FOR MORE APSE AND SJI NEWS AND PHOTOS,GO TO WWW.SPORTSJOURNALISMINSTITUTE.ORGAND 2010SJI.BLOGSPOT.COMPUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF THE SPORTS JOURNALISM INSTITUTEVOLUME 17 | SALT LAKE CITY 2010

The Bulletin

Web editor election

marks frst

By AARON HILTON

APSE Bulletin Staff Writer

Gerry Ahern has worked at seven newspapers across the United States. From East toWest Coast, Ahern has been in newsrooms oall different sizes. However, his recent move toonline sports editor at Yahoo! Sports will makehis election historic.

Ahern is the rst online journalist to takemajor ofce with the APSE.

As second vice president,

Ahern will hold ofce for

three years before taking over in 2012.

“I had a huge smile on my

face when I heard that GerryAhern had won the elec-

tion,” APSE president Garry

Howard said. “I really feel that we’re in verygood hands when he becomes president in twoyears.”

A few years ago, Ahern probably wouldhave told you he had dreams of being a major league baseball beat writer.After graduating from Marquette Universityin December 1987 he began as a minor league baseball sports writer at the Stuart (Fla.) Newsthe following January. During Ahern’s career,he has worked at the Virginian Pilot, Chicago

AHERN

continues on page 4

Ahern

Inside

APSE News:n Ethical concerns at two newspapersPage 2n Red Smith winner Mitch Albom hasunique business model Page 3n Moving in Kaplan; moving outHoward Page 5APSE Contest:n Wilmington paper takes big prizePage 10n Harlan moves from the diamond toAsia Page 11

APSE Convention makes slow rebound

ew media take sports journalism to next level

By DIDIER MORAIS

PSE Bulletin Staff Writer

When Jim Pastor rst proposed a plan for ESPNChicago.com, he envisioned a websitethat would raise ESPN 1000’s radio prole in

the city.

His objective was to maximize ESPN’s dig

ital and broadcast resources in Bristol, Conn.

to provide better comprehensive coverage of Chicago sports.A ear and millions of ae views later

Pastor’s strategy turned out better than ex

- pected.

Pastor’s local promotional strategy for ES

PNChicago.com has spawned a countrywide,

digital phenomenon that’s led to the formation

of four additional websites – ESPNBoston.com, ESPNDallas.com, ESPNLosAngeles.com and ESPNNewYork.com – in marketswhere ESPN boasts radio operations, withBoston as the exception.“We were leasantl surrised when welaunched this thing to nd out there was a real

appetite for this type of coverage digitally,”

said Pastor, the senior vice president and gen

eral manager of ESPN local. “It’s allowed our product to evolve to reect what fans want inthese communities.”ESPN.com editor-in-chief Rob King haswitnessed that evolution rsthand. In March,King said an estimated 3.1 million unique

NEW MEDIA

continues on page 8

Bill Serne

he SJI Class of 2010 was all business during its nine-day bootcamp at the Poynter Institute. Meet the class on pages 6-7.

New crop of talent

By AMELIA RAYNO

PSE Bulletin Staff Writer

After steadily declining for four straight

years, this year’s convention attendance is

expected to exceed 2009’s by about 10 to 15percent, according to APSE Executive Direc

tor Jack Berninger.And in a time when the industry has been“hit hard” nancially and staff-wise, thosenumbers are encouraging to host editor Mi

chael Anastasi of The Salt Lake Tribune.“The numbers are not (huge), but you’ve gotto start somewhere and build on it,” Anastasisaid. “Just like the industry is surviving thisrough patch, we’re condent there is a futurefor journalism, that there’s going to be a strongfuture for APSE organization and that it willcontinue to play the role it’s always played.”Still, last year’s attendance reached just 63,

nearly half of 2008’s total of 112 and paling

in comparison to 152 the previous year. Ber

ninger said it is unlikely this year’s budgetwill nish in the black. The inability to ful

ll the hotel room commitment — laid out ina contract with the hotel during a run whenthe convention was averaging 154 attendees per year — is again a major concern, withthis year’s participation not projected to comeclose to those numbers.Berninger said the APSE has adjusted room

