KORTNEY YOUNG
Special to the Leader
Fredonia’s chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) would like to welcome any and all audiences to the Spring Conference of 2015, on Saturday, March 7. Numerous professionals out of Buffalo, from a variety of different media outlets, will be offering audience members an opportunity to make connections and find out just what goes into each profession.
“[The Journalism staff] wanted to give [students] a professional group that would be able to bring speakers in and coordinate activities having to do with journalism,” said Elmer Ploetz, the advisor for SPJ. Thus, the conference was born.
One of the many advantages of having the program is to potentially offer students a foot in the door; in the case of one student, it led to a permanent job.
“The Channel 2 News director came down, one of our students ended up talking with him, and he said ‘send in your stuff, apply for an internship.’ He did, and then at the end of the summer, [Channel 2 news] asked if he could work part-time in the fall,” said Ploetz, “He managed to graduate a semester early and [started] full time.”
Part of the challenge for the group is reaching out and getting speakers to come to Fredonia. Alex Kaluzny, a senior journalism major and president of SPJ, said that there are just as many people who accept the offer as there are who reject it. But even the latter are always sorry they cannot make it and ask to be contacted next time.
It is each student’s responsibility to get in contact with said professionals by email, phone or any means possible. Kaluzny was able to contact one of the speakers via Twitter.
As an overseer to the process of deciding what professionals to contact, Kaluzny stresses the importance of bringing in professionals from all facets of the media: print, TV, radio, social media and photographic journalism.
This year, SPJ is thrilled to welcome Geoff Kelly, editor-in-chief of The Public, as the conference’s keynote speaker. Ploetz says he offers an interesting perspective and has spoken to his students on various occasions.
“We always hope for a big turnout; it’s never quite as big as we hope, but we are always glad for whoever we have. Most of the people that come are usually pretty pleased and get a chance to talk to some of the people from the media,” said Ploetz.
Curtis Henry, a sophomore journalism major, is excited to be involved with SPJ and will be attending his first conference this Saturday. “The conference will be a great way for anyone looking to work in the media to build new connections. In today’s day and age, that’s of utmost importance,” said Henry.
The conference will be held 10 a.m., Saturday, March 7, in The Williams Center, rooms 204A, 204B and 206. It is open and free to all audiences. Speakers will be available for questions following their lectures.
The current roster for the conference is as follows:
10:00 – 10:50 a.m:
Tim Graham, The Buffalo News
Brian Meyer, 88.7 BWFO-FM
John DiSciullo, WBBZ-TV
11:00 – 11:50 a.m:
Andrew Baglini, WIBV-TV
Jim Heaney, Investigative Post
Erica Brecher, WGRZ-TV
12:00 – 12:45: complimentary lunch
12:45 – 2:00 p.m: Geoff Kelly, The Public