SPJ Region 8 Conference: Presenters (text)

Hagit Limor with WCPO-TV in Cincinnati has received dozens of national, state and local honors, including first place in the 2008 National Headliner Awards for a four-year investigation into pollution from the local international airport and a 2008 Emmy (both awards with videographer Anthony Mirones) for exposing a wedding video company that brides nationwide said never delivered the goods. The National Association of Health Care Journalists lauded her work on a story about lack of access to mental health care by a national insurance company. She has won nine Emmys while at WCPO. ... St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page editor Gilbert Bailón is immediate past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. A former vice president and executive editor of The Dallas Morning News and editor-publisher of the Belo Corp.’s Al Día, he also is past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and served on the Pulitzer Prize nominating jury for 2000-01 and 1993-94. He has been honored by the Texas APME, and twice Hispanic Business magazine named him “One of the Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics.” AlDiaTx.com in 2004 won the first Edward R. Murrow Award (from the Radio-Television News Directors Association) given to a non-broadcast web site. ... Over four decades, Mike Cochran has covered the indelible stories of Texas, often for the AP — the space program, the JFK assassination, political races. The Texas Associated Press Managing Editors in March 2008 gave him its Jack Douglas Award for his contributions to journalism in Texas. A former Fort Worth SPJ president, he has authored or co-authored five books. ... Donna Darovich is the Tarrant County College director of public relations and marketing and a past president of Fort Worth SPJ. A former newspaper reporter, columnist and editor, she twice was named Most Outstanding Woman Journalist in Texas by Texas Press Women. She has won more than 100 state and national writing awards, was a member of the Star-Telegram’s first Pulitizer Prize-winning news staff and is the author of Arlington: Center Stage in the Metroplex. Prior to joining TCC in 2005, she was the UT Arlington public affairs director for 23 years. ... Dave Lieber is an award-winning Star-Telegram columnist and co-founder of Summer Santa, Inc., one of the largest children’s charities in North Texas. Growing up in Manhattan, he hosted a live NBC show Saturday mornings and sang in the Metropolitan Opera children’s chorus. He says he peaked at age 14. ... Scott Cooper is a staff writer at the Oklahoma Gazette and SPJ Region 8 director. ... PanLocal Media/Pegasus News publisher and founder Mike Orren has never held a job that wasn’t at a media or swimming pool company. In the mid-’90s he was on the D Magazine relaunch team; he has been publisher of Texas Lawyer and all of American Lawyer Media’s Southwest products, and in 2005 he started the company that would become Pegasus News. PN won an EPpy for Best Entertainment Site only six months after launch of the beta site TexasGigs and quickly grew into the largest single-market pure-play news and information site in the U.S. It is now owned by a privately held media company based in Dallas. ... Larry Lutz has been one kind of editor or another at the Star-Telegram since 1985. He currently leads the copy editing and design teams, with chief responsibility for the daily front page. He is a former president of Fort Worth SPJ and the proud father of two daughters, both of whom have chosen journalism careers. ... A journalist by training, Texas Wesleyan University’s Dr. Kay Colley has been a newspaper reporter and editor as well as an editor for magazines and online publications. The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine in 2005 lauded public relations projects she produced. ... John Lumpkin, an Associated Press vice president and former bureau chief, begins June 1 as director of TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism; he now is AP vice president for newspaper markets in the U.S. and Latin America. Before going corporate, he directed coverage of numerous major stories, including the two space shuttle disasters, the political rise of George W. Bush and the 51-day Branch Davidian siege in Waco. ... Star-Telegram columnist/associate editor Bob Ray Sanders’ journalism career has spanned more than three decades and three media — newspaper, television and radio. Well-known as a reporter, producer, station manager and vice president at KERA-TV, the local PBS affiliate, he also serves as Professional in Residence in the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism. His honors include a National Headliner Award for investigative reporting. ... Kristin Sullivan, UTA’s new assistant vice president for media relations, previously directed a team of 20-plus reporters, editors, photographers and a graphic artist as Arlington Star-Telegram newsroom manager/education editor. An 18-year S-T veteran and an editor since 2000, she managed a $1 million Arlington newsroom budget. She is a former president of Fort Worth SPJ and the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Association for Women Journalists. ... Judy Wiley has been on city desks at five daily papers over nearly three decades. She says she was transfixed by the words, the action, but after years of living and breathing tragedy (the Columbine shootings, the JonBenet Ramsey murder, the Wedgwood shootings in Fort Worth, the Texas Seven prison escape) she went “to the happy side” and became a travel editor. Her Star-Telegram travel section won a Bronze Award in the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation Lowell Thomas competition. ... Jake Batsell is a