blocks every year to minimize room attrition,

APSE

continues on page 4

PAGE 2

APSENEWS

SALT LAKE CITY 2010

Bulletin studentsBulletin staff

Kyle Goon

University of MarylandSalt Lake Tribune

Aaron Hilton

Hampton UniversitySacramento Bee

Tariq Lee

Temple UniversityThe Oklahoman

Aaron Martinez

Texas at El PasoHouston Chronicle

Didier Morais

Syracuse UniversityMLB.com

Alex Prewitt

Tufts UniversityESPN.com

Amelia Rayno

Emerson CollegeMinneapolis Star-Tribune

Isis Roberts

Cal State, Long BeachSanta Cruz Sentinel

Cheng Sio

Univeristy of ColoradoColorado Springs Gazette

Malik Smith

Hampton UniversityPittsburgh Post-Gazette

Shemar Woods

Hampton UniversityDenver Post

Thanks to:

Program Host

Poynter Institute

Sponsors

APSEChicago Tribune FoundationThe St. Petersburg TimesBoston GlobeESPNScripps Howard

Bulletin Printing Courtesy

St. Petersburg Times

Special assistanceFanua Borodzicz

Poynter Institute

Special thanksJack SheppardJerry GiffordChrista Garcia

St. Petersburg Times

Darrell FryAlicia Mitchell

ESPN Disney Wide Worldof SportsTampa Bay Rays

Editor

Gregory Lee

The Boston Globe

Class of 1994

SJI Co-Directors

Leon Carter

ESPN

Sandy Rosenbush

ESPN

SJI Board Member

David Squires

Newport News Daily Press

Assignment Editor

Eduardo A. Encina

St. Petersburg Times

Class of 1997

Art Director

Ana M. Menendez

Graduate student

Class of 1993

Photographers

Blll SerneGregory LeeKenny IrbyAl TompkinsRoy Peter ClarkEllyn AngelottiMalcolm Moran

Knight Chair of sports and societyPenn State University

Jim Jenks

Vice President/Executive ProducerMLB.com

Shannon Owens

Columnist/ReporterOrlando Sentinel

Class of 2002

Nick Williams

ReporterTampa Tribune

Class of 2004

Classroom Instruction

By AARON HILTON

APSE Bulletin Staff Writer

The National Sports Journal-ism Center at Indiana University,in association with the McCormick Foundation of Chicago, is starting a program for high school students in-terested in pursuing sports journal-ism careers.The Sports Media Diversity Insti-tute at IU’s Indianapolis campus willhelp 18 students — 11 from Indiana,seven from Chicago — get to knowwhat it’s like to be a professional journalist for a week. From June 27to July 2 these inner city studentswill have the chance to meet withmedia professionals, like StephenA. Smith and Sage Steele of ESPNand Bill Plaschke of the Los AngelesTimes.The program’s director and brain-child, Tim Franklin, an alum and professor at IU and former sportseditor at the Chicago Tribune, is ex-cited about the program’s inauguralseason. He also has been editor of the Orlando Sentinel and Indianapo-lis Star.Franklin, a native of Mooresville,Ind., has seen the negative side of in-ner city high schools in his ﬁve yearsas supervising editor at the BaltimoreSun. He hopes the Sports Media Di-versity Institute will help convincesome of the youths to stay in school,graduate and get their degree.“You can really see, up close, thevalue of education,” Franklin said.“If you can convince young peopleto graduate and get a degree, it canmake a huge difference in their lives.”The McCormick Foundation isawarding each student a $500 sti- pend. The most outstanding studentwill receive a scholarship, equiva-lent to the current in-state tuition, tostudy at the National Sports Journal-ism Center, which has programs atIU’s Indianapolis and Bloomingtoncampuses. Not only will the 18 students get tomeet media professionals, they willcover a professional baseball gameto get a feel of what it is like to be a journalist.“This internship is about show-ing kids the possible, and what’s outthere for them,” Franklin said. “Thatis my goal, to show students the pos-sible.”

