirstin McCudden, Vice President of Editorial at Freedom of the Press Foundation and Managing Editor at US Press Freedom Tracker, about these and other threats to press freedom in the United States.
Monday, February 10 at 6pm ET
Register HERE.
Challenges to the independence of the news media, statements designed to warn off journalists from certain stories and outright physical threats are on the rise in the United States.
There were 314 incidents of violations of press freedom in the United States during 2024, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. The actions ranged from the Kansas legislature banning reporting from the House floor to a Colorado reporter being choked outside his TV station to numerous search orders against news organizations.
Things are not expected to look much better in 2025. Already Trump Administration officials have threatened increased investigations into leaks to the press; more criminal prosecution of journalists and stepped-up government surveillance of the press. A recent report from the Department of Justice Inspector General report detailed the illicit seizures of reporters records during 2020-2021.
Recent moves by the Pentagon have already taken back desk space used by long-time news organizations such as the New York Times and National Public Radio. The spaces were given to other non-traditional news groups, some of whom do not yet have a dedicated Pentagon correspondent.
The conversation facilitator will be Nerissa Young a professor of instruction in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University and a 31-year member of the Society of Professional Journalists. She advises the 10-time national SPJ campus chapter of the year at Ohio University. Young teaches International Mass Media and Foreign Correspondence courses, among others. She previously taught journalism at Oklahoma State University, Shepherd University and Marshall University, where she earned her master’s degree in journalism.
What
REGISTER HERE: Eventbrite
As we recognize the 20th anniversary of national Sunshine Week, we’re organizing an in-person conference to find solutions to pressing problems in freedom of information across all disciplinary and geographic boundaries.
We are bringing together journalists, record custodians, policy makers, historians, state FOI coalitions, librarians, academics, civil society nonprofit groups, commercial data providers, and all other constituencies who care about transparency at the local, state, federal and global levels of government.
Attendees will produce an action plan to be implemented post-conference and beyond.
See a detailed schedule, with topics (to be updated as more speakers are confirmed).
Why
We want to bring requesters and the government to the same table and identify solutions for improving the public’s ability to acquire information they need to self-govern. The goal: Strengthen democracy, communities, and individuals’ lives.
When
March 19-20, 2025.
Conference early bird rate (ends March 10): $50 ($25 for students)
After March 10, increases to $75 ($30 for students)
REGISTRATION: Eventbrite.
Limited to 160 registrants (142 registered so far – 18 seats left, as of Feb. 21!). If the registration fee is a hardship or you might have difficulty being reimbursed by your employer, send an email to David Cuillier (cuillierd@ufl.edu) to obtain a waiver code to use when you register on our EventBrite page.
We are offering a limited number of travel fellowships of up to $1,000 each to help offset travel/hotel costs, not including meals or incidentals. One person per organization, first come, first served. A reimbursement will be made after receipts are submitted after the conference. Apply for a travel fellowship by Feb. 21 here.
Where
Reception, March 19
Clyde’s of Gallery Place
707 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Sunshine Fest, March 20
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center
555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
Who
Coordinated by the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, the National Freedom of Information Coalition, and the Johns Hopkins University Communication Graduate Program. Support for Sunshine Fest and Sunshine Week comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
How
Sessions will meet the following criteria:
- Of interest and importance to both requesters and government agencies.
- Foster understanding, empathy and constructive common-sense solutions.
- Cross geographic boundaries – local, state, federal and global.
- Cross disciplines – journalism, nonprofit, history, archives, public administration, academia, commercial sector, etc.
- Break conventional boundaries – bring new ideas and new perspectives to inspire positive change through legislation, processes, research, and innovative initiatives.
Topics include the latest technologies to improve searches/redactions, how to handle voluminous requests, effective dispute resolution outside of litigation, the state of transparency under Trump and beyond, the use of FOIA for political advocacy, balancing privacy and access, and more. See schedule. Got a suggestion for future Sunshine Fests? Submit here.
“Creative nonfiction is not making something up but making the most of what you have.” John McPhee, in The New Yorker, Sept 15. 2015 —- In this one-hour webinar, award-winning author Gutkind will discuss some of the techniques journalists and nonfiction writers can use to make their work more cinematic and, in the process, more engaging to their readers. “Making the most of what you have means being creative in the approach to and structure of your stories and the details you include while communicating necessary information and ideas in a more three-dimensional manner,” says Gutkind, the founding editor of Creative Nonfiction Magazine, whose media appearances have included The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Good Morning America, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, and All Things Considered.
Moderator: Celia Wexler, president, SPJDC Pro Chapter
Register HERE for the Zoom event.
Join the SPJ D.C. Pro Chapter on Monday, May 19 at 6 p.m. ET for a discussion on AI and FOIA. Alex Ebermann, President, New York Coalition for Open Government, and Irwin McCullough, Co-Founder, FOIA Friend, will discuss the pros and cons of integrating AI in the records requesting process and how journalists can use AI as a tool.
The session will be moderated by freelance journalist James Mae.
Register HERE.