Alaska Press Club Conference - Quick Look Friday

 

The Alaska Press Club conference was this week in Anchorage. I've been attending at least since 2011..  As a blogger, I wanted to see what 'real' journalists were thinking and doing.  All the conferences have been well worth my time.  

I gave up trying to capture everything, even everything in just one session.  There just wasn't time between session to write things up.  Besides, it's an opportunity to meet different people.  

I'm just going to give you a sense of what some of the people were doing at the conference.  There were evening events which I didn't attend.  

Katie Eastman

Her panel was:  Human Connection:  Documenting Real Life Makes Our Stories Stronger

Katie is the "Manager of Storytelling" at a Tulsa television station KOTV.  She offered a basic framework for how she 'gets access' to the people in her stories and then shared examples of stories she's done and how the framework applied.

Access was key for her.

EMOTION    Universal Experience   Focus  What is that universal thing that can connect people?

VIDEO          Natural sound               Understanding   See who you are in your own space,

Find a space that is more universal. In the first example she was in a high school gym, which is a pretty universal experience.  

The photo to the right illustrates a problem that in the room we were in - you can't light the speaker without also lighting the screen.  In this case the screen is lit and the speaker isn't.  

Katie Orlinsky Ethics and Access for Visual Journalists The second Katie spoke about her career as a photographer with examples from Mexico (homeless migrants, some prisoners), Mali, and then Alaska - Iditarod, caribou, permafrost, and some village life.  

As I look back to the title, she did talk about being sensitive about how you think about and treat the people you photograph.  In one example she'd asked two young women if she could photograph them and they said no.  She offered them the chance to change clothes and put on make up and they agreed.  

In the picture, you can see one of her National Geographic covers.  

B.A. Parker  How to Approach First Amendment Issues with Vulnerable Communities.

If you listen to NPR at all, you know B.A. Parker as the voice of Code Switch.  This was probably the session I got most out of.  There were various examples with  nicely laid out slides that included audio clips.  This one looked at the behind the scenes debates at NPR about the use of the word 

"Racism"by the journalists.  The fight was over being able to use the word or just giving examples of behaviors and actions and letting the listener draw their own conclusions.  My sense was that this was where the Trump administration was winning and the NPR position was anticipatory compliance.  This was an example of Michele Obama's 'we take the high road' that just 

Students

There was a student showcase over lunch.  Nathan Pobieglo did a presentation of a video story he did on a loon cam.  

Murat Demir, below,  a reporter for the UAA Northern Lights newspaper, discussed his use of the Public Records Act to get information on why a taxidermy exhibit in the Consortium Library was removed - it turned out there were serious contamination issues.  

Alaska Federation of Natives, President, Co-Vice Chair, and Attorney panel of Subsistance

It seemed that if this many AFN heavy weights were going to be at the Press Club Conference, I ought to go.  It was, in their words, an abbreviated version of a much longer presentation, and we would be glad we got the short version.  

I understood their basic concern was that Subsistence Fishing was being much more regulated than other categories of fishing even though it only represented about 1% of all fish caught.  

Then they went into the many conflicts between Federal and State rules and laws as including different official definitions of subsistence and a Supreme Court case that gives all rural residents, not just Natives, but denies those rights to Natives living close to Anchorage.

For those who want to know more about this issue, there's a video on the AFN site.

A few of the people I met.   Kaitlin Armstrong who's the host and executive producer of the Alaska Myths podcast.  

Jamie Diep is Education Reporter at KTOO in Juneau and Mari Kanagy works for the Anchorage Daily News in Juneau.  

And Steve Suo is from Pro Publica.  He was up from Oregon, but Alaska is part of his territory.  

I also met Lina Mariscal of Alaska's Spanish language paper and learned more about this bi-lingual journal.  I'd put up a picture, but it really didn't turn out well and I didn't catch her a second time.  But check out Sol de Medianoche.