In Upset, Nashville Editor Elected SPJ President

By: E&P Staff In an upset in what?s believed to be the first contested election in the history of the nation's largest journalists organization, Clint Brewer -- the executive editor of the free daily City Paper in Nashville, Tenn. -- was narrowly elected president of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) at its convention in Chicago Saturday.

Brewer defeated Bruce Cadwallader, the courts reporter for The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, by a delegate vote of 74-60. In the longtime SPJ tradition, Cadwallader, as the secretary-treasurer of the organization, would normally have run for president without opposition.

In another contentious issue that touched on SPJ tradition, delegates by a 70-65 vote rejected a bylaws amendment that would have permitted all members, rather than chapter delegates attending the national convention, to vote in future national elections.

The so-called "One Member, One Vote" measure would have opened online or phone voting to all members during a period of the convention, whether or not they are delegates or are attending the convention.

Departing SPJ President Dave Carlson had pushed for the measure as a way to enfranchise what he said were the 40% of members who do not belong to a local chapter, and thus do not select a delegate for the convention votes. Opponents generally argued that actually seeing and hearing the candidates at the convention was vital to picking the organization's leadership.

SPJ also passed nearly two dozen resolutions, starting with a plea for a federal shield law. "The constitutional promise of an independent news media cannot be fulfilled unless journalists are able to protect confidentiality of news sources," the resolution reads in part.

SPJ also called for the release of freelance video journalist Joshua Wolf, hwo has been imprisoned on contempt chargess since Aug. 1 for refusing to hand over video of a demonstration. "This action is a chilling step toward negating all state shield laws, allowing federal prosecutors to use the most negligible of ties to federal money to override the protections contained in these laws, thus silencing sources and threatening to convert all journalists into arms of law enforcement," the resolution reads in part.

Another resolution supported San Franciso Chronicle reproters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams in their appeal of an order to hand over information gathered in their investigation of steroid use by professional atheletes.

SPJ slammed the Bush administration for "policies that are unusually adversarial to journalism and the public's right to know." Among those it listed were "fraudulent use of video news releases, use of subpoenas and criminal contempt proceedings to force reporters to reveal confidential sources; unwarranted delays or outright failure to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act; payments to columnists to support administration policies; Vice President Cheney's refusal to reveal industry representatives who attended meetings about energy policy, reclassification of documents that have been declassified and publicly available for many years; and policies that make it more difficult for journalists to travel with the president because of the limited access allowed to him and his listeners at political events." SPJ asked the White house to "reconsider its anti-journalism policies, and respect citizens' right to know what the government is doing in their behalf."

In resolutions about student media, SPJ decried the increasing pressure on faculty advisors to control content, and "censured" Ocean County College in New Jersey for terminating Karen Bosley's contract after 30 years as adviser of the Viking News student newspaper.