NewsBreak April 2011 - Vol. 22, No. 4

In This Issue:

• DPA Awards Banquet Presentation – The Power of the Press: Stories within Stories

• The Field of Dreams Beckons – 2011 NFPW Conference: They will have it. Will you come?

• Spotlight:  Delaware First Media – Straight-up News about Delaware

• Kudos to Communications Contest Award Winners: 2011 Results

• First Amendment Matters – Vox Populi: Events in Egypt Echo America’s Experiment

• WordPlay . . . for Wordsmiths

• Report from the Blog Bureau: Lydia Reeves Timmins – From Newsroom to Classroom

• Renew Your DPA Membership for 2011 to Retain Your Directory Listing

• DPA Welcomes New Members

• DPA Media Mavens & Mavericks

• Calendar of Events
   

The Power of the Press: Stories within Stories

Community Servant to Speak at Awards Banquet

Dr. Lee Anderson makes a difference in people’s lives. As a licensed psychologist, she has provided a wide range of mental health services to our community since she began her career at the Alfred I. duPont Institute in 1978, and she devotes a large part of her practice to children and adults suffering from loss.

Twelve years ago, when cutting grass at Riverview Cemetery after her father was laid to rest there, Lee was inspired to move beyond the walls of her office and reach out to a different community after seeing the poor condition of the historic burial ground, founded in 1872. She felt called to make a difference in that part of her world and opened her heart to an underground neighborhood of 36,000 deceased people and to their surviving families.

When she asked people to introduce her to family and friends buried there – by sharing information, memories, photos and stories – people responded with joy. For five years, Lee cataloged histories and pictures and then self-published Riverview Cemetery: Reading the Stones – A Collection of Memories from the First State (Timestone Press, 2005) to preserve local history, serve as a memory bank for future generations and become a model for other cemetery advocates to replicate.

Since publication, Lee has provided the leadership necessary to create remarkable change. In 2008, she founded and became president of Friends of Historic Riverview Cemetery (FHRC) with the mission of restoring and preserving Wilmington’s most culturally diverse, non-profit, public burial ground. Using a volunteer and partnership model, and with the help of the local press to tell their dramatic story, Lee and FHRC have engaged in a heroic effort to bring the beloved city cemetery back to life after many years of neglect. Lee’s vision and leadership were recognized in 2010 when she received a Governor’s Outstanding Volunteer Award for Community Service.

At the annual Delaware Press Association Communications Contest Awards Banquet, Lee will give a talk and slide presentation titled: “The Power of the Press: Stories within Stories.” She will tell us how the press has helped enable FHRC in their efforts to bring together citizens, school children, local businesses and offenders from the Plummer Community Correction Center next door to the cemetery to provide thousands of hours of volunteer labor and thousands of dollars’ worth of donated services at year-round monthly clean-up days to create and sustain a modern-day miracle.

We hope you will join us in the ballroom at the elegant University & Whist Club, 805 N. Broom Street, Wilmington, on Wednesday, April 27, to help honor those who entered the 2011 DPA Communications Contest and to enjoy a display of the award-winning contest entries. Social hour with cash bar and a book signing for Lee Anderson begins at 5:30 p.m. with dinner at 6:30 p.m. Following dinner and our speaker, the Communications Contest awards will be announced, certificates will be presented to the contest award winners and $500 in cash prizes will be given to the contest sweepstakes winners.

There is a parking lot at the club (to the left and to the rear), as well as free on-street parking on adjacent streets should the lot be full. Valet parking is available at the front door, and there is a handicap access ramp into the club from the parking area at the rear of the building.

Directions to the University & Whist Club

From Pennsylvania Avenue (Route 52) heading south into Wilmington, turn right onto Broom Street (if heading north out of the city, turn left onto Broom). Landmark: The Church of the Holy City is on the SW corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Broom Street. After the turn onto Broom, go past Padua Academy (on right) to the next stop sign. Cross through the intersection and turn right into the University & Whist driveway (on the corner of 9th & Broom).

Reservations

Cost: Members $40; Non-members $45.

Registration and Payment Options: – MAKE DPA BANQUET RESERVATIONS –

Please sign up no later than Wednesday, April 20.

See you on April 27!

Walt Mateja is the DPA Programs Vice President. For more information, contact Walt at 302-377-1077 or wam@dca.net.

Lee Anderson holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association and the Association for Death, Education, and Counseling. She invites you to visit the Historic Riverview Cemetery Web site and to come to volunteer clean-up days at Riverview Cemetery, 3300 N. Market Street, Wilmington, on the second Saturday of every month. Contact Lee at drleeanderson@aol.com.

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DPA President’s Corner: The Field of Dreams Beckons

2011 NFPW Conference: They will have it. Will you come?

by Mark Fowser

Ray Kinsella heard voices.

Those voices said: “If you build it, he will come.”

Ray, at 36 and a novice farmer in the mid-1980s, was thus motivated to create a baseball field in the midst of his corn on a Dyersville, Iowa, farm. The old Chicago White Sox who were tainted by the “Black Sox” scandal of 1919 soon came out of the past and emerged from between the cornstalks. The ghosts of “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and the other players were there to play baseball, the game that “reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

Relationships, hopes, regrets and dreams form the theme of the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams,” starring Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Burt Lancaster and James Earl Jones.

That’s what I know about Iowa – other than it’s the place where Joe Biden’s presidential campaign ended in 2008.

Across the Wide Missouri

NFPW (the National Federation of Press Women) has made it possible for members to get up close and personal with Iowa, holding this year’s national communications conference – “Plains Speaking” – from September 8 to 10, at Harrah’s Hotel & Casino in Council Bluffs, with some events taking place directly across the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraska.

In addition to dynamic speakers, there will be three workshop tracks:

• Embracing Your Inner Geek: New media, technology and social media.
   

• Reinventing Yourself: Life skills and career enhancement.
   

• Thinking Outside the Newspaper Byline: Freelancing, books and alternative publications.

Stay tuned over the next few months for details of speakers and workshops.

We can’t promise Clint Eastwood, but you can cross the Bridges of Madison County

In the lyrical novel O Pioneers!, author Willa Cather says of the wide Nebraska prairie that stirred her soul: “We come and go, but the land is always there.” If you take the pre- and post-conference tours, you will have a chance to explore that land and walk in the footsteps of pioneers who traveled the Oregon and Mormon trails along the Platte River, and you will see the small towns where some of them settled. You can venture across the iconic Bridges of Madison County, visit a Native American earth lodge, see the birthplace of John Wayne and the homes of Buffalo Bill Cody and Willa Cather (also a short story writer, journalist and poet), enjoy a drop of the grape from one of Iowa’s finest wineries and experience so much more.

Stoke your enthusiasm by reading about these and other highlights of the pre- and post-conference tours in Nebraska and Iowa, respectively: Sneak peek at 2011 NFPW Plains Speaking Conference in the Spring issue of NFPW AGENDA (scroll to the bottom half of page 1).

Tips and an outstanding grant opportunity for First-Timers

If you are a First-Timer, as I was at the national conference in San Antonio in 2009, here are some helpful tips:

• Try to attend at least one seminar outside of your field of expertise. If you are a journalist, why not learn about poetry or photography? I credit at least one seminar in San Antonio with opening up for me a whole new world of social media usage and blogging.
   

