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1802 Pinoak CourtKnoxville, Tennessee 37923
4 -- SPOT NEWS SPOT NEWS -- 3
ETSPJ Officers and Board of Directors
2 -- SPOT NEWS
Ed Hooper, presidentJean Ash, vice president for Front Page Follies,
communications coordinator, secretaryMia Rhodarmer, vice president for Golden Press
Card awards (co-chair)Dan Foley, treasurerDorothy Bowles, immediate past president, Spot
News editor, Golden Press Card awards co-chairElenora Edwards, program chairJohn Huotari, membership chairAdina Chumley
Christine JesselAnn LloydLisa Hood SkinnerRandy TedfordGeorgiana VinesLetters to the Editor Policy: The board encouragesletters to the editor of Spot News. Like letters policiesat most newspapers, we ask that letters be limited to200 words or less. Letters will be subject to editing forspace and content. Send e-mail [email protected]
Spot NewsA publication of the East Tennessee Chapter
of the Society of Professional Journalists
Vol. 13, No. 2 FEBRUARY 2007
Visit us on the web at www.discoverET.org/etspj
By Brent TolmanThe (Maryville) Daily Times StaffKnoxville — An informal state leg-
islative conversation Jan. 27 ran thegamut of increasing minimum wage toopen record laws to cigarette taxes toethics.
The discussion came at the Society ofProfessional Journalists lunch withlocal legislators.
In attendance were Sens. TimBurchett and Randy McNally alongwith Reps. Stacey Campfield, JoeArmstrong, Jim Hackworth, Bill Dunnand Doug Overbey.
According to Armstrong, Tennesseehas the 47th lowest cigarette tax in thenation.
“That’s probably one of the onlytaxes people agree on,” Armstrong said.
Burchett said one issue is removingthe tax from food and placing it on cig-arettes. As fewer people smoke, howev-er, the tax likely would have to return tofood.
“We are losing people that are smok-ing. It is a digressing tax,” Armstrongsaid.
McNally said that the tax fell moreheavily on the poorer sections of thepopulation. He also said the “inelastic”cigarette tax would have to be replacedwhen it could not pull in enough money.
When asked whether they wouldsupport increasing the minimum wage,Dunn and McNally both said theywould not support it. Campfield added
that it is against a freemarket.
“There are reper-cussions to raisingexpenses” for busi-nesses, Campfieldsaid.
Overbey said hevoted against raisingthe minimum wage,claiming it would putthe state at a competi-tive disadvantagewhen it attempts tobring in businesses.
“I think it’s a federal issue and not astate issue,” Overbey said.
Hackworth and Armstrong said theysupport raising the minimum wage.Hackworth noted that while very fewpeople actually make minimum wage,cost of living increases are necessary.
Legislators shared a general consen-sus of support about the question ofopen records laws.
McNally said that he would support acommittee consolidating the informa-tion that would be available in openrecords. Armstrong said that the rightsof some people to keep their informa-tion private, such as juveniles, should beprotected.
Burchett said that transparency is thehallmark of democracy, and he supportsthe laws.
Access to records is vital becausepeople make up the government,
Overbey said.“The government is the public busi-
ness,” he said.Another issue that came up at the
meeting was ethics legislation. Overbeysaid that people need to be vigilant andvote for legislators who don’t lie, cheator steal.
“Maybe passing the ethics legislationwas a catharsis,” Overbey said.
When asked about No Child LeftBehind, McNally said that money needsto be spent on programs that work ratherthan on forming programs based onwhat money is available.
Campfield said that No Child LeftBehind, a federal mandate, is not theproblem but rather highlights the prob-lems. He said that the No. 1 factor whenit comes to education is family structureand parents who are involved in theirchildren’s lives.
State reps air views on minimum wage, records law at meeting
SPJ President Ed Hooper moderates the discussionwith panelists Doug Overby, Joe Armstrong, JimHackworth, Randy McNally and Bill Dunn. TimBurchett arrived later. Also pictured is Dunn’s son.(photo by Elenora Edwards)
A part of the lunch crowd at Calhoun’s listens to comments from panelists (above left). Ron and Karen Bridgemanfrom Oak Ridge were among those who asked questions (right). (photos by Jean Ash and Elenora Edwards)..
The 2007 Front Page Follies will honor David Haley Lauver, veteranscriptwriter for the scholarship-fundraising roast of state and local newsmakers.
East Tennessee’s Society of Professional Journalists will present the 29th annu-al Follies dinner and show July 21 at the Knoxville Convention Center.
Lauver, a writer and consultant, served as executive communications managerfor the Tennessee Valley Authority and public relations director of the University
of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. He began his career as a reporter for the
Knoxville News Sentinel and worked as a pressaide and legislative assistant to U.S. SenatorHoward Baker.
“David applied his training as journalist to bean effective communicator for some ofTennessee’s best-known individuals and institu-tions,” said Georgiana Vines, a national SPJ pastpresident and retired associate editor of the NewsSentinel
“But as serious as he is about his work,” Vinessaid, “David’s sense of humor has made theFollies a topical entertainment tradition and a reli-able fundraiser for our scholarship program.”
A past president of East Tennessee’s SPJchapter and the Volunteer Chapter of the Public
Relations Society of America, Lauver has earned recognition from both groups andother regional and national communications associations. He has contributed toseveral volumes of local history and writing anthologies.
Lauver headed public information activities for SPJ’s First AmendmentCongress, held in conjunction with the 1982 World’s Fair. He also has chairedSPJ’s Golden Press Card awards and served as chapter news publications editor.
