Today is the Deadline to Enter the RTDNA/UNITY Awards!

RTDNA honors outstanding achievements in the coverage of diversity with the RTDNA/UNITY Award. The award is part of the covenant the association has adopted with UNITY: Journalists of Color, to achieve diversity in the newsroom through developing news content and editorial staffs that reflect the changing face of communities. The purpose of the award is to encourage and showcase journalistic excellence in covering issues of race and ethnicity. It is presented annually to news organizations that show an ongoing commitment to covering the diversity of the communities they serve. 

Click here to enter the RTDNA/UNITY Awards!


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Ban on Face-To-Face Interviews with Federal Death Row Inmates Stands

By Kathleen A. Kirby, Partner, Wiley Rein LLP

Journalists’ ability to perform their role as government watchdog suffered a blow this week that should not go unnoticed.  On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided against taking a case involving a death row inmate who claimed a federal policy enacted in 2000 that prohibits face-to-face interviews violated his constitutional rights.  RTDNA joined numerous media outlets in a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to hear the appeal of a 7th Circuit decision upholding the ban.  As a result of the Supreme Court’s action, the Special Confinement Unit Media Policy, which prevented Hammer from having any uncensored contact with the news media, stands... 
 

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Tags: rtdna, death row, supreme court, interviews, media

Sunshine Week is March 14-20

For Sunshine week, RTDNF has produced public service announcements for your station to air the week of March 14-20, 2010, and throughout the year. The PSAs are :15 or :30 in English and Spanish.

Audio versions are available in English and Spanish at :30 and can be downloaded here. Scripts for the PSA's are available here as well.

RTDNF’s Sunshine Week PSAs were produced in 2009 with the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Here's is a look at the 30-second English version PSA:


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Tags: rtdna, rtdnf, sunshine week

New Grant Supports RTDNF’s Ethics Training Across the Country

WASHINGTON – The Board of Directors of the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation has awarded a $105,000 grant to the Radio Television Digital News Foundation to support ethics training for professional journalists and the 2010 Oklahoma Multimedia Workshop for Oklahoma high school teachers.

For professionals, RTDNF will conduct Ethical Decision-Making Workshops for news managers and journalists. These workshops will reinforce core journalistic principles, decision-making skills and ethical values among news professionals.

“Journalists are eager for this kind of training,” said RTDNF Executive Director Kathleen Graham. “EEJF’s generous support allows electronic news managers and journalists to step back from daily newsroom pressures and to think more broadly about the news they deliver, as well as the people they cover.”

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Tags: rtdna, EEJF, ethics, grant, RTDNF

From Newsroom to Classroom: Spring Break!

By Lydia Reeves Timmins, Temple University

Spring break!  No class for a week, and time to reflect on both the semester and the new direction in my life. As I hit the halfway mark in the class I’m currently teaching, I think the students finally understand the topic. Really! Before class last week, three students told me the light is shining through and how great it is to have a teacher who is able to communicate. Turns out that is a common student complaint—teachers who may know the material but who can’t transmit the knowledge in a clear and comprehensible manner. But the compliment still made me happy, in fact as happy as I was the last time my newscast topped the February book!...

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Tags: rtdna, temple university, lydia reeves timmins

Chairman's Blog: View from the Dais

By Stacey Woelfel, RTDNA Chairman

I’ll close out the coverage of last week’s First Amendment Awards dinner with a few thoughts I collected from my vantage point looking out over the event.  I was on the rear left of the platform party, as viewed from the audience.  Check out the videos from the event and you’ll see me there behind Leon Harris in the front row.  My role on the dais was, as I joked to Bill Roswell, just to be a pretty face.  The RTDNA chairman has no official role at the First Amendment dinner.  For me, that will come next year when I take over the position of RTDNF chairman.  I was the only one on the platform without a speaking role, which left me free to look and listen all night.

What I saw and heard from my perch pleased me.  The room was electric that night...

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Tags: rtdna, first amendment awards dinner, stacey woelfel

The "Glue" That Holds Together More Social Networking

By Steve Safran, Editor, Lost Remote 

There's another social networking site out there now. That may be a ho-hum way to begin an essay, but stay with me for a moment because the new site does many things well. "Glue" works because it takes a new approach to sharing - that is, the sharing of things you like, in large lists.

While there are "plugins" that can do this on Facebook, Glue masters the concept as its main feature. Think of Glue as Facebook-meets Foursquare - meets Amazon recommendations. You start by telling the site different things you like - movies, TV shows, books, music, etc. It then generates recommendations based upon those choices. So far, no biggie. But your friends can see and share those choices, and that's where things get interesting. I'm more likely to take the recommendation of a friend than I am of some website's "bot." You can subscribe to other people's Glue, so you can see what a particular friend likes or recommends.

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Tags: rtdna. glue, lost remote, steve safran

COMPLETE COVERAGE: 20th Annual RTDNF First Amendment Awards Dinner

By Ryan G. Murphy, RTDNA Digital Media Editor

If you weren't in attendance for Thursday night's 20th Annual RTDNF First Amendment Awards dinner, RTDNA has you covered.

Click here to visit our special dinner coverage section or visit one of the coverage links below for a more specific look at the night's festivities.


   Speech Videos 


     Flip Cam Coverage 





         Cover It Live Session
 



Twitter Coverage



   20th Anniversary Video




      Tribute Videos





     Photos





      Press Release



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Tags: rtdna, first amendment dinner, stacey woelfel, rtdnf

Cochran Shares Role, Importance of Broadcast News with FCC

By Stacey Woelfel, RTDNA Chairman

It’s a place that every broadcaster thinks about, that institution in Washington, DC that’s always watching, always listening.  Seemingly a contradiction in many ways to the First Amendment is a government agency that regulates what broadcasters do.  Yet the Federal Communications Commission has been a reality for broadcasters for nearly 76 years—starting long before anyone knew there would be such a thing as a “digital era.”

But that era is upon us and the commission is calling on experts in both traditional broadcasting and new media to come share the current state of the media and what changes have been brought on by the shift to digital.  First Amendment attorney Kathy Kirby of Wiley Rein LLP, along with her associate from the firm, Matthew Gibson, and I were lucky enough to get to accompany RTDNA President Emeritus Barbara Cochran as she appeared as a key witness in the commission’s workshop entitled “Serving the Public Interest in the Digital Era.”

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Tags: rtdna, FCC, Barbara Cochran

Barbara Cochran's Prepared Statement for FCC Future of Media Workshop

Below is RTDNA's President Emertius Barbara Cochran's prepared statement to be given at the FCC Future of Media Workshop on March 4, 2010.

Click here to watch a live stream of the workshop, starting at 10:30 a.m. 

"Thank you for inviting me to speak at this workshop on behalf of the journalists working in local radio and television stations across the country.  These journalists are members of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), the world’s largest organization of journalists working in electronic media.

Broadcast news plays a critical role in keeping Americans informed.  Local television news holds the top spot as the number one source of news for Americans.  Just this week, Tom Rosenstiel and his colleagues at the Pew Research Center reported that Americans say local television news is their top source of news, cited by 78 percent as a news source they use regularly...

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Tags: rtdna, FCC, Barbara Cochran, digital media


Iowa Public Radio’s Greg Shanley dies at 49

Former regional RTDNA Edward R. Murrow award winner

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David Evans Receives NADL Hall of Fame Award

Partner with ReedSmith law firm in Washington

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Charley Powers dies at 64

RTDNA member and long-serving RTDNF First Amendment Dinner Committee member

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