• Become inspired by the outstanding nominees for the 2011 NFPW Communicator of Achievement award. Pay tribute to the trailblazers of NFPW, past and present.
   

• Network, network, network. Tell everyone you’re from Delaware, the First State. DPA is held in high esteem for having put together a memorable national conference in 2003.
   

• Consider the pre- and post-tour opportunities. The prairies and farm country of Nebraska and Iowa are truly the nation’s heartland, and the pioneer spirit is very much alive on the land and in the region’s historic sites. Click here for a video visit and more about the tour.
   

• Enjoy the local cuisine. In San Antonio, I saw guacamole made tableside for the first time. In Iowa and Nebraska . . . let’s just say, you won’t have to ask “where’s the beef?”
   

• Position yourself between the bar and the crowd, as I did in 2009. You’ll make friends quickly if you’re the one handing out glasses of champagne!
   

• And last, but certainly not least, if you want to go to the conference but need financial assistance, the NFPW Education Fund will award some First-Timer grants to cover the conference registration fee for members who never have attended an NFPW conference.

Click here for information and the application form, posted on the NFPW Web site under “Resources.” The deadline for submission is June 15, 2011. Note: The number of First-Timer grants is limited, so the timeliness and content of applications will be taken into consideration.

The complete agenda for the “Plains Speaking” conference is coming together. Check nfpw.org periodically for details.

Perhaps at the NFPW Communications Conference in Omaha/Council Bluffs or somewhere in your travels through Iowa or Nebraska, your own Field of Dreams awaits.

Mark Fowser, President of Delaware Press Association, is (depending on the day of the week) a reporter for WHYY-90.9 FM and its Web site, newsworks.org; a contributor to Delaware First Media (delawarefirst.org); and a radio traffic-and-news reporter in Philadelphia. Contact Mark at 302-322-7873 or mafowser@hotmail.com.

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Spotlight: Delaware First Media – Straight-up News about Delaware

Making a Mark in the First State

by Katherine Ward

From the Newark offices of Delaware First Media, News Director Tom Byrne supervises a team of reporters, producers, editors and student interns. When he’s not assigning stories, editing copy, booking interviews, conducting studio interviews, editing audio and video and working with his staff to post news content, Tom is in the field himself, interviewing newsmakers and tweeting about issues and events in the news. The pace can be exhausting, but he keeps his energies focused – knowing, he says, that DFM News is “making a mark” in Delaware.

Byrne says that after a year in development and nearly another year in operation, “DFM has crossed a threshold – we passed the audition, in a sense. People know that we’re a professional, credible, fully functioning news operation. We get interview requests now, we’re on people’s radar, and our audience is growing.”

Incorporated in 2009, Delaware First Media (DFM) – a digital media news organization – has built some powerful partnerships. It operates in an independent association with the University of Delaware, where its offices are located. With major philanthropic grants from the Longwood and Welfare Foundations, the company launched its statewide public media news operation in June 2010 and began generating multimedia news reports on DFMNews.org.

Meeting the need for a major media outlet in Delaware

Company Vice President Nancy Karibjanian is quick to point out that DFM “is not a blog or a news aggregator, or a public relations firm or a partisan press operation for a political party. This is,” she says, “straight-up news about Delaware.” She adds: “Delaware is a newsworthy state, now more than ever. We need our own major media outlets that are based here, making news judgments that reflect what matters to Delawareans.”

Researching the information needs of Delawareans was central in developing DFM’s business model. DFM President Micheline Boudreau notes that from the incorporation of DFM in July 2009 to the startup of DFMNews.org a year later, DFM’s founders, board members and advisors conducted industry research into best practices of digital media startups around the country and market research within Delaware. DFM’s “kitchen cabinet” of experienced media experts from around the country provided essential input.

“Because the media landscape in Delaware is pretty sparse, we had a wide-open field of options to consider in terms of our news product and the delivery systems,” she says. “We started with a lean and nimble business plan that would allow us to change course quickly in this era of shifting news consumership preferences. . . . We will remain nimble. At the same time we also have a clear vision for becoming a major, permanent news institution that is one of the pillars of life in this state.”

DFM’s founders

Boudreau believes the DFM team can meet that goal because they have a “shared journalistic vision.” The core team includes journalists from nonprofit media backgrounds (most are members of Delaware Press Association).

Four of the journalists had prominent careers at WHYY’s long-running “Delaware Tonight” newscast, which was canceled in 2009. Boudreau came to Delaware from NPR member stations WBUR in Boston and WRNI in Providence, R.I., where she created highly acclaimed programming. As news director for television at WHYY, she managed the daily “Delaware Tonight” program and staff.

Karibjanian is well known to Delawareans as a longtime anchor of the program. Byrne, too, is a familiar face and voice, with a career spanning two decades as a reporter and anchor for “Delaware Tonight” and for 1450 WILM Newsradio. And reporter/producer Ann Ahl provided award-winning general-assignment and arts coverage for WHYY.

Another DFM founder, Susan Swan, is a Delaware native who served as a national news editor for The Christian Science Monitor, an international daily newspaper in Boston. “All of us, she says, “believe firmly that for communities to thrive, they need a healthy, competitive, energized press that’s run by people with a stake in the future of those communities. Delawareans often are surprised to learn that most of our statewide coverage comes from news outlets run by out-of-state companies that don’t always make covering Delaware a priority. So our goal,” she adds, “has been to introduce a new player to the media landscape to help invigorate competition and produce a better quantity and quality of coverage of our state.”

Today, in addition to its founders, the DFM news service has about a dozen freelance reporters, including Delaware Press Association president Mark Fowser and other DPA members. They work in all three counties, filing stories on government and politics, education, arts and life, business and innovation, and science, health, and technology. A new, major sustaining sponsorship from Delaware-based CSC Corporation and a grant from the Good Samaritan Foundation have provided crucial funds for expanding the scope of DFM’s coverage.

Growing DFM audience engages through multimedia experience

That’s good news because DFM’s audience has grown steadily in the company’s first year online—from a small, loyal group of regular visitors during the 2010 election season to an eclectic, expanding audience of thousands of regular users, including individuals, businesses, government officials and community groups. On DFMNews.org they read the latest news stories and commentary pieces, and tune in to video and audio interviews. Most important, says Byrne, they respond to the news, interacting with DFM stories on Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, mobile devices, or the "old fashioned" way—through the news Web site itself.

“When we do something, there’s a reaction online,” says Byrne. “We get Facebook feedback. People email and cross-post our stories. We’re out there.”

In addition, DFM News contributes regular news stories and audio to Public Radio Delmarva’s two NPR-member stations, which are heard throughout southern Delaware.

Instead of blanket coverage, DFM News delivers content with what Swan calls “multiple entry points” – text, audio and video components that reflect a range of demographic perspectives, upstate and downstate. “That’s how you engage people,” she said. “When NPR does a piece from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, why do you find yourself listening to it? Because it evokes something about our common humanity. If you can entice me to care about that story, surely we can produce stories that unite the common interests of people from Hockessin to Dagsboro.”

Fulfilling DFM’s editorial mission

Tom Byrne believes DFM News is well on the way to fulfilling its editorial mission. “We work to marry each news story in text with the multimedia experience and, when appropriate, with commentary. It’s a richer, more full-bodied experience for people.” He cites stories on the Delaware jobs market for the state’s older citizens and the ongoing dredging saga, including court rulings, the environmental impact and what’s next.