“Audiences have enjoyed the headline humor in more than 600 skits and songparodies David has written for the Follies,” said SPJ chapter president Ed Hooper.“He’s helped Follies provide financial aid to deserving students for nearly 30 years,and we’re pleased that this year’s scholarships will be named for him
Follies-funded scholarships are awarded to communications students at theUniversity of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Technical Community College.
While working at UT, Lauver served on the Tennessee Newspaper Hall ofFame committee, lectured in journalism and public relations classes, and led com-munications workshops for community service groups.
David Lauver selected Front Page Follies honoree
David Haley Lauver
Mark your calendarMarch 1: Covering stories with
Middle Eastern angles, 7 p.m.,Knox Room, News Sentinel
March 11-17: NationalSunshine Week.
March 30-31: Region 12Conference in Fayetteville, Ark.
May 4: Golden Press Cardawards dinner, 6 p.m.
July 21: Front Page Follies,Knoxville Convention Center
Oct. 4-7: National SPJConvention, Washington, D.C.
Golden Press Card Award entries jump 20 percent over last year
Stacks of contest entries are categorized and await processing and mailingto Cincinnati. (photo by Jean Ash)
For the fourth year in a row (atleast), the number of entries in the2006 Golden Press Card Awardscompetition has set a new record.Newspaper, television and radio sta-tion plus Web site entries total 247this year, up from 206 last year; 163the year before; and only 153 the
year before that. Records are notavailable for years prior to 2003.
The number of different hopefuljournalists who entered also rosedramatically, to 141 from 107 lastyear. Four fewer media outletsentered, however, 18 this year com-pared with 22 last year. Two free-
lance writers are represented butthere were no entries in theOrganizational Communicationscategory.
Our awards are being judged bythe Greater Cincinnati SPJ chapteron a reciprocal basis. That chapter’sentries will be received soon, so any-one who would like to help judgethem should please contact MiaRhodarmer at [email protected] orDorothy Bowles at [email protected] as soon as possible.
The Golden Press Card Awardsdinner will be Friday, May 4, at theUniversity Club. The featuredspeaker is Lucy Dalglish, executivedirector of the Reporters Committeefor Freedom of the Press, headquar-tered in Arlington, Va.
Palmira Brummett and RosalindGwynne, professors at the University ofTennessee, will present the next pro-gram for the East Tennessee Chapter ofthe Society of Professional Journalists.
Brummett, a professor of historywith specialties in Middle Eastern his-tory, and Gwynne, a professor of reli-gious studies who is the Islamicist andArabist at UT, both have extensive stud-ies on and experience in the MiddleEast.
They will discuss topics related tonews coverage of events in the MiddleEast and people of Middle Eastern ori-gin and offer suggestions on howreporters can be sure to discover andrelate the most important information ina given news situation.
John Huotari, membership chairmanof ETSPJ, will serve as moderator.Brummett and Gwynne will answerquestions after making presentations.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m.Thursday, March 1, in the Knox Roomof the News Sentinel Building on NewsSentinel Drive off Western Ave. inKnoxville.
For further information, contactElenora E. Edwards, program chair-man, (865) 457-5459 [email protected].
Dorothy Bowles, ETSPJ immediate past president,attended the Tennessee Coalition for Open Governmentboard meeting and the Tennessee Press Association com-mittees on Government Affairs and FOI in Nashville onFeb. 7. In this article she summarizes some of the itemsdiscussed during those meetings .
Knox County Commission’s seemingly blatant disregardof the open meetings law at its Jan. 31 appointment ofreplacement commissioners, and the News Sentinel’s need tofile a lawsuit to seek redress point up flaws in the current stateFOI and sunshine laws. The laws provide no real penalties forviolation and no enforcement mechanisms. Citizens are leftto enforce these particular statutes by assuming the financialburden of a court case.
Governor Bredesen has proposed establishing an ombuds-man’s office to advise citizens, public officials and govern-ment employees about the requirements of the laws and tomediate disputes. An open question at this stage is where suchan office would be housed, as conflicts of interest could ariseif it is placed in some particular state offices.
As usual at the TPA winter convention, committee mem-bers considered legislation introduced thus far during this leg-islative session. Only 17 proposals were tagged as havingspecial FOI relevance, most designed to create more exemp-tions to openness, but that number is expected to increasebefore Feb. 22, the deadline for submitting bills for this ses-
sion. As “caption bills” are common, with specific languagesupplied later, FOI watchdog groups need to be vigilantthroughout the session because that language that could come
at any time with brief notice before law-makers vote.
Another important consideration inwhether the open records or open meetingslaws are revised is whether a legislativestudy committee charged with examiningthe laws takes action.
In the middle of the heated ethicsdebates last session after the FBI’s“Tennessee Waltz” sting operation, legisla-tors dodged the issue of government trans-parency by agreeing to appoint a study
commission. Groups invited to participate — like TCOG, SPJ, the
League of Women Voters and Common Cause — all appoint-ed their representatives, but the legislative leadership madeno appointments until the end of the session when it was toolate for the group to accomplish anything.
Based on the organizational meeting that the legislativestudy committee had at the end of last session, it is clear thatrepresentatives of city and county governments are the chiefopponents of any revisions to clarify loopholes in the currentOpen Records Act or to tighten conditions under which pub-lic bodies can go into executive session.
March 1 program will featureMiddle East specialists from UTwith suggestions for journalists
To reserve Follies dinner seatsMail your check, payable to UT, toMegan V. Smith, 401-K StudentServices Bldg. UT, Knoxville, TN37996. Tickets are $100 each or$1,000 for a table for 10.
