COMIG seeks panel proposals for AEJMC New Orleans 2021

 Dear Community Journalism folks, 

 

We need your help brainstorming and planning panels for COMJIG for AEJMC 2021. We want our conference programming to be about you and relevant to you. So, think about the topics that interest you, the concerns you would like discussed at a national level and ideas that have emerged in your classrooms or excited your students. 

 

There are several large issues facing community journalism right now and, as an interest group, we want to include and represent as many unique voices as possible in our conference programming. 

 

Here is a template to guide you through the process of pitching panels. 

• Panel Title: Give your idea a creative name. 
• Panel Type:  
• If your panel idea is more academic in nature, pick Research.  
• If it's more about involving students or revolves around pedagogical practice, pick Teaching.  
• If it's about freedom of speech, the journalism profession, or ethical issues, then PF&R (Or, professional freedom and responsibilities) is what you want to select. 
• Panel Sponsorship: If you think there is another AEJMC division or interest group that might be interested in collaborating with COMJIG for the idea you have suggested, please list them. Consider which groups might compliment the idea of what will be talked about during the panel you’re proposing. We will follow up with the division or group you suggest when finalizing the panel proposals. 
• Description of Panel: In 150-250 words, describe what this panel is about and the discussion points you would like covered. Consider that we’ll use this description to help attract other divisions or interest groups.  
• Possible Panelists: Consider an array of diverse people and perspectives when pitching who you think would be good to invite. You don’t need to have your panelists locked down yet, you can treat this as who’d you like if the panel is accepted.  
• Moderator: You can recommend someone else or yourself for moderating the panel, should you intend to attend AEJMC in New Orleans next year.• Contact: Provide the best way for me to get in touch with you should I need additional information or clarification for the panel you have proposed. 

Please provide the information outlined in a Word document and email it to me at christina.smith1@gcsu.edu by September 10. 

 

I am excited to hear ideas from all of you. It is with your input and ideas that we will be able to create a program that truly represents the voice of its members. Once the program has been finalized, we will send you the details via email and post it on our blog as well as our Twitter and Facebook pages. 

 

Thank you for your continued support of COMJIG! 

 

Christina C. Smith 

Vice Chair 

Community Journalism Interest Group 

Message from new head: Help me build community in the COMJIG

This August, Joe Marren, past head of the Community Journalism Interest Group, handed me the Golden Pica Pole, signifying my new role as this year’s head.

It’s intriguing to me that this pole (one online reference describes it as a “a relic of the vanished hot type era”) is the symbol of leadership of our group. I used one when I was a city editor at a small daily newspaper in Upstate New York in the 1990s. But, I think our interest group needs to actively recruit members who might not have any idea what a pica pole is. The definition of community has changed; the concept of journalism has changed. And, if our group doesn’t also continue to evolve, we risk becoming as obsolete as the pica pole that hangs on my office wall.

In truth, I know, from the COMJIG-sponsored panels I attended this year at AEJMC, and from looking at our new list of members (we have 77 now), that our interest group is comprised of active, lively scholars and teachers of journalism who are excited by the transformation of our particular niche of journalism. Suddenly, everyone wants to study community journalism.

What hasn’t changed, I fear, is the perception of our group from the outside. To do that is going to take a concerted effort from all of us. We need to share what we’re doing, what we’re thinking about and what we’re reading.

We need to build our community.

By definition, we should be good at this. To get this work going, here is a list of some ways COMJIG officers are trying to build on the work of those who came before us along with specific ways that you can help us:

An official peer-reviewed journal for the interest group: The amazing team at the Texas Center for Community Journalism launched the peer-reviewed journal, Community Journalism, this year. At COMJIG’s members meeting in Chicago, we voted unanimously to explore how we can work to make this the official journal of our interest group. COMJIG officers and the editors of CJ are well on our way toward making this happen. We are drafting a memorandum of understanding and then will send that out to our members so we can vote on whether to make this relationship official. AEJMC will then vote on whether to officially approve this request.

Facebook page: Last year, we launched a Facebook page to share information about our group both with our members and with people interested in learning more about community journalism. To date, we have 74 people who like us. If you are not one of them, please join us and contribute to the discussion.

Listserve: Our members’ listserve is run through Yahoo! The email address is comjig@yahoogroups.com. You can use this email address to communicate with all of our members who have subscribed. If you’d like to join the listserve, contact Doug Fisher at dfisher@sc.edu.

Blog: COMJIG’s main method of communication has been our blog where you can access information about what our interest group is up to as well as read posts about research and activity relevant to those with a passion for community journalism. Please consider contributing your own ideas.

Panel proposals: Our deadline for panel proposals for AEJMC’s 2013 convention is quickly approaching. Please give some thought to the kind of panels you’d like to see us host next year at AEJMC and consider submitting a panel idea that you would like to coordinate and present.