journalism assistant professor at SMU who videos and blogs and tweets like crazy. ... Susan Karnes is editor of Parker County Today, the flagship publication of Weatherford-based Community Media Group, and oversees its sister publication, Hood & Somervell Today. ... While attending Florida A&M University, Dallas Weekly executive editor Cheryl Smith was a member of the student NABJ and SPJ chapters, a Delta Sigma Theta sorority officer, a National Pan Hellenic Council officer, statistician for the men’s basketball team, on the school’s softball team, on both the yearbook and newspaper staffs and in student government. Since 1993 she has been a mother to four of her sister’s children. An active member of Southwest Journalists of Color, she has been honored by the Dallas Press Club, the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the Texas Senate. ... Broc Sears teaches web and publication design in TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism and has worked in communication design for more than 30 years. While at Hallmark, UNT and the Fort Worth-Dallas major dailies, he received awards as an editor, designer, illustrator and art director. He has taught as an adjunct at Southern Methodist University, UT Arlington and TCU. ... Richie Escovedo is a communications/PR professional with nearly eight years in educational and nonprofit settings. He specializes in communication planning, branding and identity, community engagement and media relations, and helping grow the Fort Worth-Dallas social media network. ... Aaron Chimbel produces web video stories at WFAA-TV in Dallas. A graduate of TCU and Columbia University, he previously was a reporter at KWTX-TV in Waco and at Texas Cable News in Dallas. ... Fort Worth Weekly editor Gayle Reaves-King is a Pulitzer Prize- and George Polk Award-winning journalist who has covered subjects ranging from mental retardation to major earthquakes to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Previously she worked as a projects reporter, writer and assistant city editor for The Dallas Morning News, where she created the women’s issues beat. She is a founder and former president of the Association for Women Journalists and a past president of the Journalism and Women Symposium and of Fort Worth SPJ. Since she became Weekly editor in 2001, the paper has won awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. ... Independent Free Papers of America and the Texas Community Newspaper Association have honored the Wedgwood News for excellence numerous times in Kay Pirtle’s 20 years as editor. Kay is the first person in Fort Worth SPJ history to serve two terms as president. She chaired the 2002 SPJ National Convention, which Fort Worth hosted. ... Tim Madigan wrote his first book in 1968; he was 11. Every week that autumn, he chronicled the University of Minnesota football game in a notebook. Sales were modest. His later books on cult leader David Koresh, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 and children’s television icon Fred Rogers fared better. Madigan has covered sports in North Dakota, cops in Odessa, Texas, and assorted newsworthies for the Star-Telegram. Three times the Headliners Club in Austin named him the state’s top reporter. ... West Texan Mary Rogers spent the last two decades as a Star-Telegram lifestyle columnist and feature writer. She lives in Fort Worth with her husband and two dogs, Mad Jack and Tiny Truman, the Fighting Bichon Brothers. Her latest book is Dancing Naked: Memorable Encounters with Unforgettable Texans. ... Gordon Dickson covers transportation for the Star-Telegram and still reports stories the old-fashioned way, but he also carries a video camera and regularly produces short videos that often apply a light touch to the issues. Usually he’s a one-man show, shooting and editing the footage on a laptop. He also keeps a daily blog, Honkin’ Mad!. ... Star-Telegram multimedia producer Jen Friedberg worked as a still photographer at the paper for several years before transitioning to online. Now she explores new ways of storytelling using a video camera, still images and audio. She believes that the new media has the potential to bring people great content when and where they want it. ... An Army brat, Meda Kessler has worked in the print business more than 25 years, including at major dailies in Houston and Fort Worth, at the Dallas Observer and as the founding art director of Fort Worth Weekly. A prize-winning graphic designer, she started out as a sportswriter. She embraced the visual side of journalism after stints as a copy editor and found that treating words and photos with equal reverence made her a better designer. She is editorial director of a new Fort Worth-based magazine, 360 West, which debuts in April. ... Dr. Jerry Grotta has been a keynote presenter in Denmark, Finland and the United States and has done more than 20 programs for the American Press Institute. He retired from Texas Christian University in 2000 but still teaches research courses in the Schieffer School of Journalism. ... Dr. Tommy Thomason is establishing the Texas Center for Community Journalism at the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism, of which he was founding director. In 1987 he won a Teaching Award in Journalism Ethics from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. He has presented at regional and national symposia and been cited in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Presstime and the Columbia Journalism Review on media treatment of crime victims. ... Scott Nishimura is Star-Telegram business and economy editor and immediate past president of the Fort Worth chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. ... Patrick Williams is managing editor of the Dallas Observer.



