President: Ali Trumbull

Vice President: Ryann Rumbaugh

Secretary: Brianna Kelly

Membership/PR Coordinator: Monica Carter

Members of SPJ DePaul's executive board pose with awards from Good Day DePaul and The Red Line Project.

DePaul University journalism students won 19 awards — including six first-place finishes — at the SPJ Region 5 Mark of Excellence Awards April 14 in Indianapolis.

The six winners advance to the national Mark of Excellence Awards to compete with 11 other regions. Those winners will be announced in late September.

Region 5 covers universities and colleges in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

The list of winners:

PUBLICATION CATEGORIES

Best all-around student newscast: Good Day DePaul, FIRST PLACE

Best independent student website: The Red Line Project, SECOND PLACE

Best affiliated student website: The DePaulia, SECOND PLACE

Best student newspaper, non-daily: The DePaulia, THIRD PLACE

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS

Good Day DePaul

TV General News Reporting: Occupy Chicago Coverage, Rashanah Baldwin and Miguel Torres, SECOND PLACE

TV General News Reporting: 9/11 10^th Anniversary Coverage: Courtney Sturgeon, THIRD PLACE

The Red Line Project

Online News Reporting: Blizzard 2011 Coverage (The Staff of the Red Line Project), FIRST PLACE

Online Opinion Writing: Sports Journalism in a Digital World, Sam Kraft, FIRST PLACE

Online News Reporting: Chicago Mayoral Inauguration: AnnCatherine Brady, Bree Tuch and Blythe Meyer, SECOND PLACE

Online In-Depth Reporting: 10 Remember 9/11, The Staff of the Red Line Project, SECOND PLACE

Online Feature Reporting: Firefighter Steve Serb (10 Remember 9/11), Holly Pennebaker, THIRD PLACE

Online Sports Reporting: Chicago’s Young Athletes Deal With Life in the Limelight, Lauren Klopmeyer and Alex Soulier, THIRD PLACE

The DePaulia

Print Breaking News: When in Rome …, Dominic Zinn, FIRST PLACE

Print Sports Opinion Writing: Julian Zeng, FIRST PLACE

Print Feature Photography: Train 7473, Bartosz Brzezinski, FIRST PLACE

Editorial Cartooning: Typical DePaul Student, Matt Iammarino, SECOND PLACE

Online Opinion Writing: This is Our War; Rachel Metea, Michael Collins and Peter Dziedzic, SECOND PLACE

Print Breaking News Photography: Election night disappointment, Bartosz Brzezinski, THIRD PLACE

Print Feature Writing: Chicago’s Strip Search, Cheryl Waity, THIRD PLACE

We’ll be tweeting under #spjethics and the #spjr5 conference hashtag. Please include them when you tweet. Mike will Storify the highlights of the discussion off the #spjethics hashtag and post the link below by April 15.

Here are some of the resources we are sharing during the seminar as well as some other ethics goodies:

Storify of Discussion

SPJ Code of Ethics (.pdf)

Indianapolis Star Social Media Guidelines

RTDNA Social Media and Blogging Guidelines

Ethical Dilemmas and Case Studies (Powerpoint from today’s presentation, including Amy’s case studies)

Mandy Jenkins: You’re Boss is Going to Love These Party Pics … (Powerpoint)

NY Times: False Nikki Haley Twitter Reports Spreads Fast

Poynter: Branded journalists battle newsroom regulations

Twitter Credibility Study by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon

Mike Reilley’s Delicious Bookmarks (search ethics in the tagline field)

Mindy McAdams’ Social Media for Journalists (Powerpoint on slideshare)

Poynter: How to Verify News Accounts on Social Media (Jeff Sonderman)

Journalists to Follow on Twitter (Word document)

Executive board members must have Thursday late-afternoons and Thursday nights free and must have five to 10 hours a week to dedicate to SPJ DePaul.

SPJ DePaul Officer Job Descriptions, 2012-13 Term

Officer Election and Service Time Frame
New officers will take over late in the spring quarter. This model allows for the new leadership to get situated before the fall quarter begins. The Spring quarter to Spring quarter appointments enable the new officers to be trained before the new academic year starts in the fall.

Therefore, undergraduate seniors with one quarter remaining and second-year graduate students with one quarter remaining are ineligible to hold officer positions. You must be able to fulfill your entire officer term within your academic eligibility. There are no GPA requirements for leadership positions. You must be enrolled as a full-time DePaul student and be a member of SPJ National and SPJ DePaul to be eligible for a position.