“Many of the great events that make up the cultural fabric of the state nevertheless go unreported or are underreported,” says Boudreau. “Those are the stories we want to showcase. Delawareans need new programming that helps us understand our sense of identity, of place, of community; that holds a mirror up to our shared society. Our goal is not to cover every story that happens in Delaware but to select the best stories—that is, the most meaningful to people, the most relevant to their lives.”

Coverage of the Delaware General Assembly is one of DFM’s chief goals. Boudreau cited a statistic from the Federal Communications Commission indicating that more than half of the states in the U.S. have no dedicated reporter covering the state legislature. That includes Delaware. “We’re placing a premium on coverage of Leg Hall,” she says. DFM recently has covered bills on casino expansion on and chronic polluters returning to our state legislators for a second look and currently is covering bills seeking to legalize medical marijuana and to revamp Delaware’s drug laws.

“The reason we produce these in-depth, multi-media news stories is that we have a real passion for meaningful coverage,” Ahl says. “I think that’s the future of news, and virtually everyone we talk with in Delaware – from the major corporate CEOs, to arts organizations, to our neighbors – seems to agree.”

Congressional debates of October 2010 put DFM startup on the world map

A central part of DFM’s vision is public service – providing information that stimulates civic involvement. DFM’s debut civic event was the televised 2010 Delaware congressional debates last fall, which Delaware First Media co-hosted in October with the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication.

“We saw the debates as a way to introduce Delaware First Media to a wide sphere of Delawareans, to demonstrate our journalistic and production expertise, and to make an immediate impact on the state,” Boudreau says. “We believed that producing substantive congressional debates would help put DFM on the map.”

In fact, it put the Delaware startup on the world map.

“The debate went from a local event to a blockbuster media event,” says Karibjanian, the debate moderator. Karibjanian, who also is an adjunct professor of communications at UD, has refereed many debates during her long career. She says that within days of the Republican primary, in which Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell ousted U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, “CNN and Wolf Blitzer became involved, and suddenly seats in Mitchell Hall [for the debate between Christine O’Donnell and Democratic candidate Chris Coons] were the hottest tickets in Delaware.” Read debate press release.

CNN predicted the largest viewership ever for a non-national debate. Journalists from as far away as Asia and the Middle East requested credentials to cover the drama. “DFM would have been there providing Delaware with a thoughtful debate even without the public fascination,” Karibjanian notes. “And DFM will be there the next time.”

Partners in public service

The public exposure opened doors to potential donors and underwriters. It also showcased the partnership between DFM and the university.

UD Vice President for Communications and Marketing David Brond, a DPA board member, said that the university recognized DFM’s value and potential immediately. “We could see that this organization was going to create an outstanding public service for Delaware, and that was something we wanted to be associated with.”

Making a mark in Delaware

Delaware First Media, in its first full year of operation, already has proved to be a credible, highly professional news organization fulfilling its editorial mission by producing “straight-up news about Delaware” through commentary rich in text, audio and video. Its founders and news team remain committed to original, high-quality, high-value, in-depth, nonpartisan reporting as well as to community service. They are, as Micheline Boudreau envisions, “becoming a major, permanent news institution that is one of the pillars of life” in this, the First State.

Contact Micheline Boudreau at micheline.boudreau@delawarefirst.org.
Contact Nancy Karibjanian at news@delawarefirst.org.
Contact Tom Byrne at tom.byrne@delawarefirst.org.
Contact Susan Swan at susan@delawarefirst.org.
Contact David Brond at dbrond@udel.edu.

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Kudos to Communications Contest Award Winners: 2011 Results

by Annie Nefosky, 2011 Communications Contest Director  

To paraphrase Ryan Seacrest when he announces the results of the voting each week on “American Idol,” “The judges have voted, and the results are in!” So let’s get right to it.

Vanessa Nesbit, your hard-working contest manager (and most likely your best friend when wending your way through the thicket of contest rules and regulations), and I thank everyone who was a part of the 2011 DPA competition: the entrants, the out-of-state judges and the great group of volunteers who help us out every year with contest entry vetting and the awards banquet. A special word of thanks goes to our secret weapon, Anita Nesbit, who assists Vanessa in countless ways, including helping to maintain the contest database, prep contest entry forms, pack up the entries to go to the judges, keep track of the contest finances, select judges’ comments for
the awards presentation and set up the display of award-winning contest entries at the annual awards banquet.

While Vanessa and Anita focus on the DPA entries, I line up judges – largely here in Delaware, but some in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and a few far-flung parts of the U.S. and sometimes Canada – for the entries that come to us for examination, deliberation, annotation and commendation. We have an excellent core group of highly skilled professional communicators, who enjoy using their sharp eyes to go over the entries and then writing useful, critical commentary to all contestants whether they receive an award or not. I distribute the entries to our designated judges, compile and report the results and then return the judged entries. To those who say “yes” every time I ask them to judge, many thanks!

Vanessa and I now direct you to the list of the 2011 DPA Contest award winners and hope you will come to the Contest Awards Banquet on April 27 to salute them all!

I look forward to seeing you at the Contest Awards Banquet at the University & Whist Club, 805 N. Broom Street, Wilmington, on Wednesday, April 27. You’ll enjoy networking with your DPA colleagues, meeting some of our new members and looking at the display of first- and second-place award winning entries during the social hour. After dinner and a presentation by Dr. Lee Anderson, president of Friends of Historic Riverview Cemetery, we will honor all who entered the contest and present certificates to each of the award winners present. Before the end of the evening, we will give cash prizes totaling $500 to those who earned the greatest number of points in the contest sweepstakes (based on how contestants placed in their categories and the number of competitors in each of those categories).

Please take a minute right now to sign up for the awards banquet (go to related article for details and to make a reservation). See you there!

For more info on the DPA Contest, contact Annie Nefosky at annienefosky@yahoo.com.

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Vox Populi: Events in Egypt Echo America’s Experiment

by Tara Lynn Johnson, First Amendment Network (FAN) Liaison to NFPW

In Egypt, protestors assembled, bloggers/Tweeters/Facebookers used social media to circumvent government censorship, and, despite the authorities’ best efforts to keep these events hidden, the world watched as the vox populi demanded regime change and stepped toward a democratic future.

Because of the people’s call for constitutional reform, Egypt stands at a place familiar to Americans, says Gene Policinski, senior vice-president/executive director of the First Amendment Center (offices at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and in Washington, D.C.) in his essay, “Egypt’s first steps toward liberty remind us of our own.”

Our founding fathers, in creating a new nation, knew how important it would be to have religious freedom, to have a free press, to let people’s voices be heard without retribution. And as illuminating as that was, and as far as we’ve come, the United States still has a long way to go.

Policinski reminds us, “Even today Americans are still debating how our basic freedoms apply: the presence of religion in public life and public schools, whether protesters can use military funerals as a staging ground for their message, the role of a free press in a Twitter society, and many more issues.”

Imagine, then, the trek Egypt is beginning. The fact that, more than 200 years later, we are still asking and answering questions like “what are the implications to the First Amendment in an increasingly technological world?” shows that it’s an ever-evolving, changing issue . . . and probably always will be.

Read Policinski's insightful text on First Amendment lessons those in Cairo can take from America’s ongoing experiment as a free nation.