				SPJ Region 8 Conference \| March 20-21, 2009 \| Presenters

			Hagit Limor with WCPO-TV in Cincinnati has received dozens of national, state and local honors, including first place in the 2008 National Headliner Awards for a four-year investigation into pollution from the local international airport and a 2008 Emmy (both awards with videographer Anthony Mirones) for exposing a wedding video company that brides nationwide said never delivered the goods. The National Association of Health Care Journalists lauded her work on a story about lack of access to mental health care by a national insurance company. She has won nine Emmys while at WCPO. ... St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page editor Gilbert Bailón is immediate past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. A former vice president and executive editor of The Dallas Morning News and editor-publisher of the Belo Corp.’s Al Día, he also is past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and served on the Pulitzer Prize nominating jury for 2000-01 and 1993-94. He has been honored by the Texas APME, and twice Hispanic Business magazine named him “One of the Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics.” AlDiaTx.com in 2004 won the first Edward R. Murrow Award (from the Radio-Television News Directors Association) given to a non-broadcast web site. ... Over four decades, Mike Cochran has covered the indelible stories of Texas, often for the AP — the space program, the JFK assassination, political races. The Texas Associated Press Managing Editors in March 2008 gave him its Jack Douglas Award for his contributions to journalism in Texas. A former Fort Worth SPJ president, he has authored or co-authored five books. ... Donna Darovich is the Tarrant County College director of public relations and marketing and a past president of Fort Worth SPJ. A former newspaper reporter, columnist and editor, she twice was named Most Outstanding Woman Journalist in Texas by Texas Press Women. She has won more than 100 state and national writing awards, was a member of the Star-Telegram’s first Pulitizer Prize-winning news staff and is the author of Arlington: Center Stage in the Metroplex. Prior to joining TCC in 2005, she was the UT Arlington public affairs director for 23 years. ... Dave Lieber is an award-winning Star-Telegram columnist and co-founder of Summer Santa, Inc., one of the largest children’s charities in North Texas. Growing up in Manhattan, he hosted a live NBC show Saturday mornings and sang in the Metropolitan Opera children’s chorus. He says he peaked at age 14. ... Scott Cooper is a staff writer at the Oklahoma Gazette and SPJ Region 8 director. ... PanLocal Media/Pegasus News publisher and founder Mike Orren has never held a job that wasn’t at a media or swimming pool company. In the mid-’90s he was on the D Magazine relaunch team; he has been publisher of Texas Lawyer and all of American Lawyer Media’s Southwest products, and in 2005 he started the company that would become Pegasus News. PN won an EPpy for Best Entertainment Site only six months after launch of the beta site TexasGigs and quickly grew into the largest single-market pure-play news and information site in the U.S. It is now owned by a privately held media company based in Dallas. ... Larry Lutz has been one kind of editor or another at the Star-Telegram since 1985. He currently leads the copy editing and design teams, with chief responsibility for the daily front page. He is a former president of Fort Worth SPJ and the proud father of two daughters, both of whom have chosen journalism careers. ... A journalist by training, Texas Wesleyan University’s Dr. Kay Colley has been a newspaper reporter and editor as well as an editor for magazines and online publications. The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine in 2005 lauded public relations projects she produced. ... John Lumpkin, an Associated Press vice president and former bureau chief, begins June 1 as director of TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism; he now is AP vice president for newspaper markets in the U.S. and Latin America. Before going corporate, he directed coverage of numerous major stories, including the two space shuttle disasters, the political rise of George W. Bush and the 51-day Branch Davidian siege in Waco. ... Star-Telegram columnist/associate editor Bob Ray Sanders’ journalism career has spanned more than three decades and three media — newspaper, television and radio. Well-known as a reporter, producer, station manager and vice president at KERA-TV, the local PBS affiliate, he also serves as Professional in Residence in the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism. His honors include a National Headliner Award for investigative reporting. ... Kristin Sullivan, UTA’s new assistant vice president for media relations, previously directed a team of 20-plus reporters, editors, photographers and a graphic artist as Arlington Star-Telegram newsroom manager/education editor. An 18-year S-T veteran and an editor since 2000, she managed a $1 million Arlington newsroom budget. She is a former president of Fort Worth SPJ and the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Association for Women Journalists. ... Judy Wiley has been on city desks at five daily papers over nearly three decades. She says she was transfixed by the words, the action, but after years of living and breathing tragedy (the Columbine shootings, the JonBenet Ramsey murder, the Wedgwood shootings in Fort Worth, the Texas Seven prison escape) she went “to the happy side” and became a travel editor. Her Star-Telegram travel section won a Bronze Award in the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation Lowell Thomas competition. ... Jake