Coalition continues efforts to clarify, strengthen open government statutes in Tennessee
1802 Pinoak CourtKnoxville, Tennessee 37923
4 -- SPOT NEWS SPOT NEWS -- 3
ETSPJ Officers and Board of Directors
2 -- SPOT NEWS
Ed Hooper, presidentJean Ash, vice president for Front Page Follies,
communications coordinator, secretaryMia Rhodarmer, vice president for Golden Press
Card awards (co-chair)Dan Foley, treasurerDorothy Bowles, immediate past president, Spot
News editor, Golden Press Card awards co-chairElenora Edwards, program chairJohn Huotari, membership chairAdina Chumley
Christine JesselAnn LloydLisa Hood SkinnerRandy TedfordGeorgiana VinesLetters to the Editor Policy: The board encouragesletters to the editor of Spot News. Like letters policiesat most newspapers, we ask that letters be limited to200 words or less. Letters will be subject to editing forspace and content. Send e-mail [email protected]
Spot NewsA publication of the East Tennessee Chapter
of the Society of Professional Journalists
Vol. 13, No. 2 FEBRUARY 2007
Visit us on the web at www.discoverET.org/etspj
By Brent TolmanThe (Maryville) Daily Times StaffKnoxville — An informal state leg-
islative conversation Jan. 27 ran thegamut of increasing minimum wage toopen record laws to cigarette taxes toethics.
The discussion came at the Society ofProfessional Journalists lunch withlocal legislators.
In attendance were Sens. TimBurchett and Randy McNally alongwith Reps. Stacey Campfield, JoeArmstrong, Jim Hackworth, Bill Dunnand Doug Overbey.
According to Armstrong, Tennesseehas the 47th lowest cigarette tax in thenation.
“That’s probably one of the onlytaxes people agree on,” Armstrong said.
Burchett said one issue is removingthe tax from food and placing it on cig-arettes. As fewer people smoke, howev-er, the tax likely would have to return tofood.
“We are losing people that are smok-ing. It is a digressing tax,” Armstrongsaid.
McNally said that the tax fell moreheavily on the poorer sections of thepopulation. He also said the “inelastic”cigarette tax would have to be replacedwhen it could not pull in enough money.
When asked whether they wouldsupport increasing the minimum wage,Dunn and McNally both said theywould not support it. Campfield added
that it is against a freemarket.
“There are reper-cussions to raisingexpenses” for busi-nesses, Campfieldsaid.
Overbey said hevoted against raisingthe minimum wage,claiming it would putthe state at a competi-tive disadvantagewhen it attempts tobring in businesses.
“I think it’s a federal issue and not astate issue,” Overbey said.
Hackworth and Armstrong said theysupport raising the minimum wage.Hackworth noted that while very fewpeople actually make minimum wage,cost of living increases are necessary.
Legislators shared a general consen-sus of support about the question ofopen records laws.
McNally said that he would support acommittee consolidating the informa-tion that would be available in openrecords. Armstrong said that the rightsof some people to keep their informa-tion private, such as juveniles, should beprotected.
Burchett said that transparency is thehallmark of democracy, and he supportsthe laws.
Access to records is vital becausepeople make up the government,
Overbey said.“The government is the public busi-
ness,” he said.Another issue that came up at the
meeting was ethics legislation. Overbeysaid that people need to be vigilant andvote for legislators who don’t lie, cheator steal.
“Maybe passing the ethics legislationwas a catharsis,” Overbey said.
When asked about No Child LeftBehind, McNally said that money needsto be spent on programs that work ratherthan on forming programs based onwhat money is available.
Campfield said that No Child LeftBehind, a federal mandate, is not theproblem but rather highlights the prob-lems. He said that the No. 1 factor whenit comes to education is family structureand parents who are involved in theirchildren’s lives.
State reps air views on minimum wage, records law at meeting
SPJ President Ed Hooper moderates the discussionwith panelists Doug Overby, Joe Armstrong, JimHackworth, Randy McNally and Bill Dunn. TimBurchett arrived later. Also pictured is Dunn’s son.(photo by Elenora Edwards)
A part of the lunch crowd at Calhoun’s listens to comments from panelists (above left). Ron and Karen Bridgemanfrom Oak Ridge were among those who asked questions (right). (photos by Jean Ash and Elenora Edwards)..
The 2007 Front Page Follies will honor David Haley Lauver, veteranscriptwriter for the scholarship-fundraising roast of state and local newsmakers.
East Tennessee’s Society of Professional Journalists will present the 29th annu-al Follies dinner and show July 21 at the Knoxville Convention Center.
Lauver, a writer and consultant, served as executive communications managerfor the Tennessee Valley Authority and public relations director of the University
of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. He began his career as a reporter for the
Knoxville News Sentinel and worked as a pressaide and legislative assistant to U.S. SenatorHoward Baker.
“David applied his training as journalist to bean effective communicator for some ofTennessee’s best-known individuals and institu-tions,” said Georgiana Vines, a national SPJ pastpresident and retired associate editor of the NewsSentinel
“But as serious as he is about his work,” Vinessaid, “David’s sense of humor has made theFollies a topical entertainment tradition and a reli-able fundraiser for our scholarship program.”
A past president of East Tennessee’s SPJchapter and the Volunteer Chapter of the Public
Relations Society of America, Lauver has earned recognition from both groups andother regional and national communications associations. He has contributed toseveral volumes of local history and writing anthologies.
Lauver headed public information activities for SPJ’s First AmendmentCongress, held in conjunction with the 1982 World’s Fair. He also has chairedSPJ’s Golden Press Card awards and served as chapter news publications editor.
