By Audrey Dutton

Some of the best stories in journalism are the ones that make you wonder, “How’d they find out about that?” or “How’d they get that person to talk?”

This year, the Press Club’s Southwest Chapter brings you the story behind the stories, at the IPC’s annual fall professional development conference.

You’ll leave with tips for tackling sensitive topics, crafting a compelling narrative, dealing with “alternative news,” rising to the occasion when a local story goes national — and, of course, fact-finding and interviewing.

Our lineup includes Brian Holmes of KTVB, members of The Times-News team that covered the Fawnbrook case as it gained national attention, and more.

Special guest speaker is Alex Stuckey, a former Idaho reporter and winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Stuckey’s team at the Salt Lake Tribune exposed how BYU and USU mishandled sexual assaults on their campuses. The Pulitzer judges called the work “a string of vivid reports revealing the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University, one of Utah’s most powerful institutions.” (Read the stories here: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/salt-lake-tribune-staff)

New this year: We’re having the event in the afternoon. When the conference ends, we’ll head over to Payette Brewing for beer, conversation and a bite from their food truck — join us!

When: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday Oct. 14

Where: BSU Andrus Center, 301 S. Capitol Blvd. in Downtown Boise (entrance is on the corner, across from Trader Joe’s)

Cost: Free for Press Club members who pre-register at www.idahopressclub.org/events. Otherwise, cost is $10 at the door; $15 for non-members. No cost for students.

Questions? Email Southwest Chapter President Audrey Dutton at adutton@idahostatesman.com.

The rule of law and the role of the judiciary

By Betsy Russell

Those who attended last year’s Idaho Press Club fall conference had the opportunity to hear from former University of Idaho College of Law dean, and former Idaho Court of Appeals judge, Don Burnett, on the media’s role in shaping accurate public perceptions of the courts and their role in our American system of justice – something that’s widely misunderstood in our society today. Now, we are working with Burnett, Attorneys for Civic Education, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, the Idaho Supreme Court, the UI College of Law and more on a half-day workshop, to take place in early February, for journalists, journalism professors and students.

Thanks to a small grant from the ACE, we plan to offer a limited number of expenses-paid fellowships for journalists from outside the Boise area to attend the workshop. We’re also welcoming interest from reporters, editors, producers and news directors in both the print and electronic media, college-level journalism instructors and college journalism students in attending this session, which will take place on a Saturday in Boise, most likely at the Idaho Law & Justice Learning Center.

Are you interested in attending? Is there someone you’d like to nominate for one of the fellowships? Please let me know.

We’re looking forward to a valuable and useful program that will help us improve our work and the public understanding of the role of the courts.

Journalist Sarah Jacobsen has joined KBOI/KYUU, from sister station KLEW in Lewiston. 

MOSCOW-PULLMAN DAILY NEWS

Kara McMurray was hired as a newsroom assistant at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on Sept. 3. She previously worked as a reporter/photographer/editor at the Whitman County Gazette in Colfax, Wash. She is a 2014 graduate of the Murrow College of Communications at Washington State University and is studying online for a master’s in communication management from USC-Annenberg.

Taylor Nadauld has left the Pullman/Whitman County beat to take over the higher education beat for the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. Shanon Quinn has resigned as higher education reporter at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and is now working in construction and pursuing personal writing projects.

IDAHO STATESMAN

Real-time news editor Holly Anderson left the Statesman to work at St. Luke’s. News reporter Kris Rodine left to work for the state Department of Education. Sports copy editor Ryan Horlen left for a job at the Spokesman Review.

In internal moves, John Sowell is now the Workplace/Economy reporter for the Statesman. Chadd Cripe was promoted to Sports Editor in July; and Michael Katz is now a reporter on the real-time news team.

IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW

Liz Patterson joined the Idaho Business Review as web editor in mid-September. She develops the online reach of the newspaper through social media and the IBR website. Patterson earned a degree in communications North Idaho College while working for a local marketing firm. She is now pursuing a bachelor’s in psychology at Boise State University. In her free time, she volunteers for the Idaho Humane Society and is involved in advocacy related Boise State student organizations.

THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

Longtime North Idaho reporter, editorial writer and blogger D.F. Oliveria retired in August, also retiring his “Huckleberries Online” blog, which has become a popular community forum. Oliveria capped at 47-year newspaper career, including 33 years with The Spokesman-Review. In his honor, Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer officially proclaimed Aug. 17 “DFO Day In CdA.”

Greg Lee, who covered prep sports for the S-R for 32 years, retired in September. Lee said he plans to do some part-time work for the newspaper after his retirement. He and Oliveria were among 10 S-R staffers who took advantage of a buyout offer from the paper.

“State funding for IdahoPTV can be graphed to resemble a rollercoaster track with a historic fear level of 6.8 out of 10,” Williams writes. Yet, he notes, “Using figures from the National Transportation Association’s average costs for resurfacing a mile of interstate highway through a city like Boise in 2016 ($32,000,000), IdahoPTV’s general fund appropriation ($2,314,000) would cover the cost of about 382 feet of road, not enough to get you off the on ramp to Mountain Home.”