Tara Lynn Johnson is a freelance writer in Pennsylvania (who called Delaware home for more than five years). Tara holds a paralegal certificate from Villanova University and continues to be interested in legal issues, including the interpretation of the living, breathing First Amendment and Constitution. Contact Tara at info@taralynnjohnson.com.

For FOI news, visit the Sunshine Week Web site.
For info about the 2011 FOI Summit, visit National Freedom of Information Coalition Web site.

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WordPlay . . . for Wordsmiths

by Bob Yearick

Riffing on language
Our executive director, Katherine Ward, recommends for your viewing pleasure: “Speak with Conviction in Typography,” a poem by Taylor Mali.

“This is my current favorite thing,” Katherine says. “In a clever video, Taylor Mali will impress you with his take on ‘the tragically cool and totally hip interrogative tone’ that has crept into daily discourse and, like fingernails on a blackboard, probably makes you shudder involuntarily when assaulted by it. You'll laugh out loud (or at least silently applaud) as Mali plays with words in an audio-visual format in order to make the case for speaking with conviction.”

Regale yourself with “Speak with Conviction in Typography.” It’ll take less than three minutes of your time.

Free books
Here’s a tip for those interested in getting free books and saving some shelf space: Simply list your unwanted books – usually by ISBN number – for free on a book exchange Web site. Here's how it works: When someone requests one of your books and you send it off, you get a credit that you then can use to get a different book. All you pay for is postage to ship your paperbacks or hardcovers, which can be less than $2 per book.” Two of the more popular book exchange sites are PaperBack Swap (more than 2.7 million titles!) and Title Trader.

Close, but no stogie
We’ve recently been keeping track of misused homonyms, and the list seems to grow by the week. They arrive in emails, magazines and newspapers, including, in the last instance below, in a recent editorial in The News Journal. Here are some examples, with the error listed first and the correct word in boldface:

• “Peak,” as a noun, means pinnacle or topmost point; as a verb, it means to reach the highest point. Peek, a verb, means to glance at or take a quick look. When “peak” surfaced in a News Journal article about the impending arrival of spring, an alert reader gave me a peek at the problem: “. . . crocus sprouts that are peaking through.”

• Another word wizard cited a glitch in the usually impeccable Wall Street Journal, which used “grizzly,” meaning a subspecies of the brown bear, instead of grisly, meaning gruesome or horrific.

• Shortly before this year’s Oscar winners were announced, a movie review offered up a verb, “shear,” which means to cut, instead of a modifier. This sentence called for sheer which, when used as an adjective, can mean pure or utter: “The Social Network may not win any awards for special effects . . . but it does show the grit and shear manipulation behind the biggest Internet fad since MySpace.”

• An editorial on Delaware’s food stamp program misused “seed,” meaning, as a verb, to sow, instead of cede, meaning to yield or concede: "Who does and does not eat in America is a concern that government should never seed to private entities.”

Got any you’d like to contribute? Send them along, with any suggestions or questions for WordPlay to: ryearick@comcast.net.

And remember: Always write right – and tight.

Contact WordPlay columnist Bob Yearick at ryearick@comcast.net.

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Report from the Blog Bureau

“Report from the Blog Bureau” highlights the media-related blogs of DPA members. If you write a blog — or are aware of another DPA member's blog — on some aspect of the field of communications, let us know. We will continue adding members' blogs to the list, and some of them — with the author’s permission, of course — will be featured in this column in future issues of NewsBreak.

Lydia Reeves Timmins – News Veteran-cum-Academician-cum-Blogger

April 2002: Presenting her Top Ten List of the most efficient and effective ways to deliver information to television stations and to improve one’s chances that it will be considered, picked up and aired, Lydia Reeves Timmins got rave reviews for her after-dinner talk at the 2002 DPA Communications Contest Awards Banquet that also touched on the TV news scene – the challenges, the pressures and the opportunities.

At the time, Lydia was the news and special products producer for NBC-10 “News at 10,” a morning newsmagazine she created for WCAU-TV in Philadelphia in 2001. For the next eight years, airing Monday-Friday from 10–11 a.m., the show constantly evolved while Lydia experimented with different segments and features.

Fast forward eight years: With a degree in telecommunications from Penn State University, and a master’s degree in journalism from Temple University, Lydia completed work on a Ph.D. at Temple in mass media and communications in 2010 and was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Delaware to teach broadcast journalism courses, including studio production, broadcast news writing, documentary and digital journalism.

Yup, I do love this job!

Lydia says, “For more than a year now, I’ve been the higher education blogger for RTDNA (Radio Television Digital News Association) offering the perspective of a news veteran entering the strange new world of academia.” You will enjoy Lydia’s sense of humor in her February 22 post: From Newsroom to Classroom: Explaining What 'News' Is to My Students, in which she says of some of their naïve questions, “I am pretty sure they weren’t TRYING to make me crazy. But I have to admit when asked the time question – ‘How do I know how long five minutes is?’ – I did roll up my sleeve, point to my watch and say ‘try one of these.’”

She continues: “But there’s always a contrast. I am also teaching a news documentary course, and the students there are all engaged. They want to explore how their generation can make a positive impact on the future by making good choices today. They have great ideas for the segments and talk intelligently about politics, the environment and global awareness. It’s a good lesson for me that students are individuals and we shouldn’t lump them all under one banner.

“And as I walked across campus on a sunny day with a taste of spring in the air, two young women were giving out free hugs. Yup, I do love this job!”

From Newsroom to Classroom: The difference is a revelation

In her March 12 blog post, From Newsroom to Classroom: Contract Renewed, Lydia shares the good news that her teaching contract has been renewed by the University of Delaware and she will be able to stay “in this wonderful place for another year.” Citing some of the differences between the newsroom and the classroom – revealed in her first year of teaching – Lydia writes: “The lack of a deadline really is pleasant. I always thought I did my best work when I was screaming down to the wire. It turns out that having time to think really does make the writing stronger and the thoughts more cohesive. Not that I’m not busy—I’ve attended more meetings in the past month than I did in a year in TV! But there is time to reflect and think before writing/speaking. It is a welcome change.”

Qualified to explain the concept of ‘news’

Of the many stories Lydia covered as a field producer, she says, “The most dramatic was September 11 when I was part of the first Philadelphia crew to get to New York. Other compelling assignments have included covering the release of the Starr Report during President Clinton’s administration, various hurricanes and the blizzard of ’96.”

While at Penn State, Lydia interned at WPSX-TV, the PBS station on campus, and at Leeds TV and London Weekend Television in the U.K. Returning from Britain, she took a job as a production assistant at WMGC-TV in Binghamton, New York, working her way to an on-air position.

“When I came to Delaware,” she says, I produced the newscast for First State News, Cable Channel Two, from 1991 – 1994. I then moved to Kansas City, Missouri, to produce the weekend morning newscasts. It was there that I produced a series of reports on a technological and communications revolution in its infancy: the Internet. Politics was on my radar when I served as field producer for the station’s coverage of Bob Dole’s Presidential announcement in Topeka, Kansas, and then I flew to New Hampshire to cover the start of Dole’s Presidential campaign.”

When Lydia returned to this area in the fall of 1995 to produce weekday morning news for NBC, there were major switches in network affiliation in Philadelphia’s television industry. At the same time, she served as the New Jersey bureau chief in that bureau’s inaugural year.