By AARON MARTINEZ

APSE Bulletin Staff Writer

The journalism industry continues toevolve, but perhaps one of the things get-ting lost in the sea of change is the rulesof journalism ethics.Two recent instances of how thesechanges have affected the industry are theways the Asbury Park Press and Newsdaychanged the way they handle their sportscoverage.A recent issue concerning ethics in thenewsroom that came to light occurred atthe Press, a daily newspaper in Neptune, N.J.: Was their use of New Jersey Devils’employee Eric Marin to cover the teamfor the newspaper ethical?The Devils’ employee was hired as afreelance writer, since the newspaper didn’t have a beat writer.“The Devils were looking for morecoverage in the paper and we don’t havea pro writer for the Devils on staff, sowe talked to them about what they could provide,” said Jack Genung, Press sportseditor. “Basically, it was a person whowrites features for their web site thatwould provide us with some of their feature stories. We weren’t looking for game stories, and if something happenedwithin their organization we wouldn’t letthem cover it.”Genung said the reason for not using anAP story was to give their readers a fea-ture that focused on the team, rather thana normal AP piece.Andy Schotz, chairman of the Societyof Professional Journalists’ Ethics Com-mittee, said this method was still crossingthe line of what is ethical.“I know the newspaper said they areonly using features story from the Dev-ils and not hard news, but in a way thatis like saying the rest of the coveragedoesn’t matter much because it isn’t hardnews,” Schotz said. “There is an impor-tant reason to try and be neutral in all of your coverage.”Genung said he was aware of the pos-sible journalistic ethical questions thatcould arise from using this method.“Honestly, I can say that I was a littleconcerned with it bringing up ethical is-sues,” Genung said. “We only did thissystem for about a month, we haven’tcome to a solid decision yet, but morethan likely we will not do this again nextyear.”Over at Newsday, they faced allega-tions of impropriety due to a new policythat forced writers to take a softer view onthe teams they are covering.“I am not authorized to answer why policies are made, because I don’t know,”said Newsday sports columnist Neil Best.“My understanding simply is that whenwe are critical, we should have factualinformation or expert analysis to back upthat opinion. I can’t speak for everyone, but I haven’t really changed anything,other than the fact I do make more of aneffort to quote experts to support or ex- pand upon whatever point I’m trying tomake.”The policy came into effect within twoyears after the purchase of Newsday byCablevision. The company owned boththe New York Knicks and New York Rangers through the MSG television andradio network, both of which are two of the main teams the newspaper covers.According to Best, as of February of this year, MSG broke off from Cablevi-sion, so Newsday no longer falls under itsmanagement.“Yes, of course there could be (a con-ﬂict of interest), but it is an unavoidablereality in the world we live in,” Best said.“All we can do is report fairly and advisereaders of any potential conﬂicts.”

Journalism ethicscome into question

New program reaches outto high school students

By MALIK SMITH

APSE Bulletin Staff Writer

The SJI Class of 2010 is makinghistory — it’s the rst time three stu-dents from one university have been part of one class.The reason: a growing relation-ship between APSE and the ScrippsHoward Foundation. The foundationis funding two interns from Hamp-ton University, which houses theScripps Howard School of Journal-ism and Communications, for APSEmember newspapers. Those internsare receiving their pre-internshiptraining as members of SJI.Last year was the rst year of theScripps Howard-APSE relationshipand the students went directly totheir internships. This spring, lead-ers of SJI and APSE decided to havethe Scripps Howard interns ben-et from the nine-day training at thePoynter Institute.The two Scripps Howard interns — Aaron Hilton and Malik Smith — were added to SJI’s class, which al-ready included fellow Hampton stu-dent, Shemar Woods (who was partof the 2009 Scripps Howard-APSE program).Last summer, Woods interned atthe Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enter- prise. This year he is going to theDenver Post. Hilton is interning atthe Sacramento Bee and Smith will be at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.Phil Kaplan, APSE’s rst vice president and incoming president,coordinates the Scripps Howard in-ternships and said that when he wasapproached by SJI about adding thetraining component, he quickly ac-cepted.“It will be a great collaborative ef-fort,” he said.Kaplan, SJI co-director SandyRosenbush and SJI instructor andalum Greg Lee chose the studentsfrom Hampton. Hampton is a His-torically Black College and Univer-sity, with goals linked to those of SJI.Organizers seem to love the idea.“Students have had good success because they’re extra prepared,”Rosenbush said. “We were delightedto add two interns to our group.”SJI and APSE have been deeplyconnected since the program beganin 1992, when Rosenbush was presi-dent of APSE and Leon Carter (SJIco-director) was the Sports Task Force chair of NABJ. Most of SJI’sinterns have worked at APSE papers.APSE also has developed a strongrelationship with the Scripps How-ard Foundation, in the internship program and the “Day of Diversity”that APSE coordinated last Novem- ber at the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications atHampton. APSE brought in journal-ists including Jemele Hill of ESPN,Emilio Garcia-Ruiz of The Wash-ington Post and Kaplan.Panelists spoke to students abouttrends in the media, particularlymultimedia. They also gave studentsa taste of what it was like to cover afootball press conference and writeabout it on deadline.The APSE/Scripps Howard col-laboration isn’t the only new item onSJI’s agenda. Next summer, the As-sociation of Women in Sports Media(AWSM) will send one of its internsto SJI’s boot camp for training and placement.Rosenbush spoke to AWSM’s board at its recent convention in LosAngeles, where the plan was ap- proved. She said it will help the in-dustry, and SJI, which typically hasmore male participants.“It would be great if we could getextra women in the program,” shesaid.

