Our snow-delayed event with H&R Block’s Tax Institute has been rescheduled for

Thursday, Feb. 26
9 a.m.
McClendon Room, National Press Club

Amy McArarney, the head of H&R Block’s independent tax research arm, The Tax Institute, will speak with RRA members to share the implications of pending legislation and resources the group has to bring DC tax policies and proposals to readers back home.

Please RSVP so I can get an accurate count.

Thomas Burr
RRA President
president@rra.org

The latest from our “share your stories” feature:

Headline: Legislative sausage-making: How a bill does not become a law
Description: At the height of the health care debate, I did a story about the amendments our senators had filed. I figured I’d pick one and journal it from inception to passage as a nice little “how a bill becomes a law” bit. So in the interest of getting a successful one, I selected a one-word amendment that Democrats had pretty unanimously backed, seemed to simply correct an oversight in the bill drafting and even had a Republican co-sponsor.
Link: http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2010/01/12/14823/legislative_sausage-making_how_a_bill_does_not_become_a_law
Byline: Derek Wallbank, MinnPost, dwallbank@minnpost.com

Yesterday we put our new rra.org design online, and one of the features is a page where members can submit their stories for the group to see. Since no one ever likes to go first, I thought I’d break the ice and share a piece of mine that ran today.

Headline: Who bankrolls North Jersey House campaigns
Description: A look at 2009 contributions to three North Jersey House members and how those checks intersect with the Congressmen’s actions on the Hill.
Link: http://bit.ly/c9RRIk
By: Herb Jackson, The Record, jackson@northjersey.com

 

This program at the National Press Club might interest some regionals:

 CIA informants gone bad. Terrorists who slip through security. What’s the real risk? The National Press Club in Washington hosts two seminars to help you cover those and a host of other stories that involve risk. Plane crashes, food poisoning, climate change to terrorism, the environment, health and public safety: they all have key questions reporters must answer in order to tell audiences whether something is risky and, if so, how much. These sessions will also help you understand how people perceive risk — why some people are “freaked out” about relatively small ones but are not more concerned about really big ones.

 Our series of two 1.5 hour seminars will be held Wedneday, Jan. 13 through Friday, Jan. 15 at various times and will be presented by Harvard instructor and former Emmy award-winning television reporter David Ropeik. Ropeik is co-author of RISK: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You and author of the forthcoming How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Match The Facts. 

SESSION I: The Basic Components of Risk (it’s more than statistical “odds) 

SESSION II: The Psychology of Risk Perception

These sessions are free for National Press Club members and $10 per session for non-members; coffee and snacks provided as are resource materials. See the various session times and sign up online at: http://press.org/library/riskreporting/.  

The seminars are sponsored by the NPC Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library’s Professional Development Committee with support from the Lounsbery Foundation, a foundation aimed at helping the public understand science and technology. Classes will be held in the library’s Bloomberg Center for Electronic Journalism classroom.  For more information, contact committee Chairwoman Susan Heavey at sheavey@reuters.com

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Wanted to point you out to a few stories that you might be interested in localizing for your own congressional delegation:

• Peter Urban (formerly of the Connecticut Post and now with Gannett) wrote about Minority Leader John Boehner’s high-flying lifestyle by searching campaign filings to show that he had stayed, for example, at a swanky California hotel where rooms go for more than $500 a night: http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20091016/NEWS0108/910170340/
• Jerry Zremski of the Buffalo News quizzed his delegation on their thoughts on how to deal with Afghanistan, a good move as Obama plans to lay out his own plans: http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/821048.html
• Sylvia Smith of the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette has been on top of the Postal Service changes and wrote an interesting column this weekend: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091018/EDIT0501/310189940/1002/LOCAL
• Yours truly spent some time stalking the D.C.-area homes of Utah’s congressional members and is glad to report no restraining order is forthcoming: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13572102?source=rss

As always, please let me know if you have a story in which others might be interested.

– Thomas Burr, RRA president

The White House Media Affairs shop has agreed to join members of the Regional Reporters Association for a happy hour tomorrow, Tuesday, July 7, at the National Press Club. Your regional spokespeople have been invited, and I hope you can join us to chat off-the-record in a social environment.

The board has approved some funds so that everyone should be able to enjoy at least one free drink. Members who have not yet paid their 2009 dues may do so at the event.

The deets:

When: Tuesday, July 7, starting at 6:30pm
Where: National Press Club’s McClendon Room (529 14th St, NW)
Who: The White House Media Affairs Office and the Regional Reporters Association

Best, Tommy

Thomas Burr
RRA President

A letter from RRA President Thomas Burr, following the annual meeting:

Fellow regionals,

At a general membership meeting today at the National Press Club, your entire slate of Regional Reporters Association officers and board members were re-elected to serve another term. A list of those elected by acclamation is below.

I am again humbled by your support to serve for one more term as president of the group and hope that we can do all we can to help boost opportunities for regional Washington correspondents and promote our important work to the masses.

As you well know, it’s a difficult time for us correspondents given the economic downturn and the industry troubles. But as you also are aware, no one in this town can sift through and dig out hometown news better than those of us regional correspondents working the halls of Congress and pressing officials from departments, agencies and the White House.

As always, please feel free to suggest ideas or offer suggestions on how RRA can help you as a regional correspondent.

Best, Thomas

Officers

President:Thomas Burr, Salt Lake Tribune
Vice President:Joe Morton, Omaha World Herald
Secretary: Lisa Mascaro, Las Vegas Sun
Treasurer: Malia Rulon, Gannett News Service

At-large directors

Alex Daniels, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Todd Gillman, Dallas Morning News
Michael Coleman, Albuquerque Journal
Bart Sullivan, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Jessica Wehrman, Dayton Daily News
Paul Merrion, Crain’s Chicago Business
Josh Drobnyk, Allentown Morning Call
Keith Chu, Western Communications Newspapers (Oregon, Calif.)
Herb Jackson, The Record ( Bergen County, N.J.)

About the RRA: The organization was formed in 1988 by Washington-based regional reporters who found they could help each other without compromising competition and who had more success asking to interview a high-ranking administration official as a group than they did individually. The group currently has nearly 50 paid members, who represent papers from Detroit to Houston and from St. Petersburg to San Jose and many major cities in between.

Another quick reminder of the general board meeting and elections today at noon at the National Press Club. Please join us if you can. Free appetizers for those who can make it.

General membership meeting and board and officer elections:
Today, Monday, June 22
Noon
National Press Club, Mezzanine, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, DC

The following positions are up for election:
President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and nine board of directors spots.

Please feel free to nominate yourself or another member by emailing president@rra.org. Nominations also will be accepted at the general meeting.

In accordance with our bylaws, members who have paid 2009 dues will be eligible to run for office and vote. You must be in attendance to vote. No proxy votes are allowed. Uncontested races will be voted on by a raise of hands or voice vote; contested races will be resolved by secret ballot.

Please feel free to email with any questions.

Passing on from Diana Marrero, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

I recently attended a boot camp at the National Press Club to help
prepare print journalists for television interviews. The boot camp was
led by two longtime Washington, D.C.-area television journalists
Andrea McCarren and Alisa Parenti. I thought I would share some of the
things I learned with other regional reporters. Hope they are useful.

(more…)

If you could not make the “Survival boot camp” Saturday at the National Press Club, the daylong program was well received by the 50 to 75 attendees, including several RRA members. The agenda included tips on reinventing yourself after a layoff, resume dos and donts, power networking, transitioning from old media to new media, talks from some of the specialty publications that are hiring, how to assess your own life, tips for financial planning, and advice on freelancing.

Here’s some takeaway points that RRA members shared: (more…)