Colorado Press Women

These autographed books will make great gifts for the holidays.

SCHEDULE
9 a.m...............Registration with coffee, tea and mini-muffins
9:15 a.m..........Introductions and announcements
9:25 a.m..........Dick Kreck, Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family
10:05 a.m........Break
10:20 a.m........Elizabeth Yarnell, The Glorious One-Pot Meal
11 a.m.............Break
11:15 a.m........Beth Simmons and Katherine Honda, The Legacy of Arthur Lake
11:55 a.m........Break and box lunch

DINOSAUR RIDGE
In 1877, Arthur Lakes (1844-1917), a Colorado School of Mines professor, discovered some of the best-known dinosaurs including Apatosaurus; Stegosaurus, the Colorado state fossil; and Allosaurus. These specimens represent animals that lived 150 million years ago in the Late Jurassic Period, also known as the “Age of Giants.”

In 1989, the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge formed to address increasing concerns about preservation of the site and to educate the public about the area’s resources. In 1994, the Friends began renovating a house and barn on the historic Rooney Ranch to create the Dinosaur Ridge Visitor Center.

The former ranch house has become a gift shop with attractive and educational items related to dinosaurs and geology, and the barn now hosts an educational exhibit, Trek Through Time, where visitors may learn about the natural history of this area before or after their visit to the fossil sites. Every year Dinosaur Ridge and Triceratops Trail are destinations for close to 100,000 dinosaur enthusiasts, earth scientists, students of all ages and nature lovers.

Career Development Workshop

"It's a Brand New Career World" attracted more than 30 participants to the Lakewood Library for round-table discussions on four topics.

Attendees chose to participate in two of four table discussions, and later the group heard summary reports about each of the four topics.

Here are notes from the two rounds of discussions at the four tables:

Starting Your Own Business, led by Lisa Sigler, president of Sigler Communications Inc.

• First, ask yourself if you have people, such as current clients, in your Rolodex who will give you business.
• Should have at least one to two years of income banked before you start a business.
• 90 percent of her business comes from former clients and the people she has met through them. She intentionally doesn't do a lot of RFPs (request for proposals) because it is extremely time-consuming.
• A lot of referrals are from people from other disciplines (e.g., attorneys, engineers) she comes into contact with.
• She has really niched in her field, which has helped in competitiveness.
• Network and attend conferences with business professionals that you are seeking business from, not with your peers who are looking for business.
• Her rates are the same for all clients, regardless of what she is asked to do, however, she does not try to do everything and is enthusiastic about subcontracting.
• Liability insurance is important and some clients require it.
• Don't underestimate the work you can grow within a company, but do not put all of your eggs in one basket.

Freelancing: Getting Started and Staying in the Game, led by Lynn Dean, president of Colorado Press Women and president of Lynn Dean Writing Services

• She finds it helpful to talk to a magazine's advertising staff to get a feel for what their market is and what their readers want.
• Most "successful" magazine freelancers earn less than $5,000 a year; she does not consider this her full-time occupation.
• Freelancing as a grant writer can provide more regular work.
  • Colorado has the Colorado Common Grant Writing database used by most agencies for soliciting grants; helps keep writers from having to re-tailor grants for different audiences.
  • Certain sections of a grant application can be stored as "boilerplate" and dropped into many different grant applications, minimizing starting from scratch.
  • If interested in grant writing, look at the Colorado Association of Nonprofit Organizations website at coloradononprofits.org; they have workshops for aspiring grant writers.
• Freelancers can also become better known through writing blogs. Wordpress is one of the most popular blog sites.