Lydia lives in Newark where, in her spare time before her children were born, she and husband Steve raced Porsches. These days she races to keep up with the kids – those in the classroom and her own, now ages 6 and 3.

Contact Lydia Reeves Timmins at lydiat@udel.edu.

DPA Bloggers (let us know if your blog is not listed here)

Rich Barnett: The Go-Cup: Stories, Photos and Observations
Tara Lynn Johnson: Freelancing Blog
Allan Krakower: WILM Personality Page
Allan Loudell: Eclectic Hobbies - WDEL
Allan Loudell: WDEL Blog
Crabmeat Thompson: Crabmeat is Brainfood
Lydia Timmins: From Newsroom to Classroom (must be RTDNA member to access other RTDNA posts)
Rob Tornoe: The World of an Editorial Cartoonist
Ann Marie van den Hurk: Ann-Sense

Send your blog link recommendations to: news@delawarepressassociation.org.

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Renew for 2011 to Retain Your Directory Listing

Don’t Let Your DPA Membership Lapse

by Allison Taylor Levine, APR

The DPA dues-renewal notice was emailed in January to all members who hadn’t yet sent dues for 2011. Nearly 120 of you have responded to the request to renew and are listed in the online DPA Membership Directory, which is updated frequently. Throughout the year, we will continue to add names of new and renewing members to the directory.

To make sure YOU remain listed among the top communicators in the First State, though, please click one of the links below to renew your membership if you haven’t yet done so! Only members paid for 2011 can be included. The names of those who haven’t renewed by the end of April will be removed and the password information that secures the directory will be changed.

For just $20 a year, you have access to all that DPA offers. DPA is a state affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women. Dual membership in DPA and NFPW is $94 ($74 for NFPW; $20 for DPA). If you want dual membership in DPA and NFPW, use the last link below.

You only have to read this issue of DPA NewsBreak to see that there are many DPA and NFPW benefits besides the membership directory, including great professional-development opportunities through speakers, workshops and conferences, networking with top communications professionals in Delaware and across the USA, annual professional communications contests, quarterly newsletters, e-blasts with news of communications events, job opportunities and much more. Get more information on these and other DPA and NFPW benefits.

Please renew your DPA or DPA/NFPW membership today. If you’re not a member, why not join? All professional communicators are eligible for membership. Here are links you can use right now, whether paying by check or by credit card.

– Get DPA Membership Form to Join or Renew and Pay by CHECK –

– Make DPA Membership Payment Online with CREDIT CARD –

– NFPW / DPA Dual Membership Form –

NFPW Directory and Member Milestone Logos available through the NFPW Web site

One of the new features of the NFPW Web site is a member database that allows members to update their own information and to have their own user ID and password. If you are a 2011 member of NFPW, you can click here to register on the Web site and update your details. You must use a unique password. The form will not allow you to set up a password that someone else is using.

Once you’ve registered, you can sign in to the Member Home page at any time. If you’ve been a member of NFPW/DPA for five or more years, sign in to get the link to a page of member milestone logos in increments of five years. Put the NFPW logo in your email signature, on your blog or Web site or anywhere else you'd like to use it. Right click the image that corresponds to the length of your membership and save it to your files.

Be sure to contact me if you’re not sure of your membership status, if you need username and password info to access the directory or if you need help with any other membership-related issue.

Allison Taylor Levine is DPA’s Membership Director.  For membership information, contact Allison at aljay89@yahoo.com or 302-345-0589.

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DPA Welcomes New Members

DPA extends a warm welcome to each of our new members. Any new members whose contact information has not been included in the online DPA Membership Directory, please click here and ask for directions: DelawarePress@aol.com.

Dino Alexander, Lewes – dinoalexander@rocketmail.com
Owner, New Design Directions

Louise Bolin, Wilmington – lbolin@delawaretoday.com
Creative Director, Delaware Today

Grace Adolphsen Brame, Wilmington – grace@gracebrame.com
Author, professor, theologian, pastor, international speaker, singer, retreat leader

Kelly Carter, Wilmington – kcarter@delawaretoday.com
Creative Director, Delaware Today

Nancy Craft, Philadelphia – craftienancy@yahoo.com.au
Web multi-media communications specialist, CGFNS International

Stefani Deoul, Rehoboth Beach – sdeoul@earthlink.net
Freelance Television Producer & Writer

Brian Drouin, Wilmington – bdrouin@whyy.org
Producer / Director, WHYY TV 12

Paul Dumigan, Lewes – pdumigan@udel.edu
Computer Information Technology Associate (CITA) IV, UD – College of Earth, Ocean & Environment

Nancy Lisagor, Philadelphia – nlisagor@metrokids.com
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, MetroKids Magazine

Nan Mulqueen, Baltimore – mulqueen@udel.edu
Speechwriter/Senior Editor, University of Delaware – Office of Communications & Marketing

Mary Pauer, Bridgeville – pauer@hughes.net
Author

Susan Swan, Newark – susan@delawarefirst.org
Founder/Partner, Delaware First Media

Doug White, Lewes – dw@udel.edu
Research Associate, University of Delaware – School of Marine Science & Policy

Greg Wilson, Wilmington – gwilson@dcrac.org
Communications Director, Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council, Inc.

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DPA Media Mavens & Mavericks

. . . is a column about our members’ personal and professional achievements. Names of new DPA members featured in this column are starred.

Please send any information about your honors, achievements and awards to news@delawarepressassociation.org by the 1st of any month for publication in the next issue.

DPA members featured in this issue:

• Rich Barnett* / Fay Jacobs

• Roxane Ferguson

• Bridget Gillespie Paverd

• Lesley Gudehus

• Maria Hess

• Jeff Jackson / Amy Cherry*

• Tara Lynn Johnson

• Maria Keane / Kathy Buckalew

• Nancy Lopez

• Lynn Maniscalco

• Andréa Miller / Wendy Scott

• Lise Monty

• Peg Tigue*

• Katherine Ward / Grace Brame*
   

• With summer just around the corner, Rehoboth Beach writers Rich Barnett and Fay Jacobs announce, ”Gay Rehoboth: There’s an app for that.” Rehomo Beach is a new iPhone app providing a fun, rainbow-colored tour of Rehoboth Beach. The app’s content, carefully curated by Rich and Fay, is based on first-hand, local expertise and includes original writing and photography. Entries are filtered by useful criteria: play, stay, eat, drink, shop and read. Rich and Fay have selected entries designed to provide visitors with the quintessential Rehomo Beach experience and have tagged things especially “for the ladies,” “for the fellas” and “for the pooches.” Entries are sorted by name, distance, neighborhood and cost. One-click Web site and phone hyperlinks allow browsers to peruse menus, make reservations and check out the always changing entertainment. Google maps for each entry help users find their way. “It’s a great deal for $1.99,” say Fay and Rich. 

Buy it once through Apple’s iTunes App Store and get free upgrades for life. The app is published by Sutro Media in San Francisco, a new kind of publishing company bridging the gap between traditional print media and new media outlets.

Rich Barnett, who writes the “CAMP Stories” column in Letters from CAMP Rehoboth, invites you to read his blog: The Go-Cup: Stories, Photos and Observations. Rich can be contacted at richbarnett@mac.com.
Fay Jacobs is the author of three books, the most recent being For Frying Out Loud – Rehoboth Beach Diaries (received a first-place award in the 2011 DPA Communications Contest), and is the publisher of A&M Books. She invites you to visit her Web site to buy her books. Contact Fay at fayjacobsrb@aol.com.