Encourage submissions: Perhaps one of our top priorities should be increasing the awareness of the impressive research being done under the umbrella of community journalism. Many of our refereed papers have gone on to publication in top tier journals but we still need to do much more to increase our presence in this area. Please consider submitting your papers to COMJIG, telling your colleagues to do the same and also to encouraging graduate students to conduct community journalism research and to send it our way.

Hopefully, this post is the start of a conversation. What else should we be doing?

More conference details

Here are some details on our refereed paper session and our scholar-to-scholar session at the August conference in Chicago:


Refereed Paper Research Session: From Shoe Leather to Cyberspace: Evolving Community Journalism



Moderating/Presiding: Eileen Gilligan, SUNY Oswego

"Undocumented Workers and Immigration Reform: Thematic vs. Episodic Coverage in a Rural Kansas Community Daily," Michael Fuhlhage, Auburn

"Conversation Starters: A Study of Interactivity on Community Press-Supported Facebook Pages," Michael Clay Carey, Ohio

"Student Experiences in Community Journalism: A Case Study of Two Universities," Lisa Paulin-Cid, North Carolina Central

"If You Build It, Will They Come? An Exploratory Study of Community Reactions to an Open Source Media Project in Greensburg, Kansas," Samuel Mwangi, Steve Smethers and Bonnie Bressers, Kansas State

Discussant: Eileen Gilligan, SUNY Oswego


Scholar to Scholar session:
Topic — From the Past to the Future: Evolving Community Journalism

"Making Hyperlocal News: An Exploration of the News Values and Perceived Roles of Journalists Working in Local, Independently Owned Online News," Michael Horning, Bowling Green State

"Youth Connection: Promoting Community Ties and Positive Values in Scholastic and Non-scholastic Online Youth-generated News," Jeffrey Neely, North Carolina Wilmington

"Fighting Spirit: Competing Hyperlocal Sites Outmatch Legacy Newspaper’s Efforts," Barbara Selvin, Stony Brook

“ 'Letters From Home,' ” Intimacy in the Norwegian Community Press," John Hatcher, Minnesota-Duluth

Discussant: Bill Reader, Ohio

Final schedule for COMJIG in Chicago

Here is the final version of events that the Community Journalism Interest Group is involved in at the AEJMC Convention this August in Chicago. There has been one change to this schedule: We will now be hosting our own, sole-sponsored research panel and will not be doing a high density session. This change had to occur because we were double booked during the high density session, which is not permitted. The new research panel will happen on Saturday, immediately before the COMJIG members meeting. We have requested these two events occur in the same room.

Date: Wednesday, August 8
Time: 1-5 p.m.
Session: "Legal Issues for Journalism Schools As News Providers: Challenges and Opportunities"
Description: This event will consist of three panels on best practices for journalism schools in their increasingly vital role as community news providers to help them sensibly address and mitigate legal risk in support of the journalism they are producing and in support of their education of students.
Sponsors: Law and Policy Division (lead), Community Journalism Interest Group, Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group

Date: Thursday, August 9
Time: 3:15-4:45 p.m.
Session: "African Media, the Arab Spring & Democratization: The 'un-seen' and 'un-mentioned' Social Side of the News Revolution"
Description: This panel focuses on the social issues of international news reporting about countries and their peoples in sub-Saharan Africa and the way these issues interact with the media and the process of democratization.
Sponsors: Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group, Community Journalism Interest Group

Date: Thursday, August 9
Time: 5-6:30 p.m.
Session: "The Tragedy of Today's GLBT Journalism"
Description: At a time when journalism of, by, and for the GLBT community could be excellent and comprehensive, the situation is instead bad and getting worse. So where do we go from here?
Sponsors: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Group (lead), Community Journalism Interest Group

Date: Friday, August 10
Time: 1:30-3 p.m.
Session: Scholar-to-scholar research
Description: Presentation of peer-reviewed COMJIG research papers

Date: Friday, August 10
Time: 3:15-4:45
Session: "Mobile Me, Mobile We: Building and Bridging Communities With Media"
Description: This panel looks at the some of the diverse attributes of mobile in a changing media landscape at the hyperlocal and community level.
Sponsors: Community Journalism Interest Group (lead), Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group

Date: Friday, August 10
Time: 5-6:30 p.m.
Session: "Social Media and Ethnic Press"
Description: This panel probes the trends showing that young people, the dominant media audience of tomorrow, are using social media to communicate with those in their ethnic culture.
Sponsors: Small Programs Interest Group (lead), Community Journalism Interest Group (lead), Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group

Date: Saturday, Aug. 11
Time: 12:15-1:30 p.m.
Session: "The Rise of University Entrepreneurial News Startups" (J-Lab Luncheon)
Description: Around the country, journalism programs are launching news websites to cover their communities, state capitals, or public issues on a day-to-day basis. These are genuine news initiatives that take many forms and they are quite different from the blogs or websites that house student assignments for a particular class. We examine different models and how they operate.
Sponsors: Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group (lead), Community Journalism Interest Group