Marketing Yourself with Social Media led by Kate Johnson, senior new media strategist at the University of Denver

• Market yourself by not talking about yourself; don't sound like an ad.
• Content (e.g., WebMD) brings people in.
• LinkedIn was initially created to get introductions to other people - who do you know who knows someone at the company you are interested in contacting.
  • LinkedIn is beyond sending job applications.
  • Can be used for references and you can ask your supervisors to write reviews.
  • Join a LinkedIn group - can send a message out to them.
  • Use status updates to market (e.g., for the first time I..., just received my certification in …, just got this published in . . .).
• Twitter — huge fad! Fastest growing.
  • Average twitter user tweets only once.
  • Great for breaking news!
  • Twitter hash tags - figure out hash tags (e.g., election, Michael Jackson, etc.).
  • Can be used to publish links to point people in a direction.
  • Trustworthiness - big question.
  • Companies can use to get feedback about their products/services
  • My Space is used mainly by high school kids and bands.
• Facebook was started for universities.

Job Hunting with Social Media and Networking led by Linda Sollars, training coordinator for Jefferson County Workforce Center and owner of Creating Purpose

• VIASurvey.org - understand your strengths!
• What do people want to know at interviews? Your strengths and your weaknesses.
• Think of three things that you want the interviewer to know about you.
• Do not send resumes out on the Internet; 10,000 people are interviewing for the same job.
• More than 70 percent of jobs are not advertised.
• Most important for job hunters - you need to know who to talk to.
• Ask yourself - what are the skills that you already have that are transferable to the job you are applying for?
• Gold Collar Workers - people who have a knowledge set that they bring with them; they can hit the ground running.
• Do not put your address on resume; provide name, telephone number and e-mail address.
• Resumes should be no more than two pages.
• Always ask your friends and family, "Who do you know that I can meet?"
• LinkedIn - search people; networking settings: click no visibility; edit; include good search words.
• Volunteer!

Summer Social and Networking Luncheon

This event took place at Lee Anne Peck’s historic home in Fort Collins.

Here was the schedule:

Some members met at 11 a.m. for a tour of Old Town, presented by Peck's summer interns. They directed participants toward the nearby Fort Collins History Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. Picturesque Old Town offers shops, galleries and restaurants.

Peck's home, built in 1912 as a grocery store, still has trolley tracks in front of the building. Her husband, Joe Coca, is a commercial photographer, and his photo studio is on the first floor of the building, with living quarters on the second floor (formerly for boarders).

A used-book sale was ongoing at Peck’s home. Proceeds from this sale will help fund CPW’s college scholarships, which are awarded each year to deserving Colorado students.

1 p.m.: A Bento box lunch with beverages was catered by the University of Northern Colorado’s culinary club students. (Bento is the Japanese art form of making a packaged lunch. Meals are turned into an occasion with beautifully designed lunch boxes and food that is so fun it resembles art.)

2 p.m.: Tregg White, station operations manager for CBS Northern Colorado 5, a sister station of Cheyenne’s KGWN, spoke in the studio. His talk, titled “Breaking into Northern Colorado,” addressed the five-year journey of breaking into broadcasting in the region and how viewers have embraced the station.

Following the presentation, a raffle drawing was held for a framed Joe Coca photograph. Tickets were sold and proceeds are earmarked CPW's college scholarship program.

Annual Spring Conference & Contest Awards

Panelists discuss media changes, career evolution

The future of journalism in these changing times and the evolution of media careers were the primary topics of the Colorado Press Women spring meeting and annual awards presentation on Saturday, April 25, at the Colorado History Museum, 1300 Broadway, Denver.

CPW members and guests are invited to bring used books, videos, CDs and DVDs for a sale to benefit the group's scholarship fund. During the box lunch, CPW members also honored this year's Communicator of Achievement, Dr. Lee Anne Peck, announced the annual Communications Contest award winners and held an election of officers.

Three panelists discussed the future of journalism. Kevin Flynn, longtime Rocky Mountain News reporter, talked about his former colleagues' efforts to create InDenvertimes.com, a news Web site; Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post TV critic, discussed changes in TV and radio news, including reduced staffs, combined operations and increased citizen involvement; and Ed Otte, executive director of the Colorado Press Association, gave a status of newspapers statewide.

A second panel on evolving careers featured Cynthia Hessin, executive producer of KRMA-Channel 6, discussing her radio and TV careers from news to production; Sandy Graham, journalist, freelance writer and part-time grant writer, talking about how her career has evolved around moves, children and changes; and Hannah Nordhaus, Boulder freelance outdoor writer and oral historian, discussing how she settled into those niches in Boulder.