Overall, he writes, “State appropriations to IdahoPTV boil down to $1.42 per Idahoan per year in the FY 2016 budget. In a list of 14 similar states, the average annual cost per person is $2.36. Idahoans are getting a pretty good deal.” You can read the full article here:

https://idahopressclub.org/the-history-of-idaho-public-television-a-roller-coaster-ride-of-funding-programs/

Ryan is the news director at KBOI2 News and is a member of the Idaho Press Club board.

Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: I was born and raised in Yakima, Washington.

Q: How and why did you get into TV journalism?

A: My parents were big fans of local news. As a young child, I watched it with them every day. I didn’t care so much for the news, but enjoyed the interaction between the people who delivered the news. Little did I know at the time, the relationship I watched the team build would shape the teams I help create much later in life. I got my first job at the station I watched – KIMA TV. Walking in the station as an employee for the first time will always be a career highlight.

Q: It looks like you’ve always been on the producer side. Have you ever wanted to be in front of the camera?

A: When I was young, I wanted to anchor. As soon as I got my first job and learned the different roles in a newsroom, I realized producing was for me.

Q: What’s the hardest part about being a producer? News director?

A: Producing is really fun. If you like to create content and organize it, there isn’t a better job. There are a lot of details involved in producing a show, but the process is really fun. The hardest part is when shows don’t go the way you envisioned them to go.

Being a News Director is awesome! You get to see a hard-working team of people put together great content day-in and day-out. The hardest part is how little time there is in each day.

Q: Where else have you worked?

A: I have worked in Yakima (KIMA-TV), Portland (KATU and KPTV), Nashville (WSMV) and here in Boise (KBOI).

Q: Tell us about your time in Nashville. Were you just itching to get back to the Northwest?

A: My time in Nashville was incredible! I loved every second of it and would go back in a heartbeat. During my time there, my wife and I had a child. We wanted to raise her closer to grandparents here in the Northwest and are thankful we have had that opportunity.

Q: What’s the most memorable story you’ve ever been involved in?

A: The teams around me have produced some incredible stories over the years. The ones I can’t get out of my head involved children battling deadly diseases or families dealing with the loss of loved ones who died fighting for our freedom. I am amazed at the strength of the human spirit. People in every city I have lived help each other, care for each other and love each other. It’s a beautiful thing and something I will always be thankful I have been able to witness and share with audiences.

Q: What’s the future of local TV news?

A: I am more excited today about the future of local news than I ever have been. Our communities need the content we produce. As an industry, we are figuring out how to deliver important content that impacts our audiences on multiple platforms! KBOI is fortunate to be part of a company committed to reaching audiences everywhere. All of these opportunities make the product you see on local TV better.

Q: Any advice for young journalists?

A: Write. Write. Write.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish as a board member of the Idaho Press Club?

A: I hope to grow the Idaho Press Club’s influence on Idaho media. The Idaho Press Club can serve as a great resource for local journalists and more need to know it exists.

For 50 years of Idaho Public Television’s existence, the network’s budget has been the best and the worst story, usually the result of the network’s somewhat schizophrenic relationship with the Legislature.

Every budget is a river with funds rarely at flood stage but just as rarely at drought stage. IdahoPTV has experienced both. As a general rule, any organization sitting on the shore is ultimately measured by its reaction to funding levels. It is tougher when the organization has little or no control over the flow.

IdahoPTV has often had to make do with too little (about every 10 years), rarely with freshets. In 2016, IdahoPTV was watched in any given week by just over a third of Idaho’s 1.6 million people on average, and it is these viewers who have sustained the network over the years. The network can depend on them, giving administrators some planning flexibility. Fifty-two percent of the viewers are 35 to 64 years old, a group usually employed. Twenty-seven percent are 65 years old or older, experienced with little time and support for frivolous television. Twenty-one percent range in age from 2 to 34 years old (increasingly making up a new internet generation) and interested in educational programs.

The figures are reassuring, yet television of the quality level most viewers demand is expensive. Video equipment used is used by few others, so it costs big bucks. It starts to crash after five years, and by seven years, repairs (even if parts are still available) cost more than the equipment is worth. It’s money down a rat hole. Getting the programs to televisions and websites in Idahoans’ homes in this corduroy state requires expensive equipment placed in spots where weather is often severe, making the equipment difficult and costly to install, reach or replace. The flow of dollars can dwindle when the quality doesn’t make it to a viewer’s home, so a systemwide downward spiral is tricky to avoid.

If the quality doesn’t reach the viewer, and he or she hides the credit card, there are two other funding sources that might save the day – Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) grants or other federal or foundation grants and state appropriations. But even these funds are tied to viewer support, meaning the funding begins to dry up as soon as foundation boards and elected officials get a hint that viewers are unhappy or changing channels.

