APSE Executive Committee Opening Meeting
46th Annual APSE Summer Conference
4 p..m. Sunday, June 16, 2019
The Omni Hotel CNN Center
Meeting called to order at 4 p.m.
President John Bednarowski introduces himself and:
First vice president Todd Adams
Second vice president Lisa Wilson
Third vice president Dan Spears
Executive Director Bill Eichenberger
Conference Coordinator Glen Crevier
Past presidents present:
Bill Eichenberger, Newsday (2003)
Glen Crevier, The Star Tribune of Minneapolis (2005)
Gerry Ahern, Gambling.com
Phil Kaplan, Knoxville News Sentinel
Mike Sherman, then Oklahoman, now Tampa Bay Times (2014)
Tommy Deas, The Tuscaloosa News (2016)
Jeff Rosen, Kansas City Star (2017)
Region representatives:
Atlantic Coast
Dave Ammenheuser
Great Lakes
Larry Graham
Great Plains
Chris Fickett
Mid-Atlantic
Gary Potosky
Northeast
Justin Pelletier
Northwest
Paul Barrett
Southeast
Mike Sherman
Southwest
Nick Talbot
West
Bill Bradley
Representing the Associated Press: Oscar Dixon
Finances and budget update (Bill Eichenberger)
Came in $1,528 under budget for expenses.
Short — $14,200 on dues. Membership down 10 percent.
There is $84,174.00 in our checking account and $61,898.15 in our money market account for $146, 072.15 total. We had about $127,000 last year, so we’re up significantly thanks to sponsors.
Conference update (Glen Crevier)
Update on 2019 Summer Conference: Atlanta.
Dates are June 16-19, 2019, at the Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center.
Conference guide is all digital, WIFI password is APSE2019.
The College Football Hall of Fame Reception is at 6:15 to 8:15 p.m. Monday, there is a walkway off the meeting rooms
Hospitality is in Ballroom E on Monday and Tuesday
Buses leave hotel at 5 p.m. Tuesday for Braves game
MLB’s Steve Arocho is hosting a Q&A with editors at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday to discuss coverage.
2020 Winter Conference and judging:
Dates are Sat., Feb. 15 through Wed., Feb. 19, 2020, at the Hampton Inn in St. Petersburg.
Room rate $179
Working out logistics for judging because we won’t be using Poynter Institute.
2020 Summer Conference: Indianapolis
Dates are June 24-27 at The Alexander Hotel.
2021 Summer Conference: checking on Las Vegas
2021-2023 Winter Conference and judging
Doubletree in Orlando.
Other committee reports:
Commissioners (Gary Potosky) –
— 23 total editors attended, and we averaged between 15 and 20 for each session.
We used a system of on-the-record unless off-the-record was requested, and all media/access issues were off the record. Result was at least 80-90 percent of the comments were on the record
— The NFL declined to participate because of a scheduling conflict. The NFL called me the week of the sessions to apologize and to look at next year’s schedule so they could participate next year
— Questions from the editors were vigorous and in-depth, and most of the leagues handled the questions and the atmosphere well
— NASCAR has new leadership since last year, and their president was forthcoming on all issues and turned that session into one of the week’s best. Previous years had NASCAR doing more of a promotion of their sport, and showing modest interest in our sessions. NASCAR agreed, at members’ request, to make drivers and team reps available at times more connected to the needs of digital newsrooms – earlier in the week – and fulfilled that promise in the case of the Pocono 400 a few weeks later.
— The AP hosted the USOC and NCAA downtown early on the second day, and we appreciate that as always
— USOC returned to the rotation for the first time in several years, with new leadership, and they were very good. Dave Ammenheuser reports that a subsequent 1-on-1 led to further discussion of cooperation between the USOC and the USAT network for future endeavors.
— Major League Soccer promised to work with APSE members to increase MLS home newsroom readership, which has been an issue just about everywhere. More discussion that is promised at this week’s panel.