Date: Saturday, August 11
Time: 3:30-5 p.m.
Session: "Startling Startups in the Business of Journalism"
Description: This panel will disprove the death of entrepreneurship in journalism. Community journalism – and other – start-ups comprise the ideal AEJMC panel for the centennial convention in Chicago.
Sponsors: Community Journalism Interest Group (lead), Media Management and Economics Division

Date: Saturday, Aug. 11
Time: 5:15 p.m.
Session: Research panel session
Description: Panel presentation of peer-reviewed COMJIG research papers

Date: Saturday, August 11
Time: 7-8:30 p.m.
Session: COMJIG membership meeting

Date: Saturday, August 11
Time: 8:45 p.m.
Session: COMJIG executive board meeting

Done with AEJMC11? Not so fast... help me brainstorm

I know, I'm tired too, but while it's still in your noggin' help me, the new program chair for COMJIG, think about what kind of programs you'd like to see us support and plan for next year in Chicago. I met this morning with the other program chairs and started talking with some of them about the programs and partnerships that we can co-sponsore for next year. I will be asking in a more formal way for proposals for programs in a few weeks, but I thought I'd take a moment and scrawl down my own ideas and hope that it encourages others to share as well.
Remember a couple of things:
- We'll be in Chicago, home to a great assortment of community-related media of all kinds and home to the Chicago School, whose research contributed mightily to our undsertanding of community media.
- It is the 100th anniversary of AEJMC and they want to mark that milestone.
So, here are a few of the ideas I have -- many based on what I've learned at AEJMC this year.
- Theory and Community Journalism: I would love to see some kind of panel focusing on what the big theoretical ideas and questions are in community journalism. Everyone seems interested in commununity as a concept now. I'd love to see us lead the way. This comes after having completed co-editing Foundations of Community Journalism with Bill Reader (working with MANY COMJIG members) and in talking with Chip Stewart, editor of the new peer-reviewed journal, Community Journalism, who stressed the need to list the key questions that need to be explored in community journalism right now.
- Chicago school scholars and their contribution: A look at either one or all of the amazing scholars that added so much to our understanding of ethnic media (Park) and the relationships between communities and media (Janowitz). Jack Rosenberry wrote a chapter on this for our book, so maybe he's a good pick for a panel on this.
- International perspectives on community journalism. I'm very excited about this idea because my own research has moved toward this area. It could either be a more broad look at how culture contributes to the norms of community media or a look at more specific case studies such as the role of community radio in devleoping nations (where COMJIG's Al Cross might be able to help). The new program chair in ICD seems most receptive to these kinds of collaborations. If we had the funds, I'd love to bring some people over from some of the South African community radio stations, but that's a pretty steep price tag. I'd also like to entice community radio scholar Tanja Bosch of Cape Town to pay us a visit and share what she knows (Ohio U. graduate, by the way).
- Ethnic community media in Chicago: I almost want to say, just like we did last time, because the panel hosted by Liz Hansen of Eastern Kentucky in Chicago was just perfect. I would like to do it again. Maybe it needs another wrinkle.
- Communities of interest? Are there opportunities to partner with either GLBT or Religion to look at these issues. The door is open.
My hope is that that an emphasis for COMJIG in 2012 is to emphasize our scholarly interests, which should not be hard to do with so much great resarch being done by so many people.
So, this is raw and doesn't even have hyperlinks at the moment, but I thought I'd make an attempt to at least start the conversation.

COMJIG rewards best faculty, student research

COMJIG Research Chair John Hatcher (right) presents the award for best graduate student research paper to Mark Poepsel of the University of Missouri at Columbia. Poepsel's work, "Community News as Collective Action," was among three COMJIG research papers presented during the Aug. 11 Scholar-to-Scholar session during the AEJMC convention in St. Louis. Poepsel recently completed his doctorate and has been hired as an assistant professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. (Photo by Andris Straumanis)

Dianne Garyantes of Rider University accepts the award for best faculty paper from COMJIG Research Chair John Hatcher during the AEJMC convention in St. Louis. In her research, "Culturally Competent News Coverage," Garyantes suggests that the concept of cultural competency -- used in such fields as education, health care and social work -- can be applied to journalism, particularly through multimedia reporting. (Photo by Andris Straumanis)

AEJMC - Top paper winners, new officers and other developments

Well, two days of the AEJMC convention are under our belts (three days if you count Tuesday's preliminary sessions), and it's been a good round of COMJIG sessions so far.

Reports are that the "Media Ethics in My Little Town" panel was a big success Wednesday (I had a conflict and could not go). Today's (Thursday's) research session was excellent, showing the range of "community" goes far beyond small-town or rural. That's a message we continue to try to get across; COMJIG is a good home for many scholars' research, but too often gets tagged as that "small-town paper group."

Our top paper winners are Tracy Loope of Florida for "Heart Disease in the Rural South: A Content Analysis of the Community Newspaper Coverage" and Steve Smethers of Kansas State for "After the Storm: Greensburg Residents Discuss an Open Source Project as a Source of Community News."

