By Betsy Model, President

Many of you know that SPJ has often used its national convention to speak out on key journalistic issues by way of its resolutions. These issues are not only critical for healthy debate but because SPJ’s decisions and statements about them can ultimately impact us all; support or condemnation by the Society often makes local, national and international news.  For many years the debate over presented resolution was one of the most entertaining and sometimes contentious portions of the annual SPJ convention as delegates often debated the merits of resolutions for entire business sessions.  That has changed a bit over the last few years and SPJ National and its board of directors is asking us – us as in our Rio Grande chapter – for thoughts, suggestions and actual resolutions to present at the national convention in October on behalf of your fellow SPJ “peeps” and ALL journalists in the country.

The Resolutions Committee is therefore asking us to consider those issues we see as most critical to our careers, our voices and to the public at large as it relates to journalism and to recommend and draft resolutions prior to the convention.  These resolutions will then be forwarded to the committee the day before the convention so they can immediately begin deliberations.

As some general thoughts – and for those of you wondering what kinds of topics or issues are considered worthy of debate and could be drafted into a resolution – think about things like checkbook journalism, The Shield Law, expansion of SPJ internationally, the Terry Harper Memorial Fund, Dave Cullier’s Access Across America, membership growth, diversity and similar.  Please send your thoughts, ideas and rabble-rousing, resolution-worthy words to either myself at bmodel@betsymodel.com or to our Communications VP David Brown at david@nmspj.org within the next few weeks…

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