Here are brief biographies of the six panelists:

Kevin Flynn, who was with the Rocky Mountain News since 1981, will talk about the launch of InDenverTimes.com, the new online comprehensive local news source. The journalist with 35 years of experience in New Jersey and Colorado, covered mostly public policy issues at the News such as transportation including the development of Denver International Airport. Born in Easton, Pa., he studied philosophy in college and began his journalism career in the Philadelphia suburbs of south Jersey. He was a city editor there before coming west. He has covered domestic extremists including the Aryan Nations, and was one of the lead reporters on the killing of KOA talk show host Alan Berg. Flynn wrote two nonfiction books, including one on the gang that killed Berg. Married and the father of three children, he and wife Harriet live in southwest Denver.

Ed Otte has been executive director of the Colorado Press Association since 1995. Colorado Press represents the legal daily and weekly newspapers in the state. By state statute, a legal newspaper is a paid circulation publication with a periodicals postal permit. CPA also has free-distribution daily and weekly members. Prior to joining CPA, Otte was editor of The Greeley Tribune. He also worked at the Alamosa Valley Courier, Colorado Springs Sun, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Bellevue (Ohio) Gazette, Santa Fe (N.M.) New Mexican and El Paso (Texas) Times. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Otte is on the advisory board for the University of Colorado's School of Journalism in Boulder and has taught news writing and public affairs reporting classes at Colorado State University.

Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post TV critic since 1984, has freelanced for a number of publications, co-hosted a radio show on KHOW for five years, and had her first play produced at Denver's Shwayder Theater. Before moving to Denver, she was a staff writer at the Washington Post, on the weekend and metro sections, and previously was a staff writer at Broadcasting magazine, a trade weekly, working in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Born in Washington, D.C., she graduated from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications in 1974. She has a daughter who prefers reading to watching TV.

Cynthia Hessin, executive producer at Rocky Mountain PBS, produces and hosts the weekly news discussion program, Colorado State of Mind, and oversees and produces a variety of other projects for the statewide network. A Denver-area native, Hessin previously worked on KOA radio news and then as a news reporter and anchor at Denver television stations KCNC News 4 and KMGH Denver's 7, where she specialized in government and policy news. In 2004, her documentary about immigration, "The New Coloradans," was distributed to hundreds of regional agencies and schools by The Piton Foundation of Denver, and was also honored by the Colorado Broadcasters Association. Another documentary project, a history of the Van Briggle Art Pottery Company in Colorado Springs, was distributed nationally to PBS stations in 2005, and won a regional Emmy for Best Cultural/Artistic Documentary.

Sandy Graham considers herself not so much reinvented as evolved. After a long career in newspapers that included writing about science, energy and the environment for the Wall Street Journal, Rocky Mountain News and Albuquerque Tribune, Sandy started a freelance writing business in 1992. Her client list has evolved from the National Safety Council to Coors Brewing Company to, most recently, The Colorado Health Foundation, where she is the managing editor of its quarterly journal, Health Elevations. In March, as the evolutionary wheel turned again, Sandy became a part-time grants specialist for the Children's Museum of Denver. She is a graduate of New Mexico State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communications and first joined Press Women in New Mexico in 1976. She is married to Blair Johnson and they have two children, Jaime, 20, and Reed, 18.

Hannah Nordhaus is a Boulder-based freelance writer, editor and historian. Her writing, which focuses on the outdoors, the environment and the American West, has appeared in the Financial Times, the LA Times, Outside, the Village Voice, High Country News and a number of other environmental and outdoor magazines. Until February, she was outdoors columnist for the Rocky Mountain News. Her articles have received awards from the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishing Association, and the Stanford University John S. Knight Fellowship's James V. Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. Besides working as a journalist, she is also copy editor of Colorado Homes and Lifestyles magazine and recently completed a large oral history project for the Rocky Flats Cold War Museum. She is currently at work on The Beekeeper's Lament, a nonfiction book slated for publication by HarperCollins in spring 2011. To see a selection of published clips, visit: www.hannahnordhaus.com.