“Audiences have enjoyed the headline humor in more than 600 skits and songparodies David has written for the Follies,” said SPJ chapter president Ed Hooper.“He’s helped Follies provide financial aid to deserving students for nearly 30 years,and we’re pleased that this year’s scholarships will be named for him
Follies-funded scholarships are awarded to communications students at theUniversity of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Technical Community College.
While working at UT, Lauver served on the Tennessee Newspaper Hall ofFame committee, lectured in journalism and public relations classes, and led com-munications workshops for community service groups.
David Lauver selected Front Page Follies honoree
David Haley Lauver
Mark your calendarMarch 1: Covering stories with
Middle Eastern angles, 7 p.m.,Knox Room, News Sentinel
March 11-17: NationalSunshine Week.
March 30-31: Region 12Conference in Fayetteville, Ark.
May 4: Golden Press Cardawards dinner, 6 p.m.
July 21: Front Page Follies,Knoxville Convention Center
Oct. 4-7: National SPJConvention, Washington, D.C.
Golden Press Card Award entries jump 20 percent over last year
Stacks of contest entries are categorized and await processing and mailingto Cincinnati. (photo by Jean Ash)
For the fourth year in a row (atleast), the number of entries in the2006 Golden Press Card Awardscompetition has set a new record.Newspaper, television and radio sta-tion plus Web site entries total 247this year, up from 206 last year; 163the year before; and only 153 the
year before that. Records are notavailable for years prior to 2003.
The number of different hopefuljournalists who entered also rosedramatically, to 141 from 107 lastyear. Four fewer media outletsentered, however, 18 this year com-pared with 22 last year. Two free-
lance writers are represented butthere were no entries in theOrganizational Communicationscategory.
Our awards are being judged bythe Greater Cincinnati SPJ chapteron a reciprocal basis. That chapter’sentries will be received soon, so any-one who would like to help judgethem should please contact MiaRhodarmer at [email protected] orDorothy Bowles at [email protected] as soon as possible.
The Golden Press Card Awardsdinner will be Friday, May 4, at theUniversity Club. The featuredspeaker is Lucy Dalglish, executivedirector of the Reporters Committeefor Freedom of the Press, headquar-tered in Arlington, Va.
Palmira Brummett and RosalindGwynne, professors at the University ofTennessee, will present the next pro-gram for the East Tennessee Chapter ofthe Society of Professional Journalists.
Brummett, a professor of historywith specialties in Middle Eastern his-tory, and Gwynne, a professor of reli-gious studies who is the Islamicist andArabist at UT, both have extensive stud-ies on and experience in the MiddleEast.
They will discuss topics related tonews coverage of events in the MiddleEast and people of Middle Eastern ori-gin and offer suggestions on howreporters can be sure to discover andrelate the most important information ina given news situation.
John Huotari, membership chairmanof ETSPJ, will serve as moderator.Brummett and Gwynne will answerquestions after making presentations.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m.Thursday, March 1, in the Knox Roomof the News Sentinel Building on NewsSentinel Drive off Western Ave. inKnoxville.
For further information, contactElenora E. Edwards, program chair-man, (865) 457-5459 [email protected].
Dorothy Bowles, ETSPJ immediate past president,attended the Tennessee Coalition for Open Governmentboard meeting and the Tennessee Press Association com-mittees on Government Affairs and FOI in Nashville onFeb. 7. In this article she summarizes some of the itemsdiscussed during those meetings .
Knox County Commission’s seemingly blatant disregardof the open meetings law at its Jan. 31 appointment ofreplacement commissioners, and the News Sentinel’s need tofile a lawsuit to seek redress point up flaws in the current stateFOI and sunshine laws. The laws provide no real penalties forviolation and no enforcement mechanisms. Citizens are leftto enforce these particular statutes by assuming the financialburden of a court case.
Governor Bredesen has proposed establishing an ombuds-man’s office to advise citizens, public officials and govern-ment employees about the requirements of the laws and tomediate disputes. An open question at this stage is where suchan office would be housed, as conflicts of interest could ariseif it is placed in some particular state offices.
As usual at the TPA winter convention, committee mem-bers considered legislation introduced thus far during this leg-islative session. Only 17 proposals were tagged as havingspecial FOI relevance, most designed to create more exemp-tions to openness, but that number is expected to increasebefore Feb. 22, the deadline for submitting bills for this ses-
sion. As “caption bills” are common, with specific languagesupplied later, FOI watchdog groups need to be vigilantthroughout the session because that language that could come
at any time with brief notice before law-makers vote.
Another important consideration inwhether the open records or open meetingslaws are revised is whether a legislativestudy committee charged with examiningthe laws takes action.
In the middle of the heated ethicsdebates last session after the FBI’s“Tennessee Waltz” sting operation, legisla-tors dodged the issue of government trans-parency by agreeing to appoint a study
commission. Groups invited to participate — like TCOG, SPJ, the
League of Women Voters and Common Cause — all appoint-ed their representatives, but the legislative leadership madeno appointments until the end of the session when it was toolate for the group to accomplish anything.
Based on the organizational meeting that the legislativestudy committee had at the end of last session, it is clear thatrepresentatives of city and county governments are the chiefopponents of any revisions to clarify loopholes in the currentOpen Records Act or to tighten conditions under which pub-lic bodies can go into executive session.
March 1 program will featureMiddle East specialists from UTwith suggestions for journalists
To reserve Follies dinner seatsMail your check, payable to UT, toMegan V. Smith, 401-K StudentServices Bldg. UT, Knoxville, TN37996. Tickets are $100 each or$1,000 for a table for 10.