• As you might expect, Roxane Ferguson, the energetic, new Executive Director of the Middletown Area Chamber of Commerce – as of February 21 – already is sending out press releases and stirring up interest, activity, business seminars and fun events for the citizens of Middletown, Odessa, Townsend and surrounding communities. Hired as the chamber’s first ED, Roxane says, “Middletown is fabulous! Lots of great things going on. This first month has been a whirlwind, and we’ve accomplished so much already. In an interesting twist, while still working as ED of the Southern Chester County [Pa.] Chamber, Roxane nominated Middletown for a 2010 Hometown Hero award through the American Cancer Society, and the town – which, throughout the surrounding area, has raised $2 million toward cancer initiatives during the past decade – received the award for the state of Delaware in the government category. Roxane says, “We will be celebrating that honor on April 2 at the Delaware Museum of Natural History. Woo hoo!”
Roxane Ferguson, also president of the Middletown-Odessa Rotary Club (see Spotlight in January 2011 NewsBreak), invites you to check out the Middletown Chamber's Web site. Contact Roxane at rferguson@middletownareachamber.com.

• Bridget Gillespie Paverd, president of the savvy marketing and PR firm GillespieHall, says: “A passion to change people’s lives has been a motivating force for the public relations and social marketing campaigns we have done for organizations such as the American Lung Association and for agencies such as the Delaware Division of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families (DSCYF).” The four Service Industry Advertising awards GillespieHall received bear out their motto: “Exceptional PR Creating Healthier Communities.” Bridget says, “GillespieHall was up against agencies and institutions significantly larger than ours with quadruple the resources and budgets.” The Gold Award was for Voice, an online and print publication for the Kick Butts Generation, a tobacco prevention and control youth movement. The Silver Award was for a newspaper ad, “Underage Drinking is a Parent’s Problem,” for DSCYF. And the two Bronze awards were for an outdoor/transit campaign for Brandywine Counseling & Community Services on preventing fetal alcohol syndrome and a radio ad for a public service announcement series on lung health.
Bridget Paverd invites you to read the illustrated SIAA press release on the awards. Contact Bridget at bridget@gillespiehall.com.

• Lesley Gudehus, who resides in Philadelphia, has been promoted to Assistant Vice President for Communications & Marketing, Office of Institutional Advancement, at Drexel University. She was formerly the marketing and PR director of Ballet Memphis and communications director of the FedEx Pilots Association.
Contact Lesley Gudehus at ljg27@drexel.edu.
 

• Congratulations to Maria Hess, who was named editor-in-chief of Delaware Today in February. In the Letter from the Editor in the March issue, recently on the newsstand, Maria recognizes the “formidable talents” of her full-time editorial staff, which includes a number of your DPA colleagues: Matt Amis, Louise Bolin, Kelly Carter, Jared Castaldi, Mark Nardone and Drew Ostroski. “Our team,” she says, “. . . is ready to create an even more enjoyable and relevant magazine for you. We’ll offer vibrant and colorful content; in-depth profiles of Delawareans you know and some you don’t – but should; informative and entertaining service features; expanded coverage of Delaware’s arts scene; and artful, creative design.” Be sure to check out the new “Team Notes” feature below Maria’s letter (see p. 14) to look at a team photo and to find out who is raising funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man of the Year campaign, who recently interviewed iconic Delaware photographer Fred Comegys, who was married at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts a few years ago and who is proudly sporting a new pair of purple reading glasses.
Contact Maria Hess at mhess@delawaretoday.com.

• Jeff Jackson, who is teaching a course in public relations campaign planning at the University of Delaware this semester, says “Teaching at UD is a wonderful experience! It is a privilege to work with the next generation of communicators. Given the talent of the young people taking the course, I believe the future of our profession is bright. The course offers undergraduate and graduate students a mix of lectures, discussions and a final project. Students are collaborating in small groups to create a comprehensive plan for an issue-oriented campaign or a specific communication need of a nonprofit organization. Guest lectures are part of the course, and they help balance textbook learning with the real-life aspects of public relations practice. For example, WDEL’s Amy Cherry spoke to the group about working with news reporters and how audio, video and Web sites are converging in the radio world.”
Contact Jeff Jackson at jeffj@udel.edu.
Contact Amy Cherry at acherry@wdel.com.

• Freelance writer Tara Lynn Johnson recently had the pleasure of interviewing comedian Paula Poundstone again (Tara last spoke with her in 2008). You’ll enjoy reading about Paula as a latecomer to the Internet age in Tara’s article “Comedian Paula Poundstone hopes audience will LOL.” And be sure to check out Tara’s Facebook page. She invites you to visit the official page for her writing on Facebook.
Contact Tara Lynn Johnson at info@taralynnjohnson.com.

• Works by DPA members Maria Keane, artist and recently retired adjunct professor of fine arts at Wilmington University, and Kathy Buckalew, award-winning staff photographer for the Hagley Museum, will hang in a juried art exhibition titled “Landscapes by Regional Artists,” at the Biggs Museum of American Art, 401 Federal Street, Dover, from March 4 to June 21. The 73 works that will be on display – chosen from nearly 300 entries in the “Biggs Picture 2011” competition – “successfully interpret the theme of ‘Landscape’ with the finest examples of their media.” Described in the brochure as ranging from “traditional landscapes, urban scenes, interiors, and abstracted works interpreting particular spaces . . . ,” the exhibit includes “work reflecting both representational and experimental ideas of ‘landscape.’”

The exhibit is organized into three categories: landscapes of the mind, constructed landscapes and perceived landscapes. You will find Maria’s work, a silkscreen called Greenspace, in the constructed landscape category. Kathy will have two infrared photos in the Biggs display, both taken on the Hagley property and also in the category of constructed landscapes. One is called Millrace and Mill Buildings. You can see the other one, Garden from Another World, in the exhibit poster to the left. Click the poster image for an enlarged view.
Contact Maria Keane at mariakeane@comcast.net.
Contact Kathy Buckalew at kbuckalew@hagley.org.

• Nancy Lopez, who published the first Hispanic Yellow Pages in Delaware and for a number of years hosted DelawareHispanic.com, is now a radio marketing specialist for Traffic Tips Radio Network. Nancy’s latest venture is shaping up to allow her to broadcast online through an Internet radio company, Lopez Radio. She says: “It will be a nonpartisan, unbiased forum for citizens to know what’s really going on in Delaware and around the world.”
Contact Nancy Lopez at NancyLopezMedia@yahoo.com.

• Lynn Troy Maniscalco is the only Delawarean to be awarded a medal in Color Projected Image, the largest category in the 2011 Wilmington International Photo Exhibition. Her award was for a photo titled “Fort Delaware Passageway,” which was selected as "Projected Image of the Year" from among all of the monthly award-winning digital images in the 2009-10 Delaware Photographic Society competition. “The other medals,” she says, “went to entrants from Seattle, Australia, France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Malta, Singapore and Ukraine.” Eight other photographers from Delaware medaled in the five other projected and print categories. This year's exhibition drew 3,563 entries from 36 countries.
Contact Lynn Maniscalco at LTMphoto@juno.com.