Panel Discussion: Turbulent Times in Journalism and Public Relations

Turbulent times in journalism and public relations is the topic of a special reception and panel for Colorado Press Women, guests and students from 5–7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5 at the University of Colorado Journalism School. It will be held in the ATLAS Center Broadcast Studio, Basement Level 2 on the Boulder campus.

Journalism School Dean Paul Voakes will open the program with a welcome and remarks on the turbulent changes in the profession and how the school is responding. Our panel of experts features two women from CU and one from the University of Northern Colorado. They will bring their expertise as instructors and university staff members to the table in discussing what journalism students are being taught today to have jobs tomorrow. Their focus will include adapting to digital technology and coping with the economic downturn in the communications professions, including the decline of newspapers.

Students can attend the program for free, while the cost for CPW members is just $15. Registration will begin at 5 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres, soft drinks and socializing, followed by the program at 5:30 p.m. To register, send a $15 check by Feb. 2 to Colorado Press Women, c/o Marion Galant. E-mail her at mariongalant@msn.com for mailing instructions.

Malinda Miller-Huey, assistant director, Office of Media Relations and News Services of the University of Colorado, will talk about how their staff is using multi-media platforms to communicate to the public for the university (including emergency notices).

Sandra Fish, instructor in the University of Colorado Journalism School, will talk about social networking including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and how journalists and PR folks can use them effectively.

Lee Anne Peck, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Northern Colorado journalism program, will discuss how her program and others are preparing students for jobs in the digital age and in this poor economy.

Annual Authors Luncheon

Four Authors to Speak at British Tearoom

Four Denver area authors will discuss their books at the annual Colorado Press Women authors meeting Saturday, Nov. 15. Registration begins at 8:45 a.m. at the Hilltop Inn's Wildflowers Tea Room and Restaurant, 9009 Metro Airport Ave. (south of Highway 36, west of Wadsworth Boulevard in Broomfield). Guests are welcome. The restaurant features British cuisine. (www.guest-house.com)

• Adam Schrager, who covers politics for KUSA-TV (Channel 9) will discuss The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story, his biography of the former Colorado Governor.

• Margaret Coel will talk about her new mystery, Blood Memory. It features a female investigative reporter from Denver trying to find out who wants to kill her and why.

• John Shors' new novel, Beside a Burning Sea, is about the nine disparate characters who survive the sinking of a U.S. hospital ship near a Pacific island.

• Jill Tietjen, electrical engineer, speaker and co-author with Charlotte Waisman, will discuss Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America about more than 900 women and their accomplishments from 1587 to the present.

Here is more information about the authors and their books:

Adam Schrager's riveting biography tells the story of the only political leader in the country to welcome Japanese-Americans to his state during World War II. When Carr took a courageous, yet unpopular stance on the constitutional rights of Japanese-Americans, he fell rapidly from favor. He resisted demands from political opponents to call up the National Guard to keep the Japanese out of the state, fielded thousands of insults and fought off impeachment threats. Adam's colleague Adele Arakawa, Channel 9 TV anchor, said the story gave her insight into the "wartime hysteria that my grandparents and mother lived through, but never talked about."

Schrager came to Denver in 1999 after working for TV stations in London and then in three Wisconsin cities. Winner of more than a dozen Emmy Awards, he teaches introductory broadcast journalism at the University of Denver, conducts seminars on the impact of the media on politics and freelances for 5280 and other publications. He has a bachelor's in history from the University of Michigan and master's in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University where he won the Harrington Award, the Medill School of Journalism's highest honor. He and his wife Cathy have one daughter and another on the way.

In Margaret Coel's new book Blood Memory, Denver investigative reporter Catherine McLeod pursues leads on someone who wants to kill her through the streets and neighborhoods of Denver to the power centers of Washington, D.C. The answers center around the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the proposed $300 million casino the Arapahos want to build. This is the first in a new series.