— The NBA acknowledged our issue with coaches taking dark days during the playoffs, and the next day the coaches offered media access on days they had previous not offered. The NBA acknowledged later that week that the APSE session led to a call into the playoff coaches, which affected that change
— Reid Laymance says he always finds them productive and comes away with 10-15 story ideas.
— Jorge Rojas says the relationship-building between the editors and the leagues is key, and this year was very good for that.
— I was at every session and did not hear a complaint about the schedule, so I think it went pretty smoothly. It’s a genuine burden for member editors from outside the NYC area to attend these sessions over two days, so I wish to thank every one of them, in addition to the NY area editors who made the time, for participating
Contest (Justin Pelletier, Todd Adams) –
— 2018 contest went great. All winners are one the APSE website under the “Past Contests” tab, with links. Certificates have been emailed to all 2-10 place winners.
— Lisa is in charge of the 2019 contest. The torch has been passed to her.
— Gary is in the process of getting a digital contest going for this year. The contest starts July 1, call for judges and website info is out.
Diversity (Larry Graham)
Diversity Fellows recognized:
Jenni Carlson
Norma Catalina Gonzalez
Eric Jackson
Nicole Saavedra
James Williams
Diversity fellowship
Programming
Outreach
Fundraising
–Proposing conference registration swap with the professional organizations including NABJ, AAJA, etc. to get stronger APSE representation at other conferences.
–Committee has been broken down into groups including programming, outreach and fundraising. Programming focuses on education, improving participation for the Lapchick study. Outreach is creating a database of diverse editors and reporters, including those who might not be APSE members. Groups including NABJ and NAHJ are on board.
Futures (Michael Peters) – NOT ABLE TO ATTEND
I’ve corresponded with Emily Kaiser, who works with t. AWShe Press Institute in Washington, D.C., and is originally a Tulsan. She helps the Press Institute apply for grants and has volunteered to give me some advice on the journalism grant process.
Potential options to apply:
The Knight Foundation
Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation
Scripps Howard Foundation
SPJ Foundation
Gannett Foundation
Legal affairs and ethics (Gerry Ahern)
The one thing that went quite well was the way we worked together with Malcolm Moran and the USBWA on the situation with Bradley University trying to limit access of a 30-year veteran reporter prior to the NCAA tournament. The three of us communicated and got a joint statement drafted and Bradley realized their error and backed down. As Malcolm put it, we established a template for how to jointly handle such situations.
Will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court gambling ruling helps us finally move the needle with NCAA on uniform injury reports, something John and I have been pushing for years.
USA Wrestling — USA Wrestling never directly addressed our proposals with us after our summer meeting.
However, during the Commissioner’s meetings in New York, the representatives of the USOC said new procedures had been implemented and that all the Olympic organizations had agreed to use our model, which is no background checks journalists from APSE organizations, and interviews would be done at venues with a press officer present.
Olympics (Mark Faller)
Tokyo Olympics
There are some deadlines to be aware of as we get closer to the one-year-out mark from Tokyo 2020.
Housing/credentials:
–The Accommodations Allocation Agreements will be available from Tokyo organizing committee by June 30. The signed AAAs will be due back to Tokyo August 1.
–Half of the housing payment will be due Sept. 24, with the balance due April 24, 2020.
–Assigning credentials to individual staffers – known as “Press By Name — will launch in October (estimate is Oct. 20). And if anyone is looking to reduce the number of credentials they’ve been allotted, contact Peggy Manter at the USOC. Also, anyone still is looking to add or obtain credentials should confirm with Peggy that they are on the waiting list. Peggy.Manter@usoc.org
Office space:
–For those looking to rent private space there are deadlines coming up. Interested parties should email Peggy with questions.
Walk-up event dates:
–The Pan Am Games in Lima will be a qualifying event for 15 sports for Tokyo.
–The World Press Briefing in Tokyo is Oct. 14-18.
–The USOC Media Summit is scheduled for March 15-18, 2020 at the Los Angeles InterContinental Hotel.
Paralympics:
–The 2020 Paralympic Accreditation request site (via the USOC) is open for requests through July 1.