Coalition continues efforts to clarify, strengthen open government statutes in Tennessee
1802 Pinoak CourtKnoxville, Tennessee 37923
4 -- SPOT NEWS SPOT NEWS -- 3
ETSPJ Officers and Board of Directors
2 -- SPOT NEWS
Ed Hooper, presidentJean Ash, vice president for Front Page Follies,
communications coordinator, secretaryMia Rhodarmer, vice president for Golden Press
Card awards (co-chair)Dan Foley, treasurerDorothy Bowles, immediate past president, Spot
News editor, Golden Press Card awards co-chairElenora Edwards, program chairJohn Huotari, membership chairAdina Chumley
Christine JesselAnn LloydLisa Hood SkinnerRandy TedfordGeorgiana VinesLetters to the Editor Policy: The board encouragesletters to the editor of Spot News. Like letters policiesat most newspapers, we ask that letters be limited to200 words or less. Letters will be subject to editing forspace and content. Send e-mail [email protected]
Spot NewsA publication of the East Tennessee Chapter
of the Society of Professional Journalists
Vol. 13, No. 2 FEBRUARY 2007
Visit us on the web at www.discoverET.org/etspj
By Brent TolmanThe (Maryville) Daily Times StaffKnoxville — An informal state leg-
islative conversation Jan. 27 ran thegamut of increasing minimum wage toopen record laws to cigarette taxes toethics.
The discussion came at the Society ofProfessional Journalists lunch withlocal legislators.
In attendance were Sens. TimBurchett and Randy McNally alongwith Reps. Stacey Campfield, JoeArmstrong, Jim Hackworth, Bill Dunnand Doug Overbey.
According to Armstrong, Tennesseehas the 47th lowest cigarette tax in thenation.
“That’s probably one of the onlytaxes people agree on,” Armstrong said.
Burchett said one issue is removingthe tax from food and placing it on cig-arettes. As fewer people smoke, howev-er, the tax likely would have to return tofood.
“We are losing people that are smok-ing. It is a digressing tax,” Armstrongsaid.
McNally said that the tax fell moreheavily on the poorer sections of thepopulation. He also said the “inelastic”cigarette tax would have to be replacedwhen it could not pull in enough money.
When asked whether they wouldsupport increasing the minimum wage,Dunn and McNally both said theywould not support it. Campfield added
that it is against a freemarket.
“There are reper-cussions to raisingexpenses” for busi-nesses, Campfieldsaid.
Overbey said hevoted against raisingthe minimum wage,claiming it would putthe state at a competi-tive disadvantagewhen it attempts tobring in businesses.
“I think it’s a federal issue and not astate issue,” Overbey said.
Hackworth and Armstrong said theysupport raising the minimum wage.Hackworth noted that while very fewpeople actually make minimum wage,cost of living increases are necessary.
Legislators shared a general consen-sus of support about the question ofopen records laws.
McNally said that he would support acommittee consolidating the informa-tion that would be available in openrecords. Armstrong said that the rightsof some people to keep their informa-tion private, such as juveniles, should beprotected.
Burchett said that transparency is thehallmark of democracy, and he supportsthe laws.
Access to records is vital becausepeople make up the government,
Overbey said.“The government is the public busi-
ness,” he said.Another issue that came up at the
meeting was ethics legislation. Overbeysaid that people need to be vigilant andvote for legislators who don’t lie, cheator steal.
“Maybe passing the ethics legislationwas a catharsis,” Overbey said.
When asked about No Child LeftBehind, McNally said that money needsto be spent on programs that work ratherthan on forming programs based onwhat money is available.
Campfield said that No Child LeftBehind, a federal mandate, is not theproblem but rather highlights the prob-lems. He said that the No. 1 factor whenit comes to education is family structureand parents who are involved in theirchildren’s lives.
State reps air views on minimum wage, records law at meeting
SPJ President Ed Hooper moderates the discussionwith panelists Doug Overby, Joe Armstrong, JimHackworth, Randy McNally and Bill Dunn. TimBurchett arrived later. Also pictured is Dunn’s son.(photo by Elenora Edwards)
A part of the lunch crowd at Calhoun’s listens to comments from panelists (above left). Ron and Karen Bridgemanfrom Oak Ridge were among those who asked questions (right). (photos by Jean Ash and Elenora Edwards)..
The 2007 Front Page Follies will honor David Haley Lauver, veteranscriptwriter for the scholarship-fundraising roast of state and local newsmakers.
East Tennessee’s Society of Professional Journalists will present the 29th annu-al Follies dinner and show July 21 at the Knoxville Convention Center.
Lauver, a writer and consultant, served as executive communications managerfor the Tennessee Valley Authority and public relations director of the University
of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. He began his career as a reporter for the
Knoxville News Sentinel and worked as a pressaide and legislative assistant to U.S. SenatorHoward Baker.
“David applied his training as journalist to bean effective communicator for some ofTennessee’s best-known individuals and institu-tions,” said Georgiana Vines, a national SPJ pastpresident and retired associate editor of the NewsSentinel
“But as serious as he is about his work,” Vinessaid, “David’s sense of humor has made theFollies a topical entertainment tradition and a reli-able fundraiser for our scholarship program.”
A past president of East Tennessee’s SPJchapter and the Volunteer Chapter of the Public
Relations Society of America, Lauver has earned recognition from both groups andother regional and national communications associations. He has contributed toseveral volumes of local history and writing anthologies.
Lauver headed public information activities for SPJ’s First AmendmentCongress, held in conjunction with the 1982 World’s Fair. He also has chairedSPJ’s Golden Press Card awards and served as chapter news publications editor.