Boulder resident Coel is the New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Wind River Indian mystery series of 13 books. featuring Jesuit priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden. Her latest, published in 2007, is The Girl with Braided Hair, which won the Colorado Book Award for Fiction Oct. 8. Her novels have been on bestseller lists of numerous newspapers. The Spirit Woman won both the Colorado Book Award and the Willa Cather Award for Best Novel of the West. It was also a finalist for the Western Writers of America prestigious Spur Award for Best Novel. The Shadow Dancer also won the Colorado Book Award.

Her award-winning biography of an Arapaho, Chief Left Hand, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, has never gone out of print, and the Colorado Historical Society recently included it among the best 100 books on Colorado history. She freelances for a number of publications and visits the Wind River Reservation every year, "just to catch up with my Arapaho friends."

John Shors' new book Beside a Burning Sea, his second novel, is a tale of love, class, race, war and survival after a torpedo sinks the U.S. hospital ship Benevolence in the Pacific. The Lafayette author's first novel, Beneath a Marble Sky, was published in 2006 and tells the historical romantic tale behind the Taj Mahal. He is finishing a third book set in contemporary Vietnam.

After graduating from Colorado College in 1991 (where he studied creative writing and English) Shors pursued his dream of living in Asia. He spent three years as an English teacher in Kyoto, Japan, and then backpacked across Asia, visiting 10 countries over the next few years. Highlights from his journey included climbing the Himalayas of Nepal and exploring the monuments of India.

Upon returning home, Shors became a newspaper reporter in his home state of Iowa. Within two years he won three statewide awards in journalism, including one for best investigative reporting. He and his wife then moved to Boulder, where he began a public relations career, working for clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to local nonprofits. He visits book clubs and encourages reader feedback (email shors@aol.com.) He and his wife have two children.

Jill Tietjen is an electrical engineer, speaker and co-author with Charlotte Waisman of Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America published by HarperCollins. They reviewed 3,000 candidates and chose 900 accomplished women ranging from artists and writers to doctors, scientists, and activists of all backgrounds and philosophies. A photo of the woman and what she invented or accomplished is summarized. Her Story brings to light the varied, momentous and often unrecognized achievements of American women. See www.herstoryatimeline.com

Tietjen is the CEO of Technically Speaking, a national consulting company specializing in improving opportunities for women and girls in technology careers. She co-authored the Setting the Record Straight series with Betty Reynolds, which explores the history of women's accomplish-ments in accounting, engineering and professional achievement. She wrote an introduc-tion to an engineering textbook (for college freshmen), Keys to Engineering Success, and was a contributing author to the 1995 book She Does Math. She's also written articles in various engineering magazines.

One of the top historians in the country on scientific and technical women, Tietjen is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences. She served as the 1991-1992 National President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and is listed in Who's Who in Engineering, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, and Who's Who in Technology.

Tietjen has worked for the University of Colorado at Boulder, Stone & Webster Management Consultants, Hagler Bailly Consulting, Mobil Oil Corporation's Mining and Coal Division and Duke Power Company. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics (minor in Electrical Engineering) and received her M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Tietjen is a registered professional engineer in Colorado.

Summer Social

Members got together to celebrate summer, scholarship and meet some new friends at a wine and cheese social on Saturday, July 12, at the home of CPW member Barbara Gigone in Louisville.

Our scholarship winners, including a young woman journalism student from Croatia, attended. Several members brought a guest — a potential CPW member, a journalism student, a daughter or a friend.

Spring Conference, Communications Contest Awards

CPW participants gained an insider’s look at the media side of the Democratic National Convention scheduled for Denver in August, and a non-technical tour of today’s Internet. In addition, the 2008 Communicator of Achievement was honored and winners were announced in CPW's annual Communications Contest.