Not only did our research session draw a good crowd (I counted 20 at one point), so did our three scholar-to-scholar papers by Arthur Santana of Oregon, Mark Poepsel of Missouri and George Daniels of Alabama. The cluster drew some of the most people I saw at any of the presentations.

Between Loope and Smethers in that photo is Joe Marren of Buffalo State, our research chair, who at Thursday night's business meeting advanced to become vice head/programming. Andris Straumanis moves up to be COMJIG head, and John Hatcher of Minnesota-Duluth, becomes research chair. Ralph Hanson of Nebraska-Kearney remains as PF&R (professional freedom and responsibility) chair, Eileen Gilligan of SUNY-Oswego is staying on as teaching chair, and Al Cross of Kentucky remains secretary/membership.

In some other news from Denver:

• We have decided to raise membership dues to $10 for regular members, but keep them at $5 for students. We have just over $1,000 now, and once programming costs are deducted, we will have less than $1,000. With the need to cover some costs for Andris' and Joe's attendance at the winter meeting in Albuquerque in December and possible costs for panelists at next year's convention in St. Louis, along with funding our $100 awards for best faculty and student papers, things will be a little slim.
• We voted to support Montreal as the site of the 2014 convention. The room rates are guaranteed to be less than $160 CAN, with as much as $30,000 in economic incentives to AEJMC if we fill the rooms. The other candidates: Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville.
• We met briefly with Civic and Citizen Journalism. CCJIG's head, Mary Beth Callie, has found that out of about 100 members in each group, 24 are common members. This is a lot less overlap than we thought. We also don't really gain programming slots by combining into a division.
• However, based on two recent books that I am reviewing, one about civic and citizen journalism in a digital age and the other about community journalism research, it becomes clear there are many commonalities but also some clear areas where there is friction and it is hard to define the relationship. So I recommended, and the membership approved, that we consider a special research call next year for papers exploring the continued unclear - and sometimes uneasy - relationship between community and civic/citizen journalism in a digital age. We are not on a chip reduction next year, so if CCJIG goes along, we each are committing to spend a half-chip to create a second research session dealing specifically with this.

Al will post a more complete - and official - set of minutes later.

The COMJIG renewal petition went into AEJMC officials on Wedesday. I hand-delivered it into officialdom's hands. The AEJMC board of directors meets at 1 p.m. Saturday, so we can hope we will know soon after.

It is likely that next year we will undergo a "review," where Andris would have to sit with one representative of AEJMC's PF&R committee,  one of its research committee and two from the council of divisions to assess where the IG is at, etc. It's a bit different than the renewal.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone involved with COMJIG this past year. We expanded and refined out paper call, and as a result, we got a bumper crop of papers that showed well how broad the idea of community journalism is.

On to St. Louis.

- Doug

Call for AEJMC panel proposals

The Community Journalism Interest Group (COMJIG) is accepting panel proposals for the 2010 AEJMC Conference, which is scheduled Aug. 4-7 in Denver.

Proposals should consider that COMJIG defines community as more than just geographically centered. Community may also refer to social characteristics such as interest, ethnicity, culture, religion and occupation. Keep in mind, too, that community journalism is practiced across media forms (print, broadcast, online, etc.).

Proposals are due Friday, Oct. 23.

In your panel proposal, please indicate the following:

• The type of panel (research, PF&R or teaching).
• Possible co-sponsor divisions or interest groups.
• A summary of the session.
• Possible panelists.
• Estimated costs for speakers.
• Contact information for yourself.

Send panel proposals by Oct. 23 to Andris Straumanis, COMJIG program chair, at andris.straumanis@uwrf.edu.

PF&R panel proposals may also be sent to Ralph Hanson, PF&R chair, at hansonre@unk.edu.

Teaching panel proposals may also be sent to Eileen Gilligan, Teaching Standards chair, at egilliga@oswego.edu.

If you have questions, contact Andris Straumanis at andris.straumanis@uwrf.edu or +1 (651) 235-2915.

Boston Convention Research Paper Sessions

As you prepare to head to Boston for the AEJMC convention, pay special attention to the COMJIG paper sessions:

Wednesday 5-6:30 p.m. Refereed Papers Session
Reasserting Radio: An Exploratory Survey of Staff and Volunteers at U.S. Community Radio Stations, Dean Graber, Texas at Austin
Journalism's Role in Bridging Fragmented Community: The Case of College Sports Communities Chang Wan Woo, Wilson Lowrey, Jung Kyu Kim, Hyuksoo Kim
and Hyonjin Ahn, Alabama
Community Journalism and Community History: A Call for Stories of the Storytellers
Janice Hume, Georgia


Thursday 1:30-3 p.m., Scholar-to- Scholar session
Community Newspapers and Their Use of Newspaper Design Technology
Jennifer Wood Adams, Auburn
Community News Editors as Citizens: Individual Level Predictors of Social Capital and Community Engagement Seungahn Nah and Deborah Chung, Kentucky

Live from Louisville - your AEJMC schedule!