Executive Board
The executive board presides over the chapter. Members of the executive board are: President, Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer, Membership Coordinator/Publicity Coordinator, Events-Programs Coordinator and the Chapter Adviser.

We have executive board positions available for the following positions: Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer, Membership/Publicity Coordinator and Events/Programs Coordinator.

To apply: Applicants are required to bring a resume to an interview with Chapter President Ali Trumbull and Chapter Adviser Mike Reilley on April 19 or 20. A sign-up sheet for interview times is on Reilley’s office door, 14 E. Jackson Blvd., room 1106. The president and adviser will announce their decisions within a week. You will be notified by email.

Job Descriptions: Vacant Officer Positions

Vice President

The vice president shall perform the duties of the president in the president’s absence and shall assist in coordinating all functions of the organization. The vice president also will oversee the secretary/treasurer, membership/publicity coordinator and events/programs coordinator. The vice president also will handle these responsibilities:

• Assist the president in monitoring the other coordinators
• Track progress of events and have coordinators send weekly email updates
• Help recruit new members
• Coordinate with all executive board members to ensure tasks are being completed in timely manner.
• Assist the President in updating the Chapter Bylaws if needed.

Secretary/Treasurer

The person filling this position must handle the duties and tasks of both the secretary and treasurer.
The secretary shall serve as corresponding and recording secretary, keeping minutes of all meetings. The secretary also will handle these responsibilities:

• Setting chapter meeting agendas with the president

• Assist the president with administrative duties for meetings and events
• Help recruit new members
• Update the chapter calendar on OrgSync

The treasurer shall be the coordinator of the chapter’s funds, in cooperation with the DePaul Office of Student Involvement and the chapter president and adviser. The treasurer will handle these responsibilities:

• Assist with booking and planning travel arrangements for the SPJ Regional and National Conferences

• Work with the chapter president and adviser to track the budget
• Help recruit new members

Membership/Publicity Coordinator

The membership/publicity coordinator shall serve as the coordinator of the chapter’s members and uphold the publicity duties for the organization. The membership/publicity coordinator will handle these responsibilities:

• Recruit new members at the beginning of each quarter
• Book tables at the various campus undergraduate and graduate involvement fairs
• Contact SPJ DePaul members and keep them updated on chapter news
• Promote upcoming events to campus and mainstream media
• Design promotional materials for SPJ events
• Maintain the @spjdepaul Twitter account, Facebook page, and OrgSync page.
• Work to increase membership numbers

Events/Programs Coordinator

The events/programs coordinator shall plan and execute chapter events that align with SPJ’s national qualifications. The events-programs coordinator will handle these responsibilities:

• Assist chapter president and adviser to schedule speakers, meeting rooms and event logistics (food, beverages, etc.)

• Communicate with secretary/treasurer and membership/publicity to ensure event logistics are up on OrgSync, Twitter, Facebook, and promoted to chapter members and the DePaul student body.

• Complete an event request for approval by chapter president, vice president and adviser. Must be completed at least 3 weeks prior to desired event.

All executive board members must go to the SPJ National and Regional conferences. Past regional conferences have been held in Cincinnati. Past national conferences have been held in Las Vegas and New Orleans.

The new executive board will be traveling Sept. 20-22 with the chapter president and chapter adviser to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for the 2012 SPJ National Conference. Most travel and event registration expenses are paid for by the chapter’s budget.

Moderator Anne Kavanaugh (left) and panelists prepare for the discussion.

SPJ DePaul’s Freedom of Information Panel discussion on Thursday offered tips on using FOIA requests and insight to how investigative journalists work.

The two-hour panel, moderated by DePaul adjunct journalism instructor and former TV news reporter Anne Kavanaugh, featured panelists Tim Novak and Chris Fusco of the Chicago Sun-Times and Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader. The free event drew nearly 50 people to the basement theater at DePaul’s Daley Building, 14 E. Jackson Blvd.

Miss the event? Craig Newman of the Chicago Sun-Times archived live-tweets and background in a Storify.

SPJ DePaul Vice President Lauren Camplin (left) and Publicity Coordinator Ali Trumbull work on the social media presentation.

SPJ DePaul traveled to Brother Rice High School on Dec. 13 to teach a journalism class how to utilize social media for news-gathering and reporting. Three students in the class already used Twitter, but the chapter helepd register the rest of 20-plus students on the social media site.

Chapter members Tabitha Hurley, Ali Trumbull, Lauren Camplin and Katie Karpowicz covered Twitter etiquette with the students, such as picking an appropriate Twitter handle, hashtags and how to retweet. Twitter is essential for students interested in journalism because people are relying more on social media sites for news delivery.