• In January, Andréa Miller happened to see the posting for the part-time Communications Coordinator position at the Delaware Center for Horticulture. She applied for it, and DPA member Wendy Scott, newly promoted to Assistant Director of Public Relations at TheDCH, soon offered her the job. “With my love of gardening, need to work on causes/projects that I believe in, and the freedom of part-time work to pursue a few long-latent interests, it seemed a good fit," Andréa says. Without the constraints of the daily 9-to-5 schedule, she's been able to put her psychology degree to work as a Vitas Hospice volunteer in respite care and bereavement counseling, and she lends her editorial experience to help Vitas promote its support groups and events in the media. “After many years away from the easel,” she adds, “I’m also showing my new pastel drawings in exhibits at Delaware College of Art and Design in Wilmington and at the Center for Creative Art in Yorklyn this spring.” At TheDCH, Andréa manages the editorial content for two publications, and she’s using her experience as editor of The Community News and Laugh! Magazine to help streamline various communications department functions.
Contact Andréa Miller at andrea.miller@hotmail.com.
Contact Wendy Scott at wscott@dehort.org.

• Lise Monty, President of the Wilmington chapter of Rotary International (see Spotlight article in January 2011 NewsBreak), was part of a 12-member delegation from the Wilmington club that went to Pakistan on a weeklong exchange visit with the Rotary Club of Lahore Mozang in February. A letter from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to the people of Pakistan – hand carried by the Wilmington Rotary Club and read at a dinner hosted in honor of the delegation by Punjab Governor Sardar Latif Khosa – said, in part: “Our future will not be determined only in the halls of power. Our future together also begins in the ground level, in the classrooms and clinics where initiatives like The Pakistan Project take root.” Almas Jovindah, president of the Lahore Rotary Club, told The News International: “The U.S. delegation is the largest delegation of the U.S. civil society to visit Pakistan in the post-9/11 scenario and is the first step towards greater people-to-people interaction, the importance of which cannot be undermined in any way.”

Lise invites you to take your own excursion to Pakistan via the links below to video clips and newspaper articles about the trip.
• YouTube video from Day 1, Wilmington Rotary Club trip to Pakistan.
• YouTube video from Day 2, Wilmington Rotary Club trip to Pakistan.
• From the Feb.15 Pakistan Daily Times, this article is about our visit to Governor's House.
• From the Feb. 21 News International about our exchange visit.
• From the Feb. 21 Pakistan Daily Times about our visit to Pakistan.
Contact Lise Monty at montyleary@aol.com.

• When people think of Delaware's beautiful Tall Ship Kalmar Nyckel, the name Peg Tigue quickly comes to mind. Peg was the energetic Executive Director of the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation throughout a decade of fund raising and construction, the 1997 launch and the 1998 commissioning of the replica of the original Kalmar Nyckel – the largest colonial-era tall ship in the world – whose first New World landing was in Wilmington in 1638. Peg then became co-chairman of the highly successful Tall Ships Delaware 1999 & 2000. “On completion of the Kalmar Nyckel,” Peg says, “I was invited to Washington, D.C., to serve as the Executive Director of the National Maritime Heritage Foundation. I said yes and, during that period, I also completed many consulting jobs with the City of Savannah, Georgia, in waterfront development.

“Because I enjoy the challenges of early foundation development and the reward of seeing a vision reach its full potential and completion,” she adds, “I returned to the Delaware development scene a couple of years ago to serve as Director of Development for the Delaware Military Heritage & Education Foundation (DMHEF), which is dedicated to honoring all those whose efforts sustain our freedoms and to preserving Delaware Military Heritage by educating the public through active programming.

“Presently every effort is being made to preserve and restore the historic military legacy of Fort DuPont, which was dedicated as a state park in 1992 and lies along the Delaware River and the C&D Canal off Route 9 just south of Delaware City. And in an interesting turn of events, restoration of two non-commissioned-officer homes at the Fort is underway by the DMHEF to use as administrative offices.”

A great public relations advocate for DMHEF events, Peg invites you to click here for information about DMHEF-sponsored trips and presentations you can sign up for to explore Naval history and its connections to Delaware. She says the DMHEF Lecture Series is available to schools and organizations.

Peg Tigue says you can contact info@demitaryheritage.org or call 302-397-8103 for coming events, and for other information see the Web site: www.demilitaryheritage.org.
Contact Peg at saildelaware@comcast.net.

• Through much of 2010, Katherine Ward edited a book titled The Cross: Payment or Gift? Rethinking the Death of Jesus (Charis Enterprises, 2010) for Grace Adolphsen Brame, Ph.D., a theologian, pastor, author, international speaker, singer, retreat leader and professor of religion (ret.) at both Villanova and LaSalle universities – and now a member of DPA. “When I first read the manuscript,” Katherine says, “it struck me as a fascinating approach to the meaning of the Cross – one that would be of interest not just to scholars and pastors, but also, as intended, to the lay men and women Grace Brame hoped to engage, to those who question their faith, and to students of history and theology.”

The book radically challenges the Church and its scholars to rethink the predominant theology of the last 900 years. As Henry French, M. Div, Ph.D. and former VP for academic publishing at Augsburg Fortress says, Grace’s answer to “what is perhaps the central Christian question: Why did Jesus die?. . . has nothing to do with traditional explanations of ‘appeasement’ or ‘satisfaction’ or ‘payment’ or ‘ransom’ [but everything to do with] the persuasive call of love and the fullness of the Spirit waiting to be received.” Through probing questions that actively engage her readers; a historical overview that sheds light on myth and metaphor and on continually evolving perceptions of God, sacrifice, and salvation theology; and her own conclusions about the nature and relationship of God, Jesus and humanity, Grace replaces the Anselmian view of sin, sacrifice and salvation with her understanding that God, living in Christ as Spirit, "saves," that is, literally heals*, by love, which precedes, rather than follows, justice and can never be bought or paid for. (*Salvation, from salvus, means healing.)

Katherine and Grace each received a first-place award in the DPA Communications Contest for The Cross, Katherine for book edited by entrant and Grace for non-fiction book, religious or inspirational.
Contact Katherine Ward at KatWard1@aol.com.
Contact Grace Brame at grace@gracebrame.com.

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Calendar of Events

Pick your own date: Free Writes. On any given Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, you can jump-start your creative process and experiment with your writing styles in the company of other writers at all skill levels. Just show up with pen and paper or laptop. No RSVP required. Free and facilitated by the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. For more info: 302-226-8210 or contactus@rehobothbeachwritersguild.com.

APRIL

14 Integrated Communications at W. L. Gore & Associates. Join IABC Philadelphia for an inside look at a company started more than 50 years ago in the founders’ basement in Newark, Delaware. Today W. L. Gore & Associates is a multinational organization that is as well known for its unique corporate culture as for its innovative products like GORE-TEX®. 5:30–7:30 p.m. at
W. L. Gore & Associates, Capabilities Center, 1901 Barksdale Road, Newark. Cost: $15 Members; $20 Non-members. Dinner is included. Click to register.

18 PRSA Philadelphia PR Institute is an advanced training program that prepares up-and-coming professionals with the tools needed to excel in the industry and advance their careers. For six weeks, participants attend weekly, two-hour educational sessions taught by leading industry practitioners on topics such as strategic planning, return on investment measurement, and presentation training. Runs through June 6.Tuition is $250 for PRSA members and $295 for non-members. Registration deadline: Friday, March 25. Click for additional information or contact Renee Watson at rcw184@gmail.com.

