Fwd: SCJ Business
Martha Collins
Hi all. Please try to find time to review this before our meeting tomorrow if possible. I am in favor of our national org signing on with this. As a chapter you mat endorse as well.
Good stuff!
Potential for some good stories the last week of spring semester and/or the first summer issue.
Martha Collins
Administrative Assistant
Adviser, Society for Collegiate Journalists, NCSU Chapter
NCSU Student Media Authority
Campus Box 7318
321 Witherspoon Student Center
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7318
(919) 515-1685 office
(919) 513-2030 fax
martha_...@ncsu.edu
<http://www.ncsu.edu/sma>
>>> Mary Beth Earnheardt <mearn...@ysu.edu> 3/24/2011 11:33 AM >>>
Hi all,
Sally Renaud, one of our chapter advisers and CMA President, sent me this message. I think it’s right up our alley, but wanted to get your feedback before we sign on.
Hope all is well.
MB
From:
Sally Renaud [mailto:sere...@eiu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 10:39 AM
To: Mary Beth Earnheardt
Subject: Fwd: [council] World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2011
Is this something that the national SCJ can endorse?
Sally
Begin forwarded message:
Date:
March 23, 2011 11:35:00 AM CDT
Subject:
[council] World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2011
First, let me apologize for the duplication, as some of your organizations have already received a version of this message from us. For those who have not, we appreciate this opportunity to briefly ask for your support on an important matter.
World Press Freedom Day, a project of UNESCO, will be celebrated on U.S. soil for the first time on May 3, 2011. World Press Freedom Day shines a light on the importance of a free press to the health of democratic society, and we at the Student Press Law Center want to harness this spotlight to highlight where the press freedoms in our own country are deficient. The censorship issues plaguing student journalists truly are appalling – on Thursday, the SPLC and the ACLU will have a joint news conference in Denver regarding a Colorado high school principal’s decision to fire the journalism adviser and shut down the newspaper in mid-semester because the student editors insisted on truthfully reporting about the death of a high school athlete after a wrestling meet, an event that the school was attempting to cover up. The SPLC takes many hundreds of calls like this each year, and the toll on student welfare and on journalism education is incalculable.
We are asking journalism and free-speech groups to sign the attached open letter to President Obama and to Secretary Clinton, whose agency is directly involved in World Press Freedom Day. We hope to generate financial support to place the letter as an advertisement in a national newspaper in advance of the May 3 commemoration.
Those participating in World Press Freedom Day issue a declaration of principles at the conclusion of each year's events, and we very much want a strong declaration of student speech rights to be an element of the Washington Declaration.
We hope that your organizations will lend their powerful and credible voices to this important message. We are entirely open to entertaining edits to the draft, but we want to have commitments from all signers by March 30 (a week from today) if at all possible.
Thanks for your consideration, and of course please contact me personally should you have any questions or wish to contribute to the purchase of advertising space to give the letter the best possible visibility.
Many thanks,
Frank D. LoMonte, Esq.
Executive Director
Student Press Law Center
1101 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1100
Arlington, VA 22209-2211
703-807-1904, ext. 121 phone
703-807-2109 fax
dire...@splc.org
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