(Updated with new times on preconference session)

A little live blogging today from inside the closely guarded chip room and cranberry juice bar at the AEJMC winter meeting. We now have a tentative program for you for the Boston convention, Aug. 5-8. We think it's a great selection of panels:


Tuesday Aug. 4
1-4 p.m.: A preconference session with CCJIG on the Mumbai terrorist attacks, citizen journalism and media literacy.

Wednesday Aug. 5
10 a.m.: COMJIG and CCJIG - We kick off with Helping rural journalists better serve their communities. This panel explores university-based training programs and projects designed to help rural journalists better serve their communities. Several could become prototypes for programs across the country.

11:45 a.m.: CCJIG and COMJIG - We follow that great panel with Reinventing Journalism: Anatomy of a One-Year Applied Field Experiment. This panel takes a look at the one-year Representative Journalism field experiment in Northfield, Minn.

3:15 p.m.: COMJIG, International, Religion. Mini-plenary on normative theories of the media, including the special role community journalism plays in helping democracies flourish.

5 p.m.: COMJIG - Our refereed research session. Be sure to be there for some great papers!

And, of course, don't forget the keynote speech and opening reception Wednesday night.

Thursday Aug. 6
11:45 a.m.: Newspaper and COMJIG - A great teaching panel on Pushing Students Outside Their Comfort Zones: The Challenges of Teaching the Sheltered Student Generation. How do we get those sheltered students to deal with people who aren't like them?

1:30 p.m.: Our scholar-to-scholar paper presentations.

6:45 p.m.: Don't miss our always engaging members meeting, which once again will be held partly in conjunction with the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group.

Friday Aug. 7
After the AEJMC business meeting, don't forget that J-lab will be having its citizen journalism luncheon. It's always a fascinating presentation.

1:45 p.m.: COMJIG and Minorities and Communication: Ethnic news organizations as community media, their health and future role in an evolving media world. Boston is rich in ethnic media. Come talk with publishers, editors and those who study the ethnic media about their health and their future roles.

3:30 p.m.: COMJIG and Newspaper - Research opportunities in community journalism. A great research panel. You need to come if you have or are planning a research agenda in community media. And remember, we define community not just as geographical, but social as well.

We'll let you know more as the convention approaches.

- Liz and Doug

Call for 2009 Panel Proposals

AEJMC and COMJIG move to Boston for next year's convention, which means we have to start thinking about panels and other programming.

This is our first call for ideas for panels.

We had a very successful 2008 meeting, with some fine panels and the mini-plenary on the state of the industry. For 2009 we'd like to put a special emphasis on panels dealing with the state of research in community journalism and with an international orientation, including ethnic media. But of course, all ideas are welcome.

So put your thinking caps on, drag out all those proposals you just wanted to make before but never got around to, and send them our way by Oct. 6.

Please use the form you can find at http://tinyurl.com/comjigpanels09a (or go to our Yahoo group site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/comjig, and you'll find the file in the Files area of the site).

Please return the form to Doug Fisher, vice head and program chair, at dfisher@sc.edu (if you'll be so kind as to put COMJIG Panels in the subject line, your e-mail will be zapped into the right folder for immediate attention).

Again, the deadline is Oct. 6.

We raised the bar with some great panels last year; let's see if we can raise it further for 2009.

Best,
Doug

COMJIG program in Chicago

COMJIG members:

The AEJMC convention in Chicago is fast approaching. As you plan your convention activities, I want to call to your attention the programming COMJIG is co-sponsoring.
We are the lead sponsor or co-sponsor for five panels and one of four sponsors of a mini-plenary session. These events are listed below:

Wednesday, 10 am to 11:30 am, Media Ethics Division and Community Journalism Interest Group
PF&R Panel Session: Anonymity and Identity in the News
Moderating/Presiding: Denise Dowling, Montana
Panelists:
David S. Allen, Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Janice Marie Collins, Eastern Illinois
Patrick Lee Plaisance, Colorado State
Anon Y. Mous, Large Public University-Midwest

Wednesday, 1:30 pm to 3 pm
Community Journalism and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Groups
PF&R Panel Session:
Beyond Geographic Community: Culturally Defined Community Newspapers
in the Chicago Area
Moderating/Presiding: Elizabeth Hansen, Eastern Kentucky
Panelists:
Tracy Baim, publisher and executive editor, Windy City Times
Steven V. Bonica, executive director, Romanian Tribune
Elena Ferrarin, reporter, Reflejos Bilingual Newspaper
Michael A. House, president, Chicago Defender
Mary C. Johns, editor-in-chief, Residents’ Journal
Helen Karakoudas, managing editor, Wednesday Journal/Chicago Journal
Yasmin Nair, reporter, book reviewer, columnist, Windy City Times,
independent journalist