20 Search Engine Optimization for Your Press Release. Webinar sponsored by Business Wire. Get insights on applying modern Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to your press release using proven techniques, tips and tools. From top to bottom, you’ll be walked through optimizing your press release content for search engines and Google News. We'll demonstrate how to identify keywords for your press release and how to take advantage of the latest Business Wire features. 1 p.m. Cost: Free. Click to register.

20 Global Agenda series, Mirror, Mirror: Perceptions of America Abroad, "View from the Arab World." 7:30 p.m. Speaker: Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, overseeing research on the Middle East. Muasher was foreign minister (2002-2004) and deputy prime minister (2004-2005) of Jordan. His career has spanned diplomacy, development, civil society, and communications. Mitchell Hall, University of Delaware. Free – no tickets or reservations are required. A complete schedule and details of speaker appearances are available at the Global Agenda Web site.

27 4th Annual Philly Ad Club Movers & Shakers Luncheon. This luncheon is an opportunity to honor three outstanding achievers who, through personal effort and leadership, have had a profound impact on the Philadelphia communications industry. Award Winners: Rebecca S. Campbell, President, ABC-owned TV Stations; David L. Cohen, Executive Vice President, Comcast Corporation; Robert W. Bogle, President/CEO, The Philadelphia Tribune. 11 a.m.–2 p.m. at the Courtyard Marriott, 21 N. Juniper Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Cost: $55 Members; $80 Non-members. Get more Information.

27 Delaware Press Association Communications Contest Awards Banquet & Annual Meeting. Speaker: psychologist Dr. Lee Anderson, president of Friends of Historic Riverview Cemetery and author of Riverview Cemetery: Reading the Stones – A Collection of Memories from the First State, on “The Power of the Press: Stories within Stories.” 5:30 p.m. social gathering and book signing; 6:30 p.m. dinner, speaker and awards presentation. University & Whist Club, 805 N. Broom Street, Wilmington. Members $40; Non-members $45. See "The Power of the Press: Stories Within Stories" in this issue of DPA NewsBreak for complete details and to register. For more info: call 302-377-1077 or email wam@dca.net.

MAY

04 Global Agenda series, Mirror, Mirror: Perceptions of America Abroad, "View from Europe." 7:30 p.m. Speaker: Jamie Shea, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, based in Brussels. He is responsible for areas such as non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyber defense, counterterrorism and energy security. He also oversees strategic analysis and forecasting. Mitchell Hall, University of Delaware. Free – no tickets or reservations are required. A complete schedule and details of speaker appearances are available at the Global Agenda Web site.

05  NIRI Philadelphia Cinco de Mayo at the Mexican Post, Philadelphia, Pa. Cost/Time: TBA. Stay tuned for more details! Click for more information.

10  2011 PPRA Hall of Fame Luncheon honoring Matthew Cabrey. Sponsored by
the Philadelphia Public Relations Association. 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. at The Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia, Pa. Cost: $65 Members; $75 Non-members. Click for more information.

16 Real-time Sports Writing: The New Ball Game. How to hit a home run (or strike out) with today’s audience. 5:30 p.m. Delaware Press Association and Delaware Sports Writers & Broadcasters invite you to meet at Bluewinkle's Diamond Club, Frawley Stadium at Judy Johnson Field on the Wilmington Riverfront. Enjoy some classic baseball fare, including hot dogs, hamburgers, garden salad, soft pretzels, popcorn and more, and hear a panel of top local sports writers and broadcasters – Kevin Tresolini, Tom Byrne, Jason Levine, Vicki Huber Rudawsky and Martin Frank – discuss how they take audiences out to the ball game these days using social media as well as good writing when reporting and broadcasting. Q & A. Cost: $25 members; $30 non-members. Don't strike out: space is limited so get your name on the roster soon. Click here to register. For more info call 302-377-1077.

20–21  2011 Freedom of Information Summit. The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the New England First Amendment Coalition bring you the 2011 FOI Summit on Friday, May 20, and Saturday, May 21, at the Providence Biltmore in Providence, Rhode Island. This is your best opportunity to get a clear view of the state of disclosure and access laws, state by state. The conference brings together access advocates from all over the country to share ideas, highlight successes, and head off the latest tricks in the secrecy trade. Click here for more info or to register.

JULY

13 BBQ, Brew and Gardening Too, Delaware Press Association’s annual summer fun event. Twin Lakes Brewery, 4210 Kennett Pike, Greenville. Brewery tour, beer tasting, and BBQ (with all the fixin's) from Fat Rick's. Social gathering begins at 5:30 p.m. Tour at 6 p.m. BBQ at 6:30 p.m. Talk by DPA member Moira Sheridan, The News Journal's "Backyard Gardener" columnist with summer gardening tips and plenty of time for Q&A at 7:15 p.m. Cost: $25 members $30 non-members. Mark your calendar. Registration information will be available soon.
 

AUGUST

3-7 National Association of Black Journalists 2011 Convention & Career Fair, Pennsylvania Convention Center. Thousands of the nation's foremost journalists and media professionals will gather for the NABJ premier venue for digital journalism education, career development, and the nation’s leaders in media, business, arts & entertainment and technology. Professional journalists, students and educators will take part in full- and half-day seminars designed to strengthen and enhance their skills. Workshops throughout the five-day convention will highlight journalism ethics, entrepreneurship, specialized journalism and transitioning journalism skills to book publishing, screen writing and media relations. Early Bird Registration by April 1: $325. Click here for additional conference information or to register.

SEPTEMBER

08–10 NFPW National Communications Conference, “Plains Speaking,” co-hosted by Iowa Press Women and Nebraska Press Women. The conference site will be Harrah’s Casino and Hotel, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Several events will be held in Omaha, Nebraska. Details on registration and pre- and post-conference tours are available in this issue of NewsBreak (see the President’s Corner). For more information, contact Lori Potter at Lori.Potter@kearneyhub.com. 

25–27 Excellence in Journalism: 2011 Convention. Come to New Orleans for what’s destined to be a historic gathering of more than 1,000 news professionals with shared interests unveiling the responsible best practices important to the success of our business. Dozens of workshops, from extended leadership training to hands-on advanced media taught by the best in our business. C’mon, it’s the Big Easy! The rest is up to you. Sponsored by the Radio Television Digital News Association (formerly RTNDA) in partnership with the Society of Professional Journalists. Registration: $195. Full convention package rate: $425. If you would like to be part of the planning or have any questions regarding membership, please contact Kevin Benz, chair-elect of RTDNA and chair of convention planning, at 512-550-5550.

Send information for the Calendar of Events to news@delawarepressassociation.org.

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NewsBreak is the official newsletter of Delaware Press Association.

Janis Shields, Editor
Katherine Ward, Reporter/Copy Editor/Layout
Mary Leah Christmas, Copy Editor
Mary E. Loewenstein-Anderson, Photo Editor
Jim Smigie, Photo Editor
Submit editorial content to:
news@delawarepressassociation.org

Copy deadline for next newsletter: August 1, 2011

Contact Us:
Katherine Ward, Executive Director
Delaware Press Association

email: delawarepress@aol.com
phone: 302-655-2175
web: www.delawarepressassociation.org
 

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