< Chris Lopez, communications director of the Democratic National Convention, discussed plans for the convention; how local, national and even international press and bloggers will cover it, planning for security and activists, roles of volunteers and other aspects. Len Edgerly, former reporter and communications director, provided an overview of today’s Internet from podcasting to Twitter to Second Life to Google Reader and more. >

Lopez, a native of Alamosa, graduated from Adams State College in 1983. He worked nine years at the Pueblo Chieftain and seven years at The Denver Post before moving to California for more than seven years. He was managing editor and executive editor of the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek and most recently managing editor and general manager for The Desert Sun, a Palm Springs Gannett paper.

Lopez is handling all media inquiries related to the convention’s Host Committee activities and is the liaison with the city of Denver, the state of Colorado, the Colorado Congressional Delegation and the Democratic National Convention Committee.

Edgerly was a reporter at The Woonsocket (R.I.) Call, a business reporter for The Providence Journal-Bulletin and editor of Western Energy Magazine in Casper, Wyo. He then directed corporate communications for KN Energy in Lakewood until his retirement in 1996. His poetry has appeared in AGNI, Margie, 5 a.m., New York Quarterly, High Plains Literary Review and The Beloit Poetry Journal.

A graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Business School and the Bennington College Writing Seminars MFA program, he is active in arts organizations. He is past chair of the Western States Arts Federation in Denver and serves on the Board of the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

Edgerly blogs at www.LenEdgerly.com, and his podcasts, Audio Pod Chronicles and Video Pod Chronicles, are available for free download at the iTunes Music Store or on the Web at www.AudioPodChronicles and www.VideoPodChronicles. He and his wife, an avid quilter, divide their time between Denver and Cambridge, Mass.

Annual Meet-the-Authors Luncheon

Social & Networking Event — Fall 2007

This Colorado Press Women's meeting at the Colorado Historical Society, 1300 Broadway, Denver, was as interesting and diverse as we are! Our guest speaker, Lee Anne Peck, Ph.D., has recently returned from six months as a Fulbright Scholar teaching mass communications in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Lee Anne shared her experiences (and gae some tips to those of us who would like to teach abroad). She is currently an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Northern Colorado, a switch she made following a career in writing and editing (want to know how to make the switch?).

Summer 2007

On Saturday morning, Taos Pueblo native and reporter/author/actor Rick Romancito provided tips on how to cover Native American issues and work with tribes. He cautioned against making blanket statements about “Native American” perspectives or traditions, because “each of the hundreds, thousands of tribes across the U.S. has different beliefs, origins, languages. It’s offensive, actually, to generalize for all these people.”

Romancito advised reporters “to be as precise as possible” when obtaining names, titles, clan designations and family. “In Navajo, that is how they define their identity,” he said. In reference to his own pueblo, which many of the press women would tour later that day, he said, “The pueblo doesn’t exist for tourists, not now or ever, and that is the same for the dances. They have to be done no matter what, they are ceremonial for the cycle of the universe.”

Our luncheon speaker, author and importer Martha Egan, told her true story of being harassed for more than a decade by the federal government after complaining to her congressman about her treatment at the border when she was bringing Mexican pottery and art pieces into the U.S. to sell in a shop in Santa Fe. The experience has left her bitter, but she managed to find enough humor and irony in it to write a fiction book, Clearing Customs, that draws on some of what she endured.

Numerous excellent ideas about membership recruitment and retention, successful meetings, and other organizational issues were developed during a brainstorming session among press women. The notes from the session are being compiled will be shared with the CPW and NMPW boards. Several suggestions will also be passed along to the National Federation of Press Women, our parent organization.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Annual awards luncheon featured entertainment panel

Colorado Press Women's Spring Conference 9 a.m. Saturday, May 12, at Mount Vernon Country Club west of Denver.

Greg Moody, Mark Brown and Marty Meitus shared a panel discussion on covering popular culture and entertainment news. Moody comments on movies, television and media for CBS Channel 4 in Denver, while Brown and Meitus are music critic and food critic, respectively, for the Rocky Mountain News.

The conference also included presentation of the Communicator of Achievement Award, CPW College Scholarship Award and Communications Contest Awards. The 2007 Communicator of Achievement honoree, Marilyn Saltzman, spoke about career transitions during lunch.