Outreach (Chris Fickett)
Offer assistance to Diversity committee for outreach. Want to work on efforts to overcome the 10 percent loss of membership as well.
Red Smith Award (Jack Berninger) – NOT ABLE TO ATTEND
Things went smoothly this year, and solicitation for 2020 nominations will be about Jan. 1.
Only 62 out of about 140 eligibles voted. Same thing last year. We opened the voting to make it more inclusive, and a lot of people aren’t taking advantage.
Send email reminding those who can vote to vote.
Regions (Robert Gagliardi) –
— Review of some of the most recent region meetings. Sounded like some good meetings with good guests and feedback.
— Reminder of region chairs to start thinking of planning their meetings sooner than later so the word can get out there.
— A call out if there is going to be any new region chairs or vice chairs to get that process going and to let me know so we can keep an update on who is who in each region.
— If there are any concerns, problems or questions about regions to reach out to me so we can address them.
— Need to have or work toward elections for any region chairs/vice chairs
Southeast, Great Lakes, Southwest among those that need vice chairs.
Revenue (Tommy Deas) –
–$94,000 in revenue. Combination of steady sponsors and new ones as well.
Big thanks to AMB Group for sponsoring $20,000, which paid for Diversity Fellows and for 40 small paper sports editors’ registration.
Indy doesn’t have as many pro teams to reach out to. Will have to figure out options.
Thanks to MLS for again being a platinum sponsor for the convention.
Thank you to our other sponsors —
Gold Sponsors
Major League Baseball, the Associated Press, the Football Bowl Association, USA Today Sports, the National Football Foundation and Showtime Sports.
Bronze Sponsors
Kennesaw State, the Marietta Daily Journal, the NHL, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and NASCAR.
Scholarship (Phil Kaplan)
— The scholarship committee members have received the entries from the 10 finalists.
The group has been asked to choose the top three and return the results by June 28.
I hope to announce the winners the first week of July and produce a story for the APSE website.
— Numbers were down this year with only 23 applying and a majority close to the deadline. Just as concerning there were only two women who sent materials. Only one student applied from a school west of Missouri. Promotion started early through Twitter, alerting journalism schools, and reminders were consistently sent out via social media.
Open to suggestions on how to increase numbers. Some have suggested opening contest to graduate students.
— New members of the committee include Matt Stephens of Denver Post, Josh Barnett of Buffalo News, Rana Cash of Louisville Courier Journal, Dave Rivera of The Record. They join holdovers Erik Hall of Nashville DOT, Julie Jag of Santa Cruz Sentinel and Chris Thomas of Detroit Free Press.
Student Liaison (Malcolm Moran, Tim Stephens)
No report.
Website (Lisa Wilson) –
–The Diversity Fellows and Marietta Journal interns will do stories for the website this week
–The 2019 Digital contest will open July 1. Lisa and Gary are recruiting judges.
Writers (Joey Chandler) – NOT ABLE TO ATTEND
No report.
Old business:
–Proposal to create the APSE Foundation, a 501-c-3 organization, with primary purpose to promote diversity and education in sports journalism. In review, to create the foundation, there are three key things we need to do. We have to create a separate board of directors. We have to write governing bylaws, and we have to fill out the 1023 form for the IRS. Once the 1 023 is filed, it will take approximately two months to receive approval. The cost is $4000, but we can begin applying for funds as soon as the 1023 is filed.
Proposed bylaws have been posted to the website for review before an executive committee vote. Michael Anatasi has agreed to be the chairman and Don Shelton has agreed to be the executive director.
Jeff Rosen thanked John Bednarowski for his work along with Michael Peters and the Future Committee, who found the roadblocks that we couldn’t get through to make us realize this was the right thing to do.
Larry Graham asked if the membership should vote on the first board of directors? John said the specifics of this are in the bylaws, with voting moving forward and appointees to open. We have to start somewhere.