SPJ DePaul Secretary Tabitha Hurley, a Brother Rice alum, makes a point during the presentation.

SPJ DePaul wanted to make the students aware that Twitter is going to play a large role in their journalism careers, if they choose to have one. Most professional journalists are required to tweet regularly in their jobs.

The chapter also showed the class websites such as Twitpic and HootSuite that allow you to upload pictures to your Twitter or manage multiple Twitter accounts easier.

Multiple accounts are great managing professional and personal Twitter accounts. It is always important to remember to be professional when tweeting when representing a news organization or when applying for internships or jobs with a news outlet.

Other key lessons: Remember to act professional when using Twitter, have personality and fact-check what people tweet before using the information.

Visit the awards site for rules, entry deadline (Jan. 25, 2012), past winners and categories. Cost is only $9 per entry if you are an SPJ DePaul member, $18 for non-members.

Flynn McRoberts (left), of Bloomberg Business News, offers advice to SPJ DePaul Vice President Lauren Camplin.

SPJ DePaul completed its professional development campus chapter requirement on Oct. 28 with a “10-Minute Mentors” event at its downtown Loop campus newsroom.

Student members brought their resumes and sought career advice from some of the leading journalists in the Chicago area. The chapter would like to thank the journalists for taking time out of their busy schedules to help our students:

Jane Hirt, Managing Editor of the Chicago Tribune                      

Tran Ha, RedEye

Flynn McRoberts, Bloomberg Business News

Shia Kapos, blogger at Crains Chicago Business

Abdon Pallasch, Chicago Sun-Times political reporter

Sandra Guy, Chicago Sun-Times reporter 

Cassandra Gaddo, Managing Editor & Electronic Media Editor at Today’s Chicago Woman magazine 

The chapter also would like to thank College of Communication internship director Graciela Kenig for helping plan the event.

Tran Ha (right), of RedEye, advises new SPJ DePaul member Monica Carter.

Bennett actively challenged audience members to remain positive about journalism’s future and find new ways to incorporate innovative approaches. While she pointed out that research and curation were still integral parts of reporting, the future of successful journalism also involves thinking how we can report news in creative ways. In Bennett’s words, if the field doesn’t catch up, news can become the middleman and the middleman can be cut.

During her session at the Excellence in Journalism national convention, Bennett also established three trending advancements including mobile, augmented reality, and gaming. All of these areas are quickly growing and Bennet believes it’s time for the news industry to begin experimenting with these technologies to reach audiences.

Bennett ended the lecture on a positive note, emphasizing that the industry is full of opportunity and the future of journalism is a bright and innovative one.

-Lauren Camplin, SPJ DePaul Vice President 

Technology doesn’t replace journalism, but “empowers it,” said Robert Hernandez, a USC journalism professor, at the Excellence in Journalism convention recently in New Orleans.

Hernandez, who organizes the weekly #wjchat tech-journo Twitter chats, has five main rules that he follows when writing online and using social media.

Throughout the session, Hernandez made references that pointed out how even though social media is at our fingertips it “doesn’t replace the phone or in-person interviews.”

As journalists we need to be aware of how social media is affecting our reporting and news organizations around the world, especially with many apps and websites that can break down the facts almost instantly.

One of the most mentioned quotes (and one of Hernandez’s rules) that young journalists were advised to follow was, “If your mom tweets that she loves you, check it out.”

Hernandez cautioned that finding information via social media does not necessarily make it true.  Social media does not do our reporting for us, and as journalists we still need to investigate and fact check.

Hernandez also made a point that there is no privacy on the Internet and that as a journalist it can be extremely hard to keep your personal life and private life separate.  He said to “be genuine and be real because you want that credibility.”

During the presentation, Hernandez also touched on Foursquare, referring back to some of his previous rules reminding everyone to “be open.”

Just like the rest of social media sites, check-ins on Foursquare are not factual. Foursquare gives people the opportunity to check in at any place and also has the potential to create revenue because of its built in advertising.

With all kinds of social media in the palms of our hands, citizen journalism is on the rise and fact checking has become more important than ever.

Hernandez made it clear that journalists are building an online brand for themselves and that social media will continue to rise in popularity. He cited these statistics as examples: there are 2,315 tweets a second, Facebook’s population ranks it as the world’s third-largest country and YouTube is the second-largest search engine behind Google.

-Tabitha Hurley, SPJ DePaul Secretary