“Audiences have enjoyed the headline humor in more than 600 skits and songparodies David has written for the Follies,” said SPJ chapter president Ed Hooper.“He’s helped Follies provide financial aid to deserving students for nearly 30 years,and we’re pleased that this year’s scholarships will be named for him
Follies-funded scholarships are awarded to communications students at theUniversity of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Technical Community College.
While working at UT, Lauver served on the Tennessee Newspaper Hall ofFame committee, lectured in journalism and public relations classes, and led com-munications workshops for community service groups.
David Lauver selected Front Page Follies honoree
David Haley Lauver
Mark your calendarMarch 1: Covering stories with
Middle Eastern angles, 7 p.m.,Knox Room, News Sentinel
March 11-17: NationalSunshine Week.
March 30-31: Region 12Conference in Fayetteville, Ark.
May 4: Golden Press Cardawards dinner, 6 p.m.
July 21: Front Page Follies,Knoxville Convention Center
Oct. 4-7: National SPJConvention, Washington, D.C.
Golden Press Card Award entries jump 20 percent over last year
Stacks of contest entries are categorized and await processing and mailingto Cincinnati. (photo by Jean Ash)
For the fourth year in a row (atleast), the number of entries in the2006 Golden Press Card Awardscompetition has set a new record.Newspaper, television and radio sta-tion plus Web site entries total 247this year, up from 206 last year; 163the year before; and only 153 the
year before that. Records are notavailable for years prior to 2003.
The number of different hopefuljournalists who entered also rosedramatically, to 141 from 107 lastyear. Four fewer media outletsentered, however, 18 this year com-pared with 22 last year. Two free-
lance writers are represented butthere were no entries in theOrganizational Communicationscategory.
Our awards are being judged bythe Greater Cincinnati SPJ chapteron a reciprocal basis. That chapter’sentries will be received soon, so any-one who would like to help judgethem should please contact MiaRhodarmer at [email protected] orDorothy Bowles at [email protected] as soon as possible.
The Golden Press Card Awardsdinner will be Friday, May 4, at theUniversity Club. The featuredspeaker is Lucy Dalglish, executivedirector of the Reporters Committeefor Freedom of the Press, headquar-tered in Arlington, Va.
Palmira Brummett and RosalindGwynne, professors at the University ofTennessee, will present the next pro-gram for the East Tennessee Chapter ofthe Society of Professional Journalists.
Brummett, a professor of historywith specialties in Middle Eastern his-tory, and Gwynne, a professor of reli-gious studies who is the Islamicist andArabist at UT, both have extensive stud-ies on and experience in the MiddleEast.
They will discuss topics related tonews coverage of events in the MiddleEast and people of Middle Eastern ori-gin and offer suggestions on howreporters can be sure to discover andrelate the most important information ina given news situation.
John Huotari, membership chairmanof ETSPJ, will serve as moderator.Brummett and Gwynne will answerquestions after making presentations.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m.Thursday, March 1, in the Knox Roomof the News Sentinel Building on NewsSentinel Drive off Western Ave. inKnoxville.
For further information, contactElenora E. Edwards, program chair-man, (865) 457-5459 [email protected].
Dorothy Bowles, ETSPJ immediate past president,attended the Tennessee Coalition for Open Governmentboard meeting and the Tennessee Press Association com-mittees on Government Affairs and FOI in Nashville onFeb. 7. In this article she summarizes some of the itemsdiscussed during those meetings .
Knox County Commission’s seemingly blatant disregardof the open meetings law at its Jan. 31 appointment ofreplacement commissioners, and the News Sentinel’s need tofile a lawsuit to seek redress point up flaws in the current stateFOI and sunshine laws. The laws provide no real penalties forviolation and no enforcement mechanisms. Citizens are leftto enforce these particular statutes by assuming the financialburden of a court case.
Governor Bredesen has proposed establishing an ombuds-man’s office to advise citizens, public officials and govern-ment employees about the requirements of the laws and tomediate disputes. An open question at this stage is where suchan office would be housed, as conflicts of interest could ariseif it is placed in some particular state offices.
As usual at the TPA winter convention, committee mem-bers considered legislation introduced thus far during this leg-islative session. Only 17 proposals were tagged as havingspecial FOI relevance, most designed to create more exemp-tions to openness, but that number is expected to increasebefore Feb. 22, the deadline for submitting bills for this ses-
sion. As “caption bills” are common, with specific languagesupplied later, FOI watchdog groups need to be vigilantthroughout the session because that language that could come
at any time with brief notice before law-makers vote.
Another important consideration inwhether the open records or open meetingslaws are revised is whether a legislativestudy committee charged with examiningthe laws takes action.
In the middle of the heated ethicsdebates last session after the FBI’s“Tennessee Waltz” sting operation, legisla-tors dodged the issue of government trans-parency by agreeing to appoint a study
commission. Groups invited to participate — like TCOG, SPJ, the
League of Women Voters and Common Cause — all appoint-ed their representatives, but the legislative leadership madeno appointments until the end of the session when it was toolate for the group to accomplish anything.
Based on the organizational meeting that the legislativestudy committee had at the end of last session, it is clear thatrepresentatives of city and county governments are the chiefopponents of any revisions to clarify loopholes in the currentOpen Records Act or to tighten conditions under which pub-lic bodies can go into executive session.
March 1 program will featureMiddle East specialists from UTwith suggestions for journalists
To reserve Follies dinner seatsMail your check, payable to UT, toMegan V. Smith, 401-K StudentServices Bldg. UT, Knoxville, TN37996. Tickets are $100 each or$1,000 for a table for 10.