Batsell is a journalism assistant professor at SMU who videos and blogs and tweets like crazy. ... Susan Karnes is editor of Parker County Today, the flagship publication of Weatherford-based Community Media Group, and oversees its sister publication, Hood & Somervell Today. ... While attending Florida A&M University, Dallas Weekly executive editor Cheryl Smith was a member of the student NABJ and SPJ chapters, a Delta Sigma Theta sorority officer, a National Pan Hellenic Council officer, statistician for the men’s basketball team, on the school’s softball team, on both the yearbook and newspaper staffs and in student government. Since 1993 she has been a mother to four of her sister’s children. An active member of Southwest Journalists of Color, she has been honored by the Dallas Press Club, the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the Texas Senate. ... Broc Sears teaches web and publication design in TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism and has worked in communication design for more than 30 years. While at Hallmark, UNT and the Fort Worth-Dallas major dailies, he received awards as an editor, designer, illustrator and art director. He has taught as an adjunct at Southern Methodist University, UT Arlington and TCU. ... Richie Escovedo is a communications/PR professional with nearly eight years in educational and nonprofit settings. He specializes in communication planning, branding and identity, community engagement and media relations, and helping grow the Fort Worth-Dallas social media network. ... Aaron Chimbel produces web video stories at WFAA-TV in Dallas. A graduate of TCU and Columbia University, he previously was a reporter at KWTX-TV in Waco and at Texas Cable News in Dallas. ... Fort Worth Weekly editor Gayle Reaves-King is a Pulitzer Prize- and George Polk Award-winning journalist who has covered subjects ranging from mental retardation to major earthquakes to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Previously she worked as a projects reporter, writer and assistant city editor for The Dallas Morning News, where she created the women’s issues beat. She is a founder and former president of the Association for Women Journalists and a past president of the Journalism and Women Symposium and of Fort Worth SPJ. Since she became Weekly editor in 2001, the paper has won awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. ... Independent Free Papers of America and the Texas Community Newspaper Association have honored the Wedgwood News for excellence numerous times in Kay Pirtle’s 20 years as editor. Kay is the first person in Fort Worth SPJ history to serve two terms as president. She chaired the 2002 SPJ National Convention, which Fort Worth hosted. ... Tim Madigan wrote his first book in 1968; he was 11. Every week that autumn, he chronicled the University of Minnesota football game in a notebook. Sales were modest. His later books on cult leader David Koresh, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 and children’s television icon Fred Rogers fared better. Madigan has covered sports in North Dakota, cops in Odessa, Texas, and assorted newsworthies for the Star-Telegram. Three times the Headliners Club in Austin named him the state’s top reporter. ... West Texan Mary Rogers spent the last two decades as a Star-Telegram lifestyle columnist and feature writer. She lives in Fort Worth with her husband and two dogs, Mad Jack and Tiny Truman, the Fighting Bichon Brothers. Her latest book is Dancing Naked: Memorable Encounters with Unforgettable Texans. ... Gordon Dickson covers transportation for the Star-Telegram and still reports stories the old-fashioned way, but he also carries a video camera and regularly produces short videos that often apply a light touch to the issues. Usually he’s a one-man show, shooting and editing the footage on a laptop. He also keeps a daily blog, Honkin’ Mad!. ... Star-Telegram multimedia producer Jen Friedberg worked as a still photographer at the paper for several years before transitioning to online. Now she explores new ways of storytelling using a video camera, still images and audio. She believes that the new media has the potential to bring people great content when and where they want it. ... An Army brat, Meda Kessler has worked in the print business more than 25 years, including at major dailies in Houston and Fort Worth, at the Dallas Observer and as the founding art director of Fort Worth Weekly. A prize-winning graphic designer, she started out as a sportswriter. She embraced the visual side of journalism after stints as a copy editor and found that treating words and photos with equal reverence made her a better designer. She is editorial director of a new Fort Worth-based magazine, 360 West, which debuts in April. ... Dr. Jerry Grotta has been a keynote presenter in Denmark, Finland and the United States and has done more than 20 programs for the American Press Institute. He retired from Texas Christian University in 2000 but still teaches research courses in the Schieffer School of Journalism. ... Dr. Tommy Thomason is establishing the Texas Center for Community Journalism at the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism, of which he was founding director. In 1987 he won a Teaching Award in Journalism Ethics from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. He has presented at regional and national symposia and been cited in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Presstime and the Columbia Journalism Review on media treatment of crime victims. ... Scott Nishimura is Star-Telegram business and economy editor and immediate past president of the Fort Worth chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. ... Patrick Williams is managing editor of the Dallas Observer.