Author: Compiled for GJR

STL-SPJ holds free journalism boot camp

By Media

The St. Louis chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists will hold an all-day journalism boot camp at Webster University Sept. 21 for high-school and college students, recent graduates and newsroom interns. Professional reporters, editors and photographers from the St. Louis area will coach campers on the art of interviewing, video editing, real-world newsroom ethics and covering arts and entertainment. “At a time when our industry is experiencing great change and many career journalists are losing their livelihoods, it is inspiring that so many professionals are willing to donate their time to teach incoming reporters,” SPJ St. Louis Pro Chapter President Tammy Merrett-Murry said.

Open letter to media takes issue with coverage of Latin America

By Media, ,

COMPILED FOR GJR / The supposed “irony” of whistleblower Edward Snowden seeking asylum in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela has become a media meme. Numerous articles, op-eds, reports and editorials in outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR and MSNBC have hammered on this idea since the news first broke that Snowden was seeking asylum in Ecuador. It was a predictable retread of the same meme last year, when Julian Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and the Ecuadorian government deliberated his asylum request for months. Of course, any such “ironies” would be irrelevant even if they were based on factual considerations.

Column on White House drone memo draws reader response

By Media

On March 27, reader Laurance Strait replied to a Feb. 8 column by Gateway Journalism Review publisher William H. Freivogel with this email: “The reason civil libertarians and others are upset with Obama’s novel extra-judicial killing doctrine in part is in how it has been applied. Your characterization would be more persuasive to me if sitting in a café having breakfast didn’t count as being an ‘imminent threat’ that is ‘in the battlefield.’ As those facts are rather well known, I don’t really know how to read this post as anything but intentionally Orwellian.”

St. Louis SPJ event to focus on sports

By Media, ,

In celebration of March Madness and the thrill of sports, the Society of Professional Journalists is presenting “March Madness: Covering the Wide World of Sports” for this month’s News at Noon speaker series in St. Louis, which takes place March 14 in the AT&T Room of the Missouri History Museum (co-sponsor of the event), located at 5700 Lindell Boulevard in Forest Park. A panel of veteran sports journalists will share the ins and outs of covering sports, and speakers will reveal how they got the best stories of their careers. The audience will get an insider’s view of the interviews, sports personalities and even behind-the-scenes anecdotes that never made it to print. From the stars of the high school playing fields, to college athletes, to World Series champions, our speakers have worked on the stories that have captivated our region’s sports fans.