Coalition continues efforts to clarify, strengthen open government statutes in Tennessee
1802 Pinoak CourtKnoxville, Tennessee 37923
4 -- SPOT NEWS SPOT NEWS -- 3
ETSPJ Officers and Board of Directors
2 -- SPOT NEWS
Ed Hooper, presidentJean Ash, vice president for Front Page Follies,
communications coordinator, secretaryMia Rhodarmer, vice president for Golden Press
Card awards (co-chair)Dan Foley, treasurerDorothy Bowles, immediate past president, Spot
News editor, Golden Press Card awards co-chairElenora Edwards, program chairJohn Huotari, membership chairAdina Chumley
Christine JesselAnn LloydLisa Hood SkinnerRandy TedfordGeorgiana VinesLetters to the Editor Policy: The board encouragesletters to the editor of Spot News. Like letters policiesat most newspapers, we ask that letters be limited to200 words or less. Letters will be subject to editing forspace and content. Send e-mail [email protected]
Spot NewsA publication of the East Tennessee Chapter
of the Society of Professional Journalists
Vol. 13, No. 2 FEBRUARY 2007
Visit us on the web at www.discoverET.org/etspj
By Brent TolmanThe (Maryville) Daily Times StaffKnoxville — An informal state leg-
islative conversation Jan. 27 ran thegamut of increasing minimum wage toopen record laws to cigarette taxes toethics.
The discussion came at the Society ofProfessional Journalists lunch withlocal legislators.
In attendance were Sens. TimBurchett and Randy McNally alongwith Reps. Stacey Campfield, JoeArmstrong, Jim Hackworth, Bill Dunnand Doug Overbey.
According to Armstrong, Tennesseehas the 47th lowest cigarette tax in thenation.
“That’s probably one of the onlytaxes people agree on,” Armstrong said.
Burchett said one issue is removingthe tax from food and placing it on cig-arettes. As fewer people smoke, howev-er, the tax likely would have to return tofood.
“We are losing people that are smok-ing. It is a digressing tax,” Armstrongsaid.
McNally said that the tax fell moreheavily on the poorer sections of thepopulation. He also said the “inelastic”cigarette tax would have to be replacedwhen it could not pull in enough money.
When asked whether they wouldsupport increasing the minimum wage,Dunn and McNally both said theywould not support it. Campfield added
that it is against a freemarket.
“There are reper-cussions to raisingexpenses” for busi-nesses, Campfieldsaid.
Overbey said hevoted against raisingthe minimum wage,claiming it would putthe state at a competi-tive disadvantagewhen it attempts tobring in businesses.
“I think it’s a federal issue and not astate issue,” Overbey said.
Hackworth and Armstrong said theysupport raising the minimum wage.Hackworth noted that while very fewpeople actually make minimum wage,cost of living increases are necessary.
Legislators shared a general consen-sus of support about the question ofopen records laws.
McNally said that he would support acommittee consolidating the informa-tion that would be available in openrecords. Armstrong said that the rightsof some people to keep their informa-tion private, such as juveniles, should beprotected.
Burchett said that transparency is thehallmark of democracy, and he supportsthe laws.
Access to records is vital becausepeople make up the government,
Overbey said.“The government is the public busi-
ness,” he said.Another issue that came up at the
meeting was ethics legislation. Overbeysaid that people need to be vigilant andvote for legislators who don’t lie, cheator steal.
“Maybe passing the ethics legislationwas a catharsis,” Overbey said.
When asked about No Child LeftBehind, McNally said that money needsto be spent on programs that work ratherthan on forming programs based onwhat money is available.
Campfield said that No Child LeftBehind, a federal mandate, is not theproblem but rather highlights the prob-lems. He said that the No. 1 factor whenit comes to education is family structureand parents who are involved in theirchildren’s lives.
State reps air views on minimum wage, records law at meeting
SPJ President Ed Hooper moderates the discussionwith panelists Doug Overby, Joe Armstrong, JimHackworth, Randy McNally and Bill Dunn. TimBurchett arrived later. Also pictured is Dunn’s son.(photo by Elenora Edwards)
A part of the lunch crowd at Calhoun’s listens to comments from panelists (above left). Ron and Karen Bridgemanfrom Oak Ridge were among those who asked questions (right). (photos by Jean Ash and Elenora Edwards)..
The 2007 Front Page Follies will honor David Haley Lauver, veteranscriptwriter for the scholarship-fundraising roast of state and local newsmakers.
East Tennessee’s Society of Professional Journalists will present the 29th annu-al Follies dinner and show July 21 at the Knoxville Convention Center.
Lauver, a writer and consultant, served as executive communications managerfor the Tennessee Valley Authority and public relations director of the University
of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. He began his career as a reporter for the
Knoxville News Sentinel and worked as a pressaide and legislative assistant to U.S. SenatorHoward Baker.
“David applied his training as journalist to bean effective communicator for some ofTennessee’s best-known individuals and institu-tions,” said Georgiana Vines, a national SPJ pastpresident and retired associate editor of the NewsSentinel
“But as serious as he is about his work,” Vinessaid, “David’s sense of humor has made theFollies a topical entertainment tradition and a reli-able fundraiser for our scholarship program.”
A past president of East Tennessee’s SPJchapter and the Volunteer Chapter of the Public
Relations Society of America, Lauver has earned recognition from both groups andother regional and national communications associations. He has contributed toseveral volumes of local history and writing anthologies.
Lauver headed public information activities for SPJ’s First AmendmentCongress, held in conjunction with the 1982 World’s Fair. He also has chairedSPJ’s Golden Press Card awards and served as chapter news publications editor.
