Honoring the Best of 2010 It’s contest time – get your entries in!

By Joan Cartan-Hansen

The Idaho Press Club’s “Best of 2010” awards contest honors the best work in print, broadcast, online and P.R. in Idaho in the past year - and you should enter. This year's contest features an array of categories in which to compete, generous discounts for IPC members, entry fees held to last year's level, and a chance at bragging rights, adulation from your peers and a boost for your resume. The deadline to enter is Jan. 20, and entries are now being accepted.

All the details are at our website, … [Read more...]

Report from fall conference ‘Behind the Lines: A Reporter’s Path to the Truth’

From new media law to fact-checking political ads to Twitter as a reporting tool, the Idaho Press Club's fall conference this year brought Idaho journalists timely and useful training.

The conference, put on by the Press Club's Southwest Chapter, took place Sept. 25 in downtown Boise. Here are some of the tips the presenters passed along to the assembled journalists:

(@carsonjw on Twitter) discussed how to break news and interact with the audience through such tools as Twitter and Facebook. Walker said social networks can be an … [Read more...]

President’s Column City shouldn’t charge big labor fees for public records

By Betsy Russell

Recently, after receiving several complaints from members of the media about their experiences making public records requests of the City of Boise, Press Club board member Allen Derr and I met with Boise Mayor Dave Bieter.

The mayor graciously met with us for more than an hour, and discussed our concerns in depth. A city attorney and city spokesman Adam Park also participated in the meeting.

Mayor Bieter was quite concerned that we thought the city was taking a troubling new hard line on public records … [Read more...]

Reflections on an Idaho newspaper career

By Tim Woodward

Most of us probably gave thanks for about the same things Thursday — homes, families, health, the usual. For me, though, something else came to mind this year: My job.

Not that I haven’t always been thankful for it. These days, anyone with a job should be thankful. But with the end closer than the beginning of a career in what has become an uncertain occupation, I’ve come to appreciate more fully the good luck of having spent my life in the newspaper business.

True, it’s a business that isn’t always held in … [Read more...]

Meet your IPC: Deanna Darr, Boise Weekly

Board member profile

By Natalie Hurst

It's no wonder creativity is interwoven into sentence structure at the Boise Weekly. Just take a look at the Features Editor.

She's a founding board member of Riot Act, Inc., a theater company in Jackson, Wyo., has enjoyed whitewater rafting her whole life and travels whenever she can.

"It's no secret that we do have fun in our jobs and our writing reflects that," said 34-year-old Deanna Darr, the newest member of the Idaho Press Club Board. "As an alternative paper, we … [Read more...]

Media Moves

PRINT 

TIMES-NEWS

The editor and publisher of The Times-News in Twin Falls says he plans to retire at year's end. Brad Hurd has worked for Lee Enterprises for 31 years and has been publisher of The Times-News since November 2004. He was named editor last year. He also oversees the Elko Daily Free Press in Elko, Nev. Hurd joined Lee in 1979 as an assistant city editor for the Missoulian in Missoula, Mont. He was the Missoulian's editor from 1982 to 1994, when he became manager of Farcountry Press, a Lee-owned book and magazine … [Read more...]

Former P-I assistant ME joins Moscow paper

The Moscow-Pullman Daily News has a new managing editor - and it's a former high-ranking editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer with 20 years of newspaper management experience.

Lee Rozen, 61, will replace former Daily News managing editor Doug Bauer on June 28; Bauer went to the Lewiston Tribune as managing editor in May, replacing the retiring Paul Emerson.

Rozen, 61, was among the casualties when the P-I laid off most of its staff in March of 2009, including all of its top management. He had … [Read more...]

MEDIA MOVES

TELEVISION

Idaho Falls/Pocatello  Market

KPVI-TV

Sports director Brad Shellgren took a job in Fort Myers, Florida.

KIDK-TV

Chris Huston, news director, is a new arrival from KFDX in Wichita Falls, Texas. Chris is in his 21st year as a news director, and 31st in broadcast journalism.  Family, friends, and lifestyle bring him to Idaho Falls.

KIFI-TV

Reporter Megan Boatwright left in January and returned to Florida where her family lives.   Brett Crandall replaced her in the … [Read more...]

Meet Your IPC: Todd Dvorak

By Sydney Sallabanks

In the newsroom and on the river, Todd Dvorak is lost in thought. Angling for the next big trout or the next thought-provoking story, the supervisory correspondent at the Boise Bureau of the Associated Press is pensive, always thinking about what’s going on.

His fascination with news first sparked in the late 1980s in the wake of major world events—the dismantling of the Berlin wall, the release of Nelson Mandela, and a major life event—college graduation. “I was floating around, trying to figure … [Read more...]

President’s Column

Public board meeting?  Let ’em tape

By Betsy Russell

One thing that I love about the IDOG open records and meetings seminars that we continue to hold around the state is that, even though I've been attending them since 2004, I still always learn something.

This spring was no exception. At well-attended and highly informative seminars in McCall and Mountain Home, Idahoans for Openness in Government joined with Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and an array of sponsors to bring a fun, interactive session to local … [Read more...]

High court ruling upholds public records law

The state of Washington won its case in the U.S. Supreme Court - and so did Idaho - when the high court recently upheld Washington’s Public Records Act and its requirement that signatures on a referendum petition be public, not secret. Idaho has similar laws, and joined 22 other states in filing a “friend of the court” brief backing Washington’s position.

The group “Protect Marriage Washington” sued to prevent the release of the names of those who signed Referendum 71, the state’s unsuccessful measure that sought to overturn a … [Read more...]

Confidential sources

Case set precedent a quarter century ago on reporter shield law in Idaho

By William L. Spence

It wasn’t Deep Throat and the story didn’t topple a presidency, but an anonymous phone call to a Moscow reporter did help establish the legal precedent that protects Idaho reporters today.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the court ruling in the case, known as In Re Wright.

It began in the fall of 1982, when reporter Jim Wright of the Moscow Daily Idahonian — now the Moscow-Pullman Daily News — wrote a story … [Read more...]

Media Moves

TELEVISION
Idaho Falls/Pocatello  Market

KPVI-TV
Sports director Brad Shellgren took a job in Fort Myers, Florida.

KIDK-TV
Chris Huston, news director, is a new arrival from KFDX in Wichita Falls, Texas. Chris is in his 21st year as a news director, and 31st in broadcast journalism.  Family, friends, and lifestyle bring him to Idaho Falls.

KIFI-TV
Reporter Megan Boatwright left in January and returned to Florida where her family lives.   Brett Crandall replaced her … [Read more...]

Oh BOI! KBCI has new call letters, set and graphics

By Natalie Hurst

Talk about a new look for spring. KBCI has changed its call letters to KBOI and picked up a new set and graphics to accompany the change. It marks a return to the station's original call letters, back in the 1970s, along with its partnership with KBOI Radio.

"I feel the set and graphics reflect our KBOI 2News commitment to covering the news, weather and sports in our community thoroughly and aggressively for the viewer," said News Director Julie Weindel.

Weindel said the set was in planning … [Read more...]