Wednesday, 3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
Newspaper Division, Community Journalism and Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Groups and Media Management and Economics Division
Mini-plenary PF&R Panel Session: The Transformation of Print Journalism
Moderating/Presiding: Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher
Panelists:
Randy Jessee, editor, Special Projects/Multimedia and News Technology, Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch
Carl Sessions Stepp, Maryland
Bill Reader, Ohio
Jan Schaffer, executive director, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, American
Hugh Martin, Georgia

Thursday, 5 pm to 6:30 pm, Community Journalism and Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Groups
PF&R Panel Session: What the F**?!! Dealing with Offensive Postings on News Web Sites
Moderating/Presiding: Jeff South, Virginia Commonwealth
Panelists:
Geoff Dougherty, founding editor, ChiTownDailyNews.org
Suzanne McBride, Columbia-Chicago
Nikhil Moro, Central Michigan
Alissa Swango, producer, chicagotribune.com
Rick Wade, editor, Pekin, Ill. Daily Times

Friday, 1:45 pm to 3:15 pm, Community Journalism Interest Group and Newspaper Division
PF&R Panel Session: Case Studies of Courage in Community Journalism
Moderating/Presiding: Al Cross, Kentucky
Panelists:
Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor and publisher, The Canadian Record, Canadian, TX
Tom and Pat Gish, publishers, The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg, KY
Homer F. Marcum, Holston United Methodist Home for Children, Greenville, TN, and former editor and publisher, The Martin Countian, Inez, KY
Bernard Stein, co-publisher, The Riverdale Press, Bronx, NY; professor, CUNY-Hunter

Friday, 3:30 pm to 5 pm
Civic and Citizen Journalism and Community Journalism Interest Groups
Teaching Panel Session: Whose Learning Curve Is It? How Technological Advances Have Changed How We Teach Journalism
Moderating/Presiding: Andrea Breemer Frantz, Wilkes
Panelists:
Evene Estwick, Wilkes
Kandace Harris, Johnson C. Smith
Lindsey Wotanis, Maryland
Merrilee Cox, Maryland
Les Anderson, Wichita State

COMJIG will also have two research paper sessions, one of them a part of Friday’s Scholar-to-Scholar session:

Friday, 8:15 am to 9:45 am
Community Journalism Interest Group
Refereed Paper Research Session: Community Involvement in Community Journalism
Moderating/Presiding: Andris Straumanis, Wisconsin-River Falls
Finding It, Storing It, Discussing It: A Content Analysis of Weekly
Newspaper Web Sites
Kelly Mitchell, Erik Collins and Anna Saunders, South Carolina
Collaborator or Competitor? Community News Editors’ Perceived Roles
of Professional and Citizen Journalists
Seungahn Nah and Deborah Chung, Kentucky
Evaluating Reader Feedback Importance to Newspapers: A Look
at Community Structure and Economic Influences
Carly McKenzie, Hal Hays, Jee Young Chung, Chang Wan Woo
and Wilson Lowrey, Alabama
Discussant: Stephen R. Lacy, Michigan State

Friday, 12:15-1:30, Scholar-to-Scholar
Community Journalism Interest Group
37. Using a Newspaper to Stabilize a Community
Lindsey Wotanis, Maryland
38. Beyond Standard Professionalism: Journalism and Language Roles Among
European Minority Language Journalists
Iñaki Zabaleta, Nicolás Xamardo, Arantza Gutierrez, Santi Urrutia,
and Itxaso Fernández, University of the Basque Country
and Carme Ferré, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Discussant: Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois

As we did last year, the Community Journalism and Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Groups will hold a joint members’ meeting. We’ve reserved two time slots on Thursday evening for it (see below).

Thursday, 6:45 pm to 8:15 pm and 8:30-10 p.m.
Community Journalism and Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Groups
Business Session: Joint Members’ Meeting
Moderating/Presiding: Bill Reader, Ohio and Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher

The COMJIG and CCJIG Executive Committees will meet at 10: 15 p.m. Thursday following the members’ meeting.

I hope to see you in Chicago.

Liz Hansen
Vice Chair and Program Chair
COMJIG

COMJIG to tackle tough issues at AEJMC in August

Thanks to excellent panel ideas from COMJIG members, officers Liz Hansen (vice-chair and programming chair) and I (your fearful chair) were able to cobble together what I think is a pretty exciting and boundary-pushing program for the August AEJMC convention. Once again, I think our group has transformed from "The Little IG That Could" (as founding chair Jock Lauterer once called us) to our new identity as "The Little Group with a Big Footprint" (as immediate past chair Peggy Kuhr described us in August).

At the infamous "chip auction" at AEJMC's winter meeting, held in St. Louis in December, Liz and I frantically negotiated with a variety of other AEJMC groups to lock in the following program for the Aug. 6-9 convention in Chicago. We also managed to make sure all COMJIG sessions are held Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, thus alleviating our members of the pain and loneliness of talking to empty seats during AEJMC's dreaded Saturday afternoon time slots.