By TARIQ LEE

APSE Bulletin Staff Writer

He has sold 28 million books,works that have been translated into42 different languages — statisticsthat lifelong novelists never obtain.An award-winning radio show,weekly appearances on ESPN SportsReporters, and acolumn for the De-troit Free Press; a journalist’s dream.These are the ac-colades of one man.With a master’sdegree in journal-ism and an MBA in business, both from Columbia Uni-versity, Mitch Albom knows a lotabout business and “the business”of journalism. And his knowledge of the business has given him the abil-ity to excel in sports reporting.“I think what’s very interesting iswhat a versatile writer he is,” saidRoy Peter Clark, vice president andsenior scholar at the Poynter Insti-tute. “He can write for print, he canwrite for television, he can write for radio, he writes music, and he writes books that are international best sell-ers.”In March, Albom was recognizedfor all of his work by being namedthe winner of the prestigious Associ-ated Press Sports Editors Red SmithAward. The award is given annuallyto an individual who has made “major contributions to sports journal-ism.”“I think it was certainly well de-serving, I’d say overdue and I was just stunned that he would win it atsuch a young age,” said Gene Myers,Albom’s sports editor at Detroit FreePress for over 20 years.At the age of 52, Albom is one of the youngest Red Smith winners inthe history of the award.“It’s taken a while to do a backlogof all of the deserving Red Smithhonorees, but I think it was nice thatsomeone who is still, in a lot of ways,in his prime and has a great body of work to win the award,” Myers said.Since joining the Free Press in1985, he has 13 rst-place APSE n-ishes in the over 250,000-circulationcolumn writing competition, morethan any other writer. APSE alsonamed him best feature writer seventimes, an honor no other writer hasreceived more than once.“Through his career, Mitch hasgone a long way changing how sportscolumnists are dened,” said DrewSharp, a writer for the Free Presssince 1983. “He helped broaden thereach of columnists becoming one of the rst to venture into sports talk ra-dio and doing television work.”In 1997, Albom’s internationallyrecognized book “Tuesdays WithMorrie” was published. It was amemoir of his time spent with hisformer college professor MorrieSchwartz who was dying of ALS,commonly known as Lou Gehrig’sdisease.It was on the New York TimesBestseller’s List for four years, prompting a lm version of the book that won four Emmys.“Something about the relationship between a young man and a wise oldcounselor has a kind of archetypal power that he was able to manageand capture.“It may be the rst piece of writingwhere he expressed some self-doubtand he recognized the value and theneed for turning to somebody whohad been important to him in hisformation as a person and a writer,”Clark said.Throughout his success outsideof print, Albom has stayed with theFree Press for 25 years, sticking tohis roots as a sports writer.He still writes a column for the paper.“He works his butt off,” Sharpsaid. “He’s talented but he’s also de-termined, and that becomes a rather dynamic combination.”

SALT LAKE CITY 2010

APSENEWS

PAGE 3

Scripps, SJI join forces to train students

Red Smith Award winner has followed his own unique business plan

Albom

Gregory Lee/Bulletin

Malcolm Moran, Knight Chair of sports and society at Penn State lectures this year’s SJI class at Poynter.