New business:
New Bylaw proposal:
RESOLVED, upon adoption of this resolution, the APSE bylaws shall be changed in the following manner:
Under 3. OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, after Section F, add the following section:
G. Any officer, region chair or committee chair who involuntarily loses their full-time job may ask the Executive Committee for permission to continue in their role for up to four months. A two-thirds majority of those voting shall decide the issue. The officer, region chair or committee chair in question will be ineligible to vote.
If said officer, region chair or committee chair is allowed to continue in their role by the Executive Committee, he or she may not work for an employer outside the scope of APSE membership under 2 (A) of these bylaws during the four-month period. If said officer, region chair or committee chair is not employed within the scope of APSE membership under 2 (A) of these bylaws by the end of the four-month period (said period to have started on the day the person became unemployed), that person’s position shall be considered vacant.
If the APSE president is the officer in question, the first vice president will assume the powers of the president for the purposes of conducting such a vote.
Re-letter the current Section G to become Section H.
Todd Adams spoke of this being his idea, since it’s happened to him twice. Larry asked if fourth months is enough time. Room came to consensus that sixth months is a better number.
This is for an involuntary job loss. We have procedures for firings.
Announcements
Mike Harris — Family created Stanke Memorial Scholarship they will donate to the University of Wisconsin.
Tommy — Annual Thai night is Sunday after the opening reception.
Phil: Craig Stanley 5K participants meet in the lobby at 7 a.m. Wednesday. We will use Centennial Park loop to do the run.
Still working on a location for the hoops tournament. Probably 1-3 on Wednesday afternoon. Stay tuned for more details
Signup sheets for committees and the workshops. Please sign up for both, they are outside in the registration area.
Introduce Marietta interns — Prince Robinson, Christian Knox, Henry Queen, Adia Randall and McClain Baxley. Encourage everyone to pick up a copy of today’s MDJ.
Our photographer for the week — Lanie Angel
Braves game. For anyone who hasn’t already gotten a ticket to Tuesday’s Braves game that wants one, the Terrapin Taproom promotion is sold out. You can still get tickets for the game in our sections (112). We have a few seats left on the bus/van.
Mike Sherman thanked everyone who put this convention together, it looks great. Online stuff is excellent.
Motion to adjourn
Tommy Deas motion
Mike Harris seconded
Meeting adjourned at 5:15 p.m.
Attendance:
Justin Pelletier, Boston Herald
Mike Harris, The Athletic
Chris Imperale, Scranton Times-Tribune
Dave Ammenhauser, USA Today Network
Rachel Crader, Lee Enterprises
Nicole Saavedra, USA Today Network
Tommy Deas, USA Today Network
Adam Hirschfield, The Athletic
Jorge Rojas, The Athletic
Robert Gagliardi, Laramie Boomerang/WyoSports
Gerry Ahern, Gambling.com
Michael Kates, Gambling.com
Josh Bean, AL.com
Chris Fickett, Kansas City Star
Rana Cash, The Courier Journal
Naila-Jean Meyers, New York Times
Tony Maluso, Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice
Donn Walden Toledo Blade
Mike Sherman, Tampa Bay Times
Bill Speros, USA Today Network
James Williams, SoCal News Group
Christopher Boan, Tucson Local Media
Oscar Dixon, Associated Press
Phil Kaplan, Knoxville News Sentinel
Larry Graham, The Blade
Jeff Rosen, Kansas City Star
Bill Bradley, Los Vegas Review-Journal
Frank Corsoe
Josh Barnett, The Buffalo News
Nick Talbot, San Antonio Express-News
Tyler Batiste, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Paul Barrett, Seattle Times
Alex Mena, Miami Herald
Chris Thomas, Detroit Free Press
Gary Potosky, Philadelphia Inquirer
Mark Faller, Arizona Republic
Jeff Patterson, The Oklahoman
Eric Jackson, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Henry Queen, Marietta Daily Journal
Adia Randall, Marietta Daily Journal
McClain Baxley, Marietta Daily Journal
Prince Robinson, Marietta Daily Journal
Christian Knox, Marietta Daily Journal
Matt Stephens, Denver Post
Alex Resnak, Cherokee Tribune