“Audiences have enjoyed the headline humor in more than 600 skits and songparodies David has written for the Follies,” said SPJ chapter president Ed Hooper.“He’s helped Follies provide financial aid to deserving students for nearly 30 years,and we’re pleased that this year’s scholarships will be named for him
Follies-funded scholarships are awarded to communications students at theUniversity of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Technical Community College.
While working at UT, Lauver served on the Tennessee Newspaper Hall ofFame committee, lectured in journalism and public relations classes, and led com-munications workshops for community service groups.
David Lauver selected Front Page Follies honoree
David Haley Lauver
Mark your calendarMarch 1: Covering stories with
Middle Eastern angles, 7 p.m.,Knox Room, News Sentinel
March 11-17: NationalSunshine Week.
March 30-31: Region 12Conference in Fayetteville, Ark.
May 4: Golden Press Cardawards dinner, 6 p.m.
July 21: Front Page Follies,Knoxville Convention Center
Oct. 4-7: National SPJConvention, Washington, D.C.
Golden Press Card Award entries jump 20 percent over last year
Stacks of contest entries are categorized and await processing and mailingto Cincinnati. (photo by Jean Ash)
For the fourth year in a row (atleast), the number of entries in the2006 Golden Press Card Awardscompetition has set a new record.Newspaper, television and radio sta-tion plus Web site entries total 247this year, up from 206 last year; 163the year before; and only 153 the
year before that. Records are notavailable for years prior to 2003.
The number of different hopefuljournalists who entered also rosedramatically, to 141 from 107 lastyear. Four fewer media outletsentered, however, 18 this year com-pared with 22 last year. Two free-
lance writers are represented butthere were no entries in theOrganizational Communicationscategory.
Our awards are being judged bythe Greater Cincinnati SPJ chapteron a reciprocal basis. That chapter’sentries will be received soon, so any-one who would like to help judgethem should please contact MiaRhodarmer at [email protected] orDorothy Bowles at [email protected] as soon as possible.
The Golden Press Card Awardsdinner will be Friday, May 4, at theUniversity Club. The featuredspeaker is Lucy Dalglish, executivedirector of the Reporters Committeefor Freedom of the Press, headquar-tered in Arlington, Va.
Palmira Brummett and RosalindGwynne, professors at the University ofTennessee, will present the next pro-gram for the East Tennessee Chapter ofthe Society of Professional Journalists.
Brummett, a professor of historywith specialties in Middle Eastern his-tory, and Gwynne, a professor of reli-gious studies who is the Islamicist andArabist at UT, both have extensive stud-ies on and experience in the MiddleEast.
They will discuss topics related tonews coverage of events in the MiddleEast and people of Middle Eastern ori-gin and offer suggestions on howreporters can be sure to discover andrelate the most important information ina given news situation.
John Huotari, membership chairmanof ETSPJ, will serve as moderator.Brummett and Gwynne will answerquestions after making presentations.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m.Thursday, March 1, in the Knox Roomof the News Sentinel Building on NewsSentinel Drive off Western Ave. inKnoxville.
For further information, contactElenora E. Edwards, program chair-man, (865) 457-5459 [email protected].
Dorothy Bowles, ETSPJ immediate past president,attended the Tennessee Coalition for Open Governmentboard meeting and the Tennessee Press Association com-mittees on Government Affairs and FOI in Nashville onFeb. 7. In this article she summarizes some of the itemsdiscussed during those meetings .
Knox County Commission’s seemingly blatant disregardof the open meetings law at its Jan. 31 appointment ofreplacement commissioners, and the News Sentinel’s need tofile a lawsuit to seek redress point up flaws in the current stateFOI and sunshine laws. The laws provide no real penalties forviolation and no enforcement mechanisms. Citizens are leftto enforce these particular statutes by assuming the financialburden of a court case.
Governor Bredesen has proposed establishing an ombuds-man’s office to advise citizens, public officials and govern-ment employees about the requirements of the laws and tomediate disputes. An open question at this stage is where suchan office would be housed, as conflicts of interest could ariseif it is placed in some particular state offices.
As usual at the TPA winter convention, committee mem-bers considered legislation introduced thus far during this leg-islative session. Only 17 proposals were tagged as havingspecial FOI relevance, most designed to create more exemp-tions to openness, but that number is expected to increasebefore Feb. 22, the deadline for submitting bills for this ses-
sion. As “caption bills” are common, with specific languagesupplied later, FOI watchdog groups need to be vigilantthroughout the session because that language that could come
at any time with brief notice before law-makers vote.
Another important consideration inwhether the open records or open meetingslaws are revised is whether a legislativestudy committee charged with examiningthe laws takes action.
In the middle of the heated ethicsdebates last session after the FBI’s“Tennessee Waltz” sting operation, legisla-tors dodged the issue of government trans-parency by agreeing to appoint a study
commission. Groups invited to participate — like TCOG, SPJ, the
League of Women Voters and Common Cause — all appoint-ed their representatives, but the legislative leadership madeno appointments until the end of the session when it was toolate for the group to accomplish anything.
Based on the organizational meeting that the legislativestudy committee had at the end of last session, it is clear thatrepresentatives of city and county governments are the chiefopponents of any revisions to clarify loopholes in the currentOpen Records Act or to tighten conditions under which pub-lic bodies can go into executive session.
March 1 program will featureMiddle East specialists from UTwith suggestions for journalists
To reserve Follies dinner seatsMail your check, payable to UT, toMegan V. Smith, 401-K StudentServices Bldg. UT, Knoxville, TN37996. Tickets are $100 each or$1,000 for a table for 10.
Coalition continues efforts to clarify, strengthen open government statutes in Tennessee