Saturday, March 31, 2007 Professional Development Workshop — "Exploring New Media" (Photos by Ann Lockhart) Blogging. Videos. Podcasts. Message boards. It’s all online — it’s the new media. If journalists and marketing experts don’t start evolving and learning skills like shooting and uploading simple videos and editing and posting audio files, they will be left behind. That was the message at the "Exploring New Media" professional development workshop co-hosted by Colorado Press Women and the Denver Woman’s Press Club in March. Nearly 50 people packed the DWPC clubhouse to hear three Colorado media pros discuss how new technologies are changing the way news is delivered and how consumers relate to news and marketing organizations. “It’s a great time of transition between the written and digital medium,” said Gil Asakawa, content director for Examiner.com and founder of Nikkeiview, a blog dealing with pop culture and Asian-American perspectives on the media and politics that he started in 1988. “News consumption used to be very ritualistic – sitting in your robe with coffee and a bagel reading the Sunday New York Times for several hours,” Asakawa said. “Young people, the demographic we’re most worried about, are more opportunistic and want to go to one place for that one piece of information, be it a car crash they just heard about or a hot band.” He noted that this generation skips the local newsstand and goes to social networking sites like YouTube and message boards for their information and entertainment. Another source is blogs — web logs written in journal style that offer commentary or news on a subject and allow readers to leave comments. Podcasts — digital media files shared over the web that can be downloaded to your iPod or personal computer — are also popular. The trick for news providers is to become opportunistic themselves, Asakawa said. Find a way to make the consumer click one more time on your web site by adding interactive elements like a digital slideshow, video clips or bloggers. He insists you don’t have to be technical, just know what equipment and software you have and explore it. “News operations are starting to figure out what news is for consumers, and that’s why the media is becoming more niche-focused,” Asakawa said. “News is pervasive and by the time the morning paper comes out the story has [already] appeared online, on CNN and on the radio. If a story matters, people will find it.” The Fort Collins Coloradoan, guided by New Media Development Manager Kate Gannon, launched online video, breaking news updates, twice-daily newsletters and photo galleries on its website this year to attract readers. Gannon, a CPW member, held a newsroom boot camp for photographers, reporters and editors at the small paper to teach everyone how to shoot video — using it like a still camera on a tripod as well taking close-ups — and use a microphone to record natural sound. Several editors and reporters are now able to edit videos and post them online. As a result, the paper was the first to publish images of police arresting robbers who had fled an Old Town grocery store after holding customers hostage. “Our philosophy is, we write for the Web and update for print,” Gannon said. “Readers don’t care if you’re small, they expect timely information. We’re working on incorporating second-day heads to stories so readers aren’t bored after seeing it the day before.” Coloradoan.com offers readers several ways to shape story coverage and provide content. A request for readers to e-mail their blizzard photos drew hundreds of responses and generated a great deal of traffic on the web site, Gannon noted. “Storychat” allows readers to post comments about articles. Any mistakes discovered can be fixed for the print edition. On the horizon is “crowd sourcing,” when the paper will tell readers about a story it is working on and request research, documents and feedback. “Our paper doesn’t have staff members that stay 10 years and cover city government, and this is a way to get more sources,” Gannon explained. “We’re tired of being behind. We want to be the portal to information that people need.” Public relations practitioners are also becoming more tech savvy to get their message out, sometimes bypassing the traditional media, said Andrew Hudson, director of corporate communications for engineering firm ARCADIS. Hudson also runs a wildly popular PR Jobs List e-mailed to more than 2,000 subscribers. “A PR person must understand what is compelling, trendy and on the front lines,” Hudson said. “Video news releases are cheap and effective. Companies are posting fun, cool videos on YourHub to attract consumers. Newspapers pay attention and may even pick it up.” However, Hudson cautioned that new media can’t replace old-fashioned relationships. “Picking up the phone and calling the editor at the local paper is still the most effective way to get your news in the paper.” — Julie Estlick January 2007 Author Alicia Shepard CPW members enjoyed two opportunities to meet author Alicia Shepard in January. At both a Denver reception and an intimate dinner in Boulder, Shepard shared anecdotes about what it was like researching her latest book, Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate. Shepard interviewed 175 people and combed through archives in preparation of the book. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, though the focus of the book, were not cooperative in their interviews. Luckily for Shepard, Woodward and Bernstein sold the Watergate papers to the University of Texas for $5 million. The papers included fan letters, financial records and memos to Robert Redford on the movie version of their story. As it turns out, the “archives had more authoritative information than talking to them, because our memories are so skewed,” she said. For example, the famous line, “Follow the money,” from the movie, “All the President’s Men,” was made up by a screenwriter and was never actually uttered by Deep Throat. Interviews led to tips about two other archives that were also crucial for Shepard in fitting the puzzle together. Another author, David Halberstam, had left archives at Boston University. The wife of director Alan Pakula had donated his notes to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. These archives gave Shepard many insights into the personalities of Woodward and Bernstein, as well as leading to further interviews. One of those was with the curmudgeonly Barry Sussman, who was the city editor at the Washington Post when the Watergate story broke, Shepard said. He had assigned the story to the two men and understood its magnitude early on. Yet, when Woodward and Bernstein later wrote their own book about the experience, they cut him out entirely, she said. Shepard called Sussman in 2003 and talked to him several times. Even 31 years later, he was still bitter and told her, “I have nothing good to say about either of them.” Shepard also shared how she wised up in one of her approaches to getting interviews. One time, she agreed to meet a source for dinner. He stretched it out, made it several courses, strung her along, hardly told her anything and left her with a bill for $162. She vowed not to do that ag in. Later, in contrast, she paid for an $18 lunch that provided her two key leads. When asked what was the biggest new thing about her book, Shepard said, “What I’ve really done is fill out this story. What happens when you’re 29 and 32 years old . . . and overnight you become wealthy?” — Erin Hottenstein Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006 Annual Authors Luncheon Simms Landing, Lakewood At CPW's Fall Authors Meeting members heard from three Colorado authors — Sybil Downing, Patricia Gaffney-Kindig and Baine Kerr. Sybil Downing is the award-winning, best-selling author of four historical novels, a biography and 13 books for young readers. She writes of women and the American West with a passion born of being a fourth-generation Coloradan, a co-founder of Women Writing the West, a reviewer for The Denver Post and the great-granddaughter of Colorado's first U.S. congressman. Her latest book is The Vote: A Novel. Set in 1918, this is the story of the final fight for women's right to vote as seen through the eyes, ears and hearts of three young women from different backgrounds. Her other books include The Binding Oath, Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange, Fire in the Hole, The Colorado Heritage series and the Women of the West series. Patricia Gaffney-Kindig edited and contributed to American WWII Orphans Network, In Their Memory, published by Turner Publishers, which won a CPW first-place award for editing and an honorable mention from NFPW. Patricia is published in numerous newspapers and periodicals, as well as professional publications at Yale University, and is widely regarded as an expert resource on issues related to WWII losses and consequent impact on survivors’ families. Her story is included in The Greatest Generation Speaks by Tom Brokaw and in a segment of Beyond Chance produced in 1999 by the Lifetime Channel that featured the story of Patricia’s search and the discovery of her father’s airplane crash site. Baine Kerr, a Boulder trial lawyer, draws on his litigation experience for his two novels, Wrongful Death and Harmful Intent. Publisher’s Weekly says of Wrongful Death, “Everything winds up fitting together beautifully in this strong and very moving tale. It's an impressive performance and a stunning, inspiring read.” Harmful Intent is a medical courtroom thriller and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of Denver’s writing programs, Baine has written a collection of short stories, Jumping-Off Place, and was published in Best American Short Stories. He was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship and the Editors’ Prize award from the Missouri Review. In other business at the meeting, Marilyn Saltzman was announced as the 2007 recipient of the CPW Communicator of Achievement. Read more > >