As coronavirus declines across New England, hopefully things are trending in a positive direction in our newsrooms and advertising departments. There are some great webinars and live events happening this week to assist both your editorial and business departments.
For publishers there are two events that will provide resources as you think about how your operations will move forward as business reopens. On Wednesday, Things to consider to help leaders and employees move forward in this ever-changing world and on Thursday, Self Care for Journalists, which will also discuss how to create a healthy work environment for employees.
For ad directors and revenue officers on Friday, veteran ad sales coach Ryan Dohrn will share 7 ways to re-ignite the marketing conversation with style, ideas, and realistic expectations.
For editors and journalists there are events focused on how to stay safe while covering demonstrations and protests. Tonight, SPJ New England chats with Lucy Westcott of the Committee to Protect Journalists and on Thursday, Stay Sharp and Safe While Covering Protests. Also on Thursday, Self Care for Journalists, which explores creating balance and maintaining your emotional and physical wellness as journalists.
For photo journalists, every Tuesday in June, the Society of Professional Journalists International Community presents their #ICTalks series. This week featuring a conversation with National Geographic photographer George Steinmetz.
Monday, June 8 at 6 pm EDT
A chat with Lucy Westcott of the Committee to Protect Journalists. – Westcott’s area of focus is safety issues for women journalists in non-hostile environments, including online harassment. Presented by the Society of Professional Journalists New England Chapter.
Tuesday, June 9 at 7 pm EDT
#ICTalks: A Conversation With George Steinmetz – The Society of Professional Journalists International Community continues its series of talks with American photographer George Steinmetz, best known for his exploration and science photography. A regular contributor to National Geographic magazine, Steinmetz has examined subjects ranging from global oil exploration, the latest advances in robotics and the innermost stretches of the Sahara.
Wednesday, June 10, 3-4 pm EDT
Things to consider to help leaders and employees move forward in this ever-changing world – This webinar is intended to provide practical ideas to help business and HR leaders navigate in these unprecedented times. Presented by America’s Newspapers and Susan Davidson Talmadge. Free to NENPA members.
Thursday, June 11, 2-2:30 pm EDT
Stay Sharp and Safe While Covering Protests – As demonstrators take to the streets across the country, you may be asked to get the story. You’ll be heading into a volatile situation with the additional layer of safeguards against the coronavirus. You need to be prepared. This course is being offered tuition-free. If you have the means, please pay what you can to support the work of the nonprofit Poynter Institute.
Friday, June 12, 2 pm EDT
Getting Advertisers Back: Strategies to Re-Ignite the Marketing Conversation – Veteran ad sales coach Ryan Dohrn will share 7 ways to re-ignite the marketing conversation with style, ideas, and realistic expectations. Sponsored by The Magazine Manager and The Newspaper Manager.
NENPA University Webinars – presented by Online Media Campus and free to NENPA members. Contact Christine Panek for registration information at c.panek@nenpa.com.
Thursday, June 11 at 2 pm EDT
Self-Care for Journalists – Creating balance and maintaining your emotional and physical wellness is as important as ever for journalists. We’ll discuss some ideas on how to create that balance to best take care of yourself.
Floyd protests powered by freedoms of assembly, petition.
Two of our least-known freedoms, petition and assembly, are at the heart of our nation’s most profound changes.
Today, those two freedoms are powering a deep national conversation both in person and online involving millions of us about how we should deal with racism, bigotry and criminal justice in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in police custody in Minneapolis.
gpolicinski@freedomforum.org, or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.
Some of those conversations have been marred by the violence inflicted by a relative few. As the final words of the First Amendment’s 45 words provide, we have the constitutional right “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Stores have been looted and buildings set afire. Journalists have been attacked, injured and arrested in multiple cities while reporting on the protests. And at last count, well over 1,000 demonstrators have been arrested and many more thousands have been teargassed, hit with pepper balls, beaten or taken into custody in police sweeps.
Serious situations, to be sure. But we would be wrong to permit those very visible and tragic moments to distract us from, first, grieving with Floyd’s family, and second, keeping sight of the larger point that, from police procedures and racial profiling to economic inequality and its impact across society, we have national problems to solve.
Nothing in those 45 words instructs how assembly and petition are supposed to work. But we’ve often taken to the streets when facing our nation’s most profound times to let our voices be heard. And #walkwithus shows signs of being a long-running rallying point, much like #blacklivesmatter and #metoo
Protest has served as both a release and a megaphone for views that range from “Occupy Wall Street” to the Tea Party movement to those protesting COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.
The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom has a place in history firmly rooted as the setting for one of the nation’s most galvanizing public speeches: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech.
Assembly has been the tool of choice for those supporting “March for Our Lives” in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and for the annual anti-abortion marches across America.
From women marching in the 19th and early 20th centuries to demand the right to vote, to the modern civil rights movement’s demand in the 1950s and ’60s for an end to legalized racial discrimination, formal policy and laws have come about because people of like minds gathered and petitioned government for change – and in the process, touched the minds and conscience of the nation.
The nation’s newest tools for conversation, declaration and self-examination are flooded with each as a result of Floyd’s death.
Even police in multiple cities have – at times to the surprise of demonstrators – joined protesters in visible ways to make a larger statement than their role might suggest:
Protest’s long history in America extends, as most school children learn, to before the nation was founded in the Boston Tea Party to the Liberty Tree movement in which colonists gathered around a tree to decry – and sometimes hang British administrators in effigy.
Such protests and assemblies have also provided searing images – intended or not – of moments when the nation’s views were shifting on a particular issue. An iconic photo of peaceful crowds along the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall during King’s “Dream” speech remains an indelible image of the hundreds of thousands who gathered that day. And the searing pain shown by 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, who was fatally shot by the Ohio National Guard moments earlier, freezes in time the impact – and risks taken – by student-led protests against the Vietnam War.
The nation’s founders didn’t give a timetable for change as a result of peaceful assembly and petition for change. Rather, they had a belief in future generations – that discussion and debate, even if rough and tumble, without government interference would lead to decisions benefiting the greatest number of us.
Slowly and at times imperfectly, our public self-review process of assembly and petition generally has propelled us to toward the best solution for all.
We’re a better society for the open and sharp turmoil over issues concerning minority, LGBTQ and women’s rights, and the extent to which personal religious liberty can be guaranteed along with safeguards from discrimination and bias.
The meaning and impact of protests by many over George Floyd’s death at least seems likely to outlast the damage done by a few. The nation’s founders enacted protections for our core freedoms so that we could adapt, reform and improve – but it’s up to us to use those freedoms.