FSNE Note

A series of regular updates that appear in upcoming Bulletins about Florida Society of Newspaper Editor activities.

Oct. 16, 2007

Training is hot, FSNE initiatives bubble

Our first multimedia workshop in Gainesville this month found the sweet spot! We virtually sold out at 100 participants, who were effusive in their praise for the strong teaching faculty of Chip Scanlan, Mindy McAdams, John Freeman, Vidisha Priyanka, Lee Glynn, Crystal Lauderdale, Jeff Kleinman, Bob Stover, Tony Winton, Suzette Laboy, and Doug Engle, all of whom generously donated their time and talent.

Be sure to sign staff up for the NewsTrain workshop in Tampa Nov. 2-3. The deadline for registering is Friday, Oct. 26. This special session offers multimedia training for frontline editors and online news directors. It focuses on coaching and managing people in a multimedia world. Sessions will include editing blogs, coaching writers, managing change, online story forms, databases and online ethics. The cost is only $50. A registration form can be found at www.newstrain.org. Michael Roberts, senior editor for staff development at the Arizona Republic, and Jody Brannon, senior editor of MSN.com and formerly of USATODAY.com, are the major trainers. Also on the agenda are Terry Eberle, the executive editor of Florida Today, who will discuss the transformational change in his newsroom and Bob Steele of Poynter, who will lead a session on values and ethics in an online world.

The next FSNE/FPA/SNPA multimedia skills workshop is at the University of Miami Dec. 1, designed for southeast and southwest Florida frontline journalists. It’s a Saturday session again so journalists within three hours of Miami can make it a same-day roundtrip. The cost remains $25, and it’s first-come, first-served for the computer lab sessions with limited seating. Sign up at the Florida Press Association calendar of events page. Contacts are Gil Thelen, gthelen@cas.usf.edu and Thelma Givens, TGivens@flpress.com.

The Miami workshop lineup is as follows: Video for Photographers (Joann Mracek, South Florida Sun-Sentinel), an all-day workshop;
Introduction to Flash (Belinda Long/Karsten Ivey, South Florida Sun-Sentinel), an all-afternoon workshop; 90-minute workshops: Writing Online (Martin Merzer, The Miami Herald); Producing Audio Slide Shows (Ricardo Lopez, The Miami Herald); Blog Writing (Mindy McAdams, University of Florida); Headlines for the Web (Jeff Kleinman, The Miami Herald); Story Planning for the Web (Vidisha Priyanka, TBO.com); Audio Reporting/Editing (Tony Winton, Suzette LaBoy, AP);
Video for Reporters (Doug Engle, Ocala Star-Banner); Photoshop for Copy Editors (Marta Lavandier, AP); Managing Digital Change (Bob Stover, Florida Today); Online Ethics Challenges (Panel TBA).

The AP is offering a special program at the Miami bureau Thursday, Oct. 30 on public records, featuring Joe Adams of the Times-Union. The headline is a “special day of FOI, records and resources geared to help you break news and improve stories now.” Adams is the much-honored author of the Florida Public Records Handbook. Contact Rosemarie Mileto (rmileto@ap.org) for details and registration.

The FSNE board met in Gainesville at UF Oct. 9. Bill McKeen, journalism chair, was our host, as he was for the multimedia workshop. Thank you again, Bill and interim Dean John W. Wright II. We agreed to modify our contest to place more emphasis on online and Spanish-language categories. We’ll be sharing the final draft proposal with the FSNE membership for comment. Next year’s Sunshine Sunday efforts will focus on gaining openness commitments from political candidates at every level of government and developing online how-to components. The 2008 convention will be June 5-6 at Disney World resort in Orlando. Program emphasis will be on the political campaigns (presidential nominees to be invited) and Cuba.

The reconstituted FOI committee will testify at the rescheduled, second meeting of the Governor’s Commission on Open Government Nov. 27-28 in Orlando. FSNE’s priorities are secrecy, cost and access. Cory Lancaster, managing editor of the Daytona Beach News-Journal, will speak about secrecy, Matt Reed, assistant managing editor of Florida Today and I will talk about high costs for searches and documents, and Bob Shaw, deputy managing editor of the Orlando Sentinel, will tackle access.

Gil Thelen
Executive Director
FSNE