That said, here's the lineup for August:

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, we open our program at 10 a.m. with "Anonymity and Identity in the News," a debate about the pros and cons of anonymity in our biz, from the use of anonymous sources to news stories to the beautiful ugliness of anonymous posts to online discussion boards. The panel is co-sponsored with the Media Ethics Division, and this session marks COMJIG's first formal collaboration with the Media Ethics folks.

At 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 6, COMJIG has another first-time partnership, this time with the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Interest Group: "Beyond Geographic Community -- Culturally Defined Community Newspapers in the Chicago Area." The panel will feature representatives of a variety of ethnic, religious, and GLBT media in the Chicago area. (Special props to our PF&R chair Ralph Hanson for throwing this one together at the last minute -- it attracted a lot of potential co-sponsors).

Following that session on Wednesday, COMJIG again participates in a mini-plenary session (our third year in a row for the high-profile sessions!). Titled "The Transformation of Print Journalism," this panel addresses AEJMC's challenge to divisions and interest groups to offer at least one program that focuses on the future of the industry, and will feature a mix of professionals and scholars who will discuss how a variety of print media are adapting and thriving in the digital/online age. This session is co-sponsored by our friends in the Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group, Media Management & Economics Division, and the Newspaper Division.

Thursday's programming starts at 1:30 p.m. with COMJIG's scholar-to-scholar research session. COMJIG chair Bill Reader and a team of anonymous judges will choose the best-designed poster and present the winner with a very special prize (don't worry -- it'll be the kind of prize somebody will actually be happy to receive).

Then at 5 p.m., we team up with Civic/Citizen again for a session titled "What the F***?!! Dealing with offensive postings on news Web sites," which should prove to be a lively, R-rated (for language) discussion of the place of profanity in audience-feedback forums. (As a side note, we had a lot of fun during the planning sessions referring to this as the "F*** Panel" -- it was just like being back in the newsroom).

COMJIG and Civic/Citizen will follow up last year's joint members' meeting with another one, tentatively scheduled for 6:45-9 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 7. We will be working with Civic/Citizen to come up with a special topic for the joint members' meeting, and are hoping to sneak some Chicago deep-dish past the hotel-catering cops so we can meet and eat. Thanks to our former research chair Jack Rosenberry (now Civic/Citizen chair) and Civic/Citizen vice-chair Mary Beth Callie for agreeing to turn our members' meetings into a bonus round-table discussion.

On Friday, we'll start the day with our sole-sponsored research-paper session at 8:15 a.m. Research chair Andris Straumanis will honcho that shindig, at which we also will be presenting the top student paper with our first-ever prize of $100 (so be sure to encourage your community-minded graduate students to submit their papers to COMJIG!).

Then after lunch, we'll team up with the Newspaper Division for an amazing panel titled "Case Studies of Courage in Community Journalism," which will feature a panel of small-town newspaper editors who battled problems in their communities at great personal risk. Thanks to COMJIG stalwart and former PF&R chair Al Cross of the Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues for not only pitching this excellent panel idea, but for offering some IRJCI funds to help cover the travel expenses of our brave panelists.

Then at 3:30 p.m. Friday, we'll close out COMJIG's programming with the teaching panel, "Whose Learning Curve Is It? Strategies for Incorporating Digital Media Into Civic-Oriented Students Media and Courses," a teaching panel that will give all of us ideas for learning how those of us trained in "legacy media" can get up to speed -- and STAY up to speed -- on the whiz-bang techno-mojo needed in today's poly-media environment. This is another good partnership with Civic/Citizen.

Again, many thanks to all of the COMJIG members who submitted panel ideas. We can never find co-sponsors for all of them, but it's nice to have so many members who give us great ideas for programming.

Five more years!

Community Journalism Interest Group successfully "passed" its assessment by the AEJMC folks and you can now consider us part of the "permanent" landscape at AEJ. Here's what they said we should spend some time on:

• Define clearly what "community journalism" is. We may know it, but that doesn't mean everyone else in journalism and mass comm education does. We need a slogan, a label, so we can ....
• Get the word out about community journalism. In other words, market our IG. If community journalism is the hot trend, well, what are we doing to capitalize on that? And how are we letting the world know?
• Spend less time worrying about the number of research papers, and figure out what research we want to focus on. Perhaps it's in teaching, perhaps it's in public service (working with communities and news professionals). Focus our call for papers on a topic or 2.
• Make sure we document our activities beyond the convention .... national meetings we're part of, booklets we put together, etc.
• Understand that a lot of our diverse membership can come from our work with professionals (outside AEJ membership lists).
• Keep building the blog. Folks loved it.

2007 Convention Program

Get ready for a fabulous program in D.C. and mark your calendars for the following:

COMJIG 2007 Program: Washington, D.C.

