Friends, I'd promised myself that I'd wait until I'd caught up on the messages in the list before reporting on the OS I just did at a national journalism conference (Associated Press Managing Editors). I've given up and will just send this update into the mix.
It went superbly. First I did a breakout session on appreciative inquiry. It was small but meaningful for the those who came. I'd say the most frequently mentioned thread in the stories of great journalism was how human they were. There was a journalism student in the room who said what he was hearing about the very best stories went against everything he was being taught about the appropriate way to do stories. In the closing, one of the people said, "We really have to consider a whole new paradigm for our newsroom." College journalism students put out a newspaper about the conference on each day of the conference. Not every session made it into the paper, but this session, even with only 12 attendees, was there. So the impact moved out of the session and into the larger conference. The open space on "Journalism that Matters", which was a plenary, was well received. After 3 days of speaker panels, not surprisingly, many said the OS was the best part of the conference. One person said he got more ideas per minute during the OS than during any other part of the conference. And the really good news -- the board has committed to doing a similar "Newsroom Summit: Journalism that Matters" around the country. That was ultimately our goal. To that end, on Monday, one of the board members who volunteered his state (Connecticut) as a starting point , contacted the APME president about getting started. This is going to fly! I'll keep you posted as things progress. Peggy P.S. As an aside, it was fascinating to hear the how journalists view 911 and its impact on them. It has been quite emotional for them since one impact is they are selling more newspapers and reaching new audience for the first time in 20 years. Many talked about how exciting it was to see teenages carrying newspapers! So in the midst of the pain, they're grappling with how they can keep this new audience reading. The other theme that came up frequently was how human the stories were than had the most impact; not just telling human stories but giving readers a glimpse of their humanity. The impression I had that most surprised me is what a narrow view of the world most of these folks have! They seem to think they are sharing the complete picture! It amazes me and I never discussed it with any of them because I just didn't know how to do it in a meaningful way. ______________________________ **** Please note new address: [email protected] *** Peggy Holman The Open Circle Company 15347 SE 49th Place Bellevue, WA 98006 425.378.8331 (fax) 425.746.6274 www.opencirclecompany.com * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
