eChaser: February 2008 / p2

Early registration closes Feb. 18 for the NAHJ Region 5 Conference, Feb. 29-March 1 at Texas State University in San Marcos. The conference will feature at least six multimedia sessions, including blogging, podcasting and digital video for beginners and advanced, plus a look at the Hispanic impact on the presidential elections and how the immigration debate is affecting Latino communities in Texas and nationwide. Gary Piña, 469-323-0083 or gpina@star-telegram.com, has more. The registration form is at nahj.org.

IABC local update: The first networking splasheroo was so lively, IABC Fort Worth will do it again Thursday, March 6, at the Ginger Man Pub, 3716 Camp Bowie Blvd. The fun begins at 6:30 p.m., but it’s OK to arrive fashionably late.

IABC local update II: Dan Solomon and Brian Reich’s new book, “Media Rules!,” addresses how both technology and society are affecting organizational communications. The authors will provide a framework for helping communicators understand this dynamic environment at a joint meeting of the IABC and PRSA Dallas chapters Thursday, Feb. 21. Info here.

PRSA local update: PR pros are needed as mentors for PRSSA students for the Greater Fort Worth chapter’s annual Pro-Am Day, Feb. 21. To join a student for lunch and then let her shadow you at work, e- Jahnae Stout at jstout@nctcog.org. Author-blogger Geoff Livingston will spend the afternoon with TCU ad/PR students.

PRSA local update II: For those who join — new members or reinstating members who have been inactive for at least one year — between now and March 31, national will waive the $65 initiation fee. Dues are $225 national and $45 chapter. Chapters with the greatest participation will receive incentive awards. Contact Andra Bennett House, APR, at abennett@fortworthchamber.com for more info and the membership application promotion code.

PRSA local update III: Have dinner with Geoff Livingston, sponsored by the Masters SIG, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the private room of the new Vidalia Restaurant in the Renaissance Worthington Hotel, downtown Fort Worth. RSVP to Joan Hunter at jhunter@the-t.com.

SPJ update: The Center for Public Integrity in January released “The War Card,” a voluminous searchable database tallying false statements from President Bush and seven members of his administration as they built the case to invade Iraq in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001. The CPI, working with another nonprofit, the Fund for Independence in Journalism, asserts, and then goes about proving, that “the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.” The Center for Public Integrity was founded by Charles Lewis, who co-wrote the report and who offered a sobering look at journalism in America — what’s being covered, what’s not being covered, what’s being covered poorly — at a Fort Worth SPJ meeting in June 2005.

SPJ update II: President Bush signed the Open Government Act of 2007 on the last day of the year aimed at enabling greater access to information about what the government is doing. The law amounts to a congressional pushback against the administration’s move to greater secrecy since the 2001 terroristic attacks. ... The Justice Department elevated its inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes to a formal criminal investigation headed by a career federal prosecutor. Investigators apparently have concluded that CIA officers, along with other government officials, may have committed criminal acts in their handling of the tapes, which recorded the interrogations in 2002 of two al Qaeda operatives and were destroyed in 2005. More here and here. ... Documents concerning procedures for the trials of accused terrorists that consultants provided to the Defense Department are private, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled Jan. 11. The nonprofit group National Institute of Military Justice had requested any type of communication between the Defense Department and outside consultants hired for the project. Writing for the majority on a three-judge panel, Judge Karen Henderson upheld the lower court ruling that certain information provided by the consultants is exempt from FOIA requests. More here.

SPJ update III: A Valdosta State U. student who was expelled after repeatedly challenging plans for a new parking garage filed a federal lawsuit Jan. 9, alleging that the school trumped up a charge that he was a danger to the campus. More here. ... A white man accused of driving past a group of black civil rights activists with two nooses dangling from the back of his pickup has been indicted on federal hate-crime and conspiracy charges, prosecutors said Jan. 24. More here. ... Anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce kicked a newspaper photographer and was then sworn in as a Colorado state representative Jan. 15. Bruce, a Republican, backed down in his standoff with Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and members of his own party over his insistence that the full House attend when he was sworn in to fill a vacant seat. More here. ... Wal-Mart is tossing more than 1,000 magazines from the racks in its stores, sending another shock wave through the publishing industry. Most of the magazines are small or discontinued — Child, Celebrity Living, Elle Girl, Teen People, Suede, Weekend, FHM — but virtually no major publisher was spared. More here.

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PEOPLE & PLACES

PRSA member Drenda Witt, director of collaborative network marketing at JPS Health Network, has been reelected chair of the Strategic Communications Constituency Council for the Texas Hospital Association. Also at JPS Health Network (and also with PRSA), Kelly Owen has been promoted to PR consultant and Stacey Mensik to senior PR coordinator. And the Star-Telegram featured Richie and Karen Escovedo in a profile Dec. 26.

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