THURSDAY, Aug. 9

10 am to 11:30 am

Radio-Television Journalism Division and Community Journalism Interest Group

Teaching Panel Session: “Where Has All The Video Tape Gone? Training Broadcast Journalism Students More Than Just the Technology of the Digital Newsroom”

Moderating/Presiding: Mary T. Rogus, Ohio

· Ellen Camloh, product marketing manager, Broadcast and Local TV,

· Avid Technology, Inc.

· Phil Hoffman, general manager, Z-TV, Akron

• Janet Kolodzy, Emerson

3:15 pm to 4:45 pm

Community Journalism Interest Group, Magazine Division, Graduate Education and Civic and Citizen Interest Groups

Mini-plenary PF&R Panel Session: “The Community as a Teaching Resource”

Moderating/Presiding: Bill Reader, Ohio

· Amanda Brozana and George Daniels, Alabama

· Sue Ellen Christian, Western Michigan

· Lindsay Fasano and Gwen Shaffer, Temple

· Lyn Lepre, Tennessee

• Beverly Merrick, Nebraska at Kearney
• Susan McKenna and Rich Martin, Illinois

5 pm to 6:30 pm

Community Journalism Interest Group

Refereed Paper Research Session: “Online Expressions of Community Journalism”

Moderating/Presiding: Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher

· “Weeklies and the Web: A Study of Newspaper Managers and the State of Their Online Editions,” Jennifer Wood Adams, Auburn

· “Media Roles and Audience Engagement: Relationships Between Perceptions of Journalists’ Functions and Uses of Interactive Features,” Deborah Chung, Kentucky

· “Connecting Virtual and Geographic Communities: Toward a New Model of Journalism in Bluffton, S.C.,” Heidi Fedak, Kansas

• Discussant: Barbara S. Reed, Rutgers

FRIDAY, Aug. 10

11:45 am to 1:15 pm

Community Journalism Interest Group and Radio-Television Journalism Division

PF&R Panel Session: “If All Politics is Local, Then... Why Aren’t Community Journalists

Doing More Coverage of Congressional Officials?”

Moderating/Presiding: Eileen Gilligan, SUNY Oswego

· Garrette Silverman, press secretary, Office of U.S. Senator George Voinovich, R-Ohio

· Brian Schaffner, assistant professor, Government, American; research fellow, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies

· Laurie Kinney, senior correspondent, Washington, DC Bureau, Hearst-Argyle Television

• Bernard Stein, editorial editor/writer, The Riverdale Press, Riverdale, NY

1:30-3 p.m.

Community Journalism Interest Group: Scholar-to-Scholar papers:

“Newspapers as Community Builders”

· 59. “Fifty Years of Community News: The Erosion of Social Responsibility?” Jeffrey John, Wright State

· 60. “Relentlessly Historical: Local History in South-Central Pennsylvania Community Newspapers,” Rex Martin, Bowie State

· 61. “A Test of a Measure of Community Journalism,” Wilson Lowrey, Chang Wan Woo and Jenn Burleson Mackay, Alabama

• Discussants: Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher, and Janice Hume, Georgia

3:15 pm to 4:45 pm

Community Journalism Interest Group and Scholastic Journalism Division

PF&R Panel Session: “Grow Your Own: Nurturing a Newsroom From Local Schools”

Moderating/Presiding: Jock Lauterer, North Carolina at Chapel Hill

· Peter W. Wagner, publisher, NW Iowa REVIEW

· David Woronoff, publisher, The Pilot, Southern Pines, NC

· John W. Stevenson, The Randolph Leader, Roanoke, AL

· Vanessa Shelton, Iowa High School Press Association, Iowa

8:30 pm to 10 pm

Civic and Citizen Journalism and Community Journalism Interest Groups

Business Session: Members’ Meetings

Moderating/Presiding: Andrea Breemer Frantz, Wilkes and Peggy Kuhr, Montana

10:15 pm to 11:45 pm

Community Journalism Interest Group

Off-site Business Session: Executive Committee Meeting

Moderating/Presiding: Peggy Kuhr, Montana

SATURDAY, Aug. 11

8:15 am to 9:45 am

Community Journalism and Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group

PF&R Panel Session: “Using Blogs to Create and Strengthen Communities”

Moderating/Presiding: Andrea Frantz, Wilkes

· Barbara Iverson, Columbia College

· Nikhil Moro, Central Michigan

· Leonard Witt, Kennesaw State

· Frank Denton, vice president of news, Morris Publishing Group

12:15 pm to 1:30 pm

J-Lab, Civic and Citizen Journalism and Community Journalism Interest Groups

Luncheon Session: “Citizen Media: Here to Stay or Gone Tomorrow?”

Moderating/Presiding: Jan Schaffer, executive director, J-Lab, Maryland

and Peggy Kuhr, Montana

· Jan Schaffer, executive director, J-Lab, Maryland

· Lisa Williams, founder, H2oTown, Placeblogger.com

· Courtney Lowery, managing editor, NewWest.net, Rural News Network, Montana

· Dan Gillmor, director, The Center for Citizen Media