Chicago Headline Club
Board of Directors meeting
Fri. Jan. 13, 2012 at Bloomberg
President Stephen Franklin called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m. at Bloomberg News. Present: Steve, Odette Yousef, Brian Pitts, Suzanne McBride, Aimee DeBat and Susan Stevens. By phone: Howard Dubin, Rob Elder, Kristen Schorsch, Randi Belisomo, Beth Konrad, Fabiola Pomareda and Rumanna Hussain.
President’s welcome: Steve said the informal meeting at his home Sun. Jan. 8 was a great gathering. Board members got to know each other, had a positive discussion of priorities. He would like to do it twice a year.
Minutes of the December meeting were approved.
FOI: Steve said Alden has some ideas about people to hire for our continued access work.
Programs: Odette expanded on plans:
– Jan. 24 Medill event covering elections
– Jan. 25 Loyola event concerning access
-Feb. 19 Rob’s movie screening
Also in February: resumption of monthly/bimonthly Burger Nites on Thursday at Billy Goat’s. Date to be decided at upcoming Program Committee meeting.
-March 10 will be the FOI training at IIT-Kent.
-March 27 workshop at Loyola on how journalists can cope with trauma suffered on the job. Dr. Frank Ochberg, psychotraumatology expert, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, and Loyola Prof. Julia Lieblich, DART Center fellow, will speak.
-Also in March, we hope to do a Google presentation. Rob will delay his use of social media in reporting until summer.
-April training on how to cover protests in anticipation of G8/NATO summits. Steve would like to produce a how-to pamphlet. He also plans to do an op-ed piece. Randi is trying to meet with the interagency task force and has tried to get a meeting set. Steve will write to further that effort.
-Steve and Flynn plan Scribe Aid II after Lisagor.
-Brian will organize a fall program on careers for displaced journalists.
Executive director’s report: Aimee has almost finished an unexpectedly huge volume of work preparing for on-line Lisagor contest submissions. Should be ready to go Monday. (Actually was up during the weekend and promoted!) Lisagor committee met in the past week; Abdon said it was unlikely a new Sun-Times owner would speak at Lisagor and to go ahead and ask Peter Sagal. Committee is calling people to encourage them to enter Lisagor.
Meeting adjourned at 10:30 a.m.
Next meeting: Fri. Feb. 10 at Bloomberg
Respectfully submitted,
Susan S. Stevens
President ex-officio and interim secretary