SPJ Draws Record Crowd to New York Confab

By: Joe Strupp With big name speakers, low-priced hotel rooms, and a 50% increase in attendance, it may be one of the most successful mass meetings in New York this year.

No, we're not talking about the Republican National Convention. This is the Society of Professional Journalists, who spent three days this past weekend talking journalism ethics, freedom of information, and political coverage during what may turn out to be its most popular gathering ever.

It makes you wonder why they had not held their yearly convention in the Big Apple since 1979.

"It exceeded our expectations because of the sheer number," said SPJ Executive Director Terry Harper, who estimated more than 900 people had attended this year's three-day confab, dwarfing the approximately 600 at the last two conferences in Tampa and Fort Worth, Tex. "It was probably the cost in the past that kept us away, but we got a great hotel deal."

Harper said the initial search for a New York location offered hotel rooms in the $225 to $250 range, but the Grand Hyatt, one of New York's best-known hotels, came through with a $139-per-night price. He said that, as well as "access to a lot of major players in the industry in New York helped." A lot of SPJ's members also don't get to New York a lot, he added.

Among the major players were Walter Cronkite and NBC's Brian Williams, who shared a keynote address Friday; Bill Moyers and Clarence Page, who spoke on Saturday, and panels that included Helen Thomas; Peter Kann, chairman and CEO of Dow Jones & Co.; and Tom Curley, president and CEO of Associated Press. "It is easy to get people on a panel if all they have to do is take a cab across town," Harper said.

E&P Editor Greg Mitchell appeared on a Saturday panel with Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff, Slate's Jack Shafer and Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice.

Several attendees said the location and larger list of big names helped draw more members. "There are more than we usually get and it is attributable to the location," said Ed Avis, publisher of Marion Street Press, which publishes mostly journalism books.

A "60 Minutes" producer pulled out, however, due to the flap over last week's program on President's Bush's National Guard service.

In addition to panels on lawsuits, working in a war zone, covering news conferences, and business writing, those in attendance also were given a new CD-ROM known as the "SPJ FOI Audit Toolkit," which offers directives on how to make sure local public agencies are accessible. It is available free at www.spj.org.

"We wanted to spur momentum on the FOI front, get it kick-started," said Charles Davis, chair of the SPJ FOI Committee, who held a workshop Friday on the new item. "We wanted to give people everything they need."

Among the key issues on many journalists minds were coverage of Iraq, the presidential race, and the recent federal law enforcement efforts to force reporters in several high-profile cases to reveal confidential sources.

"The dangerous element is the speed with which all of this is happening," said Eve Burton, an attorney with Hearst Newspapers, who spoke about the sourcing attacks on a panel with other attorneys Friday afternoon.

The major social event was the opening night reception aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid, which most attendees praised, although some criticized the $60 price-tag. "The only complaint I had was the food," said Joe Kollin, a reporter at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. "It was only hot dogs, popcorn and salad."

Harper said a broken sprinkler flooded three elevator shafts and several meeting rooms on Thursday, forcing some reassigning of rooms. But, he said no events were canceled and the mess was cleaned up by the next day.

When asked if the SPJ convention, which is scheduled to go to Las Vegas in 2005, may return to New York soon, Harper said yes "if we could swing another (hotel) deal."