SPJ Madison, Next Door Brewing collaborate on American wheat beer to honor the First Amendment, open government and Wisconsin journalism

MADISON – The Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and Next Door Brewing invite journalists and advocates of open government to celebrate Sunshine Week with the tapping of Sunshine Wheat, an American wheat beer featuring local hops and malts, on Monday, March 16.

The celebration takes place from 6-9 p.m. at Next Door Brewing, 2439 Atwood Avenue, Madison. The first 50 attendees will receive a souvenir beer glass thanks to the generous lead sponsorship of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. WKOW-TV, the Wisconsin State Journal, Schott, Bublitz and Engel, and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism are supporting sponsors. Two tickets to upcoming Isthmus events – Isthmus Food Cart Fest, Paddle & Portage, Beer & Cheese Fest — will be awarded in a drawing, courtesy of Isthmus. With Gusto is making a poster for the event, prints of which will be available for $15 each.

Next Door head brewer Bryan Kreiter will speak about creating the beer and his use of local ingredients at 7 p.m. He will be followed with remarks by WNA executive director Beth Bennett about Sunshine Week.

Invited special guests include Wisconsin food and beer writers Chris “Beer Baron” Drosner, Robin Shepard, Laurel White, Linda Falkenstein, Barry Adams, Kathy Flanigan and George Zens.

March 16 is the 264^th anniversary of the birth of James Madison, father of the First Amendment and the man for whom the City of Madison is named. Sunshine Week, a national event in support of open government, runs March 15-21.

The event is free, and all area journalists are welcome to attend. There will be a cash bar; appetizers will be provided. RSVPs are appreciated to [email protected].

Based in Indianapolis, SPJ is a national membership organization that promotes high professional and ethical standards among journalists, First Amendment principles and the belief that a free and vigorous press is vital in a representative democracy. The Madison professional chapter was formed around 1990. Membership costs $75 annually, and it is open to journalists who spend at least half of their professional life writing or editing work for publication.

Contact: Mark Pitsch, [email protected]; 608-252-6145

Panelists: Tim Kelley, Jacki Witkowski, Kristian Knutsen and Dietram Scheufele.

More than 30 local journalists and members of the public gathered on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013 for a panel discussion hosted by the Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, “Trollish Behavior and the Future of Online Comments.”

Panelists included:

• Dietram Scheufele, the John E. Ross Professor in Science Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Honorary Professor of Communication at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany. His research examines the role of social media and other emerging modes of communication in our society.
• Tim Kelley, digital media manager at Madison.com
• Jacki Witkowski, internet director at WKOW-TV
• Kristian Knutsen, web editor with Isthmus and thedailypage.com

Listen to audio of the panel discussion here:

Their Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series “Police Problems: A Fight for Accountability” will be honored Aug. 26 at the SPJ-RTDNA-NAHJ Excellence in Journalism conference.

The award comes with a $10,000 prize. It is presented by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, SPJ’s educational foundation, in support of a person or organization that fights for the First Amendment.

Barton and Diedrich remain with the Journal Sentinel, while Poston now works for the Los Angeles Times.

Award winners were announced April 23.

The Madison pro chapter congratulates Hands.

Join the Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists on Feb. 21 for socializing, networking, cocktails and Plazaburgers.

MADISON – The Madison Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has organized a happy hour networking event, “Madison SPJ’s Under 35 After 5 Meetup,” to bring together young journalists from local TV stations, newspapers, magazines, news services, web sites and other media. The event will be held at the Plaza, 319 North Henry Street in Madison off State Street, Feb. 21, and will begin at 5:30 p.m. SPJ will purchase a selection of appetizers and snacks. Thursday specials are as follows: $2.00 Long Islands and $2.50 Spaten and Red Hook Pints.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mark Pitsch, president, Madison pro chapter, Society of Professional Journalists; 608-252-6145

In response to news reports that Rep. Garey Bies is introducing a bill that would require requestors to pay fees for blacking out information in public records, the Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists issued the following statement:

“Amending the state’s records law to let public agencies charge fees to black out certain information amounts to a tax on public information. Maintaining, reviewing and redacting records is a government function for which tax dollars are already allocated. Passage of Rep. Bies’ proposal will discourage the public from seeking records and limit government transparency.”

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SPJ Forum on putting Wisconsin back together

Gov. Scott Walker made history by easily surviving a recall election, but the stalemate in Wisconsin will continue as Democrats claim control of the Senate – at least until the next election.

Wisconsin has been as polarized as ever in the last 15 months in the wake of momentous changes to public worker collective bargaining engineered by Walker and his Republican legislative colleagues. Now, both Walker and his Democratic opponents pledge cooperation. But how?

The Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists explored whether and how the state can repair its fractious political and social life with a panel discussion featuring former Gov. Tony Earl, a Democrat; former U.S. Rep. Scott Klug, a Republican; and UW-Madison political science professor Katherine Cramer Walsh, who has researched the political, social and cultural lives of Wisconsin residents.

The session was held Thursday, June 21, in the On Wisconsin Room of UW-Madison’s Red Gym, 716 Langdon St. It was free and open to members of the public, who had an opportunity to comment on what’s next for Wisconsin and to ask panelists questions.

Governor Earl said, “I don’t know how we’ll ever put the genie back in the bottle. We can’t go back (to politics the way it used to be) but there are some things we can do.”

Congressman Klug said, “Wisconsin is not an aberration. Wisconsin is what’s wrong with politics everywhere.”

Professor Walsh said, “The greatest potential for healing is for people to be willing to listen to people on the other side of the issue and recognize the legitimacy of their views.”

You can listen or download the forum audio at: https://yourlisten.com.

View the session on Wisconsin Eye here.

A column by Katherine Cramer Walsh

Read the coverage by Isthmus here.

The panel — George Stanley, managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; John Smalley, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal; Bill Lueders, Money and Politics project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and Kathleen Culver, professor at the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications — discussed whether journalists should be able to sign gubernatorial recall petitions and other ethical issues surrounding the recall of Gov. Scott Walker. The panel was sponsored by the Madison pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

To access the audio and video, go here.

The awards, by the Society of Professional Journalists, honor excellence in print, television, radio and online journalism. More than 1,700 entries were reviewed.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was honored for investigative reporting among newspapers with a circulation of greater than 100,001.

For more information, and a list of all winners, go here.

Other top small pro chapters are St. Louis pro and Utah pro, which earned highest honors this year for battling restrictions on their state’s open records law.

The Madison pro chapter this year has increased membership, held training sessions and raised money for journalists affected by the Joplin, Mo., earthquake.