The most crucial source is state funds, for that money buys the hardware that gets the programs from the editing bay to home television sets. Today, that system includes five transmitters, 18 microwave links, and 47 translators. Historically, the state funding has often saved the day, but roughly every 10 years, funding cuts or the possibility of cuts by the state have brought the threat of shutting the station doors close enough to cause stress levels to peak. Often the cuts have come as a result of confusing coverage with advocacy, two very different concepts in practice. State funding for IdahoPTV can be graphed to resemble a rollercoaster track with a historic fear level of 6.8 out of 10.

IdahoPTV was 15 years old when it first happened. Up to that time (1980-81), public television would have had to work pretty hard to find detractors. In fact, the Idaho Legislature passed a concurrent resolution in 1972 praising public television and the host of legislative coverage (Gene Shumate) for thorough and unbiased coverage of the work at the Statehouse. But the early 1980s session brought a bill to cut all state funding to public television. There were threats, too, of fewer federal grants to local stations from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the result of winning politicians’ promises in their campaigns of spending cuts.

A perfect storm was brewing, and IdahoPTV was a trailer in the path of the tornado. The 1 percent property tax initiative had just passed, and that meant less money coming in to state coffers. No one knew at the time how little, plus inflation was at record levels, so whatever did come in wasn’t going to buy as much. Legislators were at a loss as to how to implement the initiative or what that would cost.

Add to the mix a recent KUID-Moscow documentary called Cedar Thief and budget frustrations took the form of punishment. The documentary focused on the plight of northern Idaho’s small sawmill owners, who said they had finally resorted to stealing cedar logs to maintain their livelihoods. They blamed new rules for timber sales and large mills like Potlatch for their predicament.

The Forest Service said their sales were larger and that might squeeze the smaller mills, but that it had been approved at the federal level because of a national lumber shortage or, in some areas, a glut of overpriced lumber from inflation. Although asked to respond by program producers, Potlatch said no. Had they appeared on-screen and told their story, people there at the time said the controversy would never have happened. (Potlatch would later become a corporate supporter of public television.)

Local legislators came to Boise, pounded on their desks and said that IdahoPTV was using taxpayers’ money to malign a major North Idaho employer. If anyone spoke up for the small sawmill owners, it was not found in the fat files of clippings from the media of the day. Support, too, at the University of Idaho for documentary work got a lot harder to justify.

There had been rumblings of opposition to earlier documentaries coming out of Moscow. Two programs – Kellogg: The Best To You Each Morning, a report on lead buildup in Silver Valley yards in 1973, and Sweet Land of Liberty, interviews with gay people in the Moscow-Pullman area in 1976 – were seen by some as an affront to the mining industry and to mainstream religious groups. White hats and spurs came off the shelves at the Statehouse, and IdahoPTV lost all state funding except for a small residue of funds (about $35,000) in the Department of Education’s budget for educational television.

The fallout was nearly deadly for public television, but public reaction to the cuts tempered the effects somewhat. Cutbacks at the stations were in place. KAID-Boise cut back on part-time people, cut on-air hours, went off the air at noon on Saturday, and sign-on was at 3 p.m. each day. Savings went into fall-winter program buys and keeping The Reporters a daily show. Still, by the middle of 1981, both Pocatello and Moscow stations were planning to shut down.

Sixteen people lost their jobs at the statewide network. Probably the toughest cuts to take were to the students at U of I. There was no longer enough money to provide what they needed to do hands-on production. Numbers are hard to sift, but a large percentage of communication majors left the university less competitive for jobs than the students from the 1970s.

However, in the fundraising Festival that followed the cuts, memberships increased to 6,000 and $143,000 was pledged, a record amount at the Boise station. The average pledge was $25.55. It had been $7 the year before. And at Moscow, a short fundraising break during halftime at the NCAA tournament brought in a whopping $35,000, a huge amount from the Moscow area in the early 1980s. Also, IdahoPTV was starting a trend of leading the nation in the percentage of PTV viewers. The state with the most dedicated viewers had the stingiest legislature.

A Catch 22 is developing: The more money IdahoPTV raises from sources other than the state funds, the more the state wants to cut funding. And if cutting budgets is popular, how could you get more credit for doing it than by cutting public television? It is built-in publicity, even if you don’t do the cutting or restore some of it quietly. The amount of state funds in the various budget cutting years has never been great in relation to the total state budget. Using figures from the National Transportation Association’s average costs for resurfacing a mile of interstate highway through a city like Boise in 2016 ($32,000,000), IdahoPTV’s general fund appropriation ($2,314,000) would cover the cost of about 382 feet of road, not enough to get you off the on ramp to Mountain Home.

A supplemental appropriation late in 1981 ($334,000 with an extra $34,500 to KAID-Boise for legislative coverage) kept the doors open at all three stations through the upcoming January legislative session. There, the Legislature created Idaho Educational Public Broadcasting Service and put the statewide operation under a single general manager answering to the State Board of Education, a go-to person for questions that might come up from both the Statehouse and from the general public. Stations left the three university umbrellas and became part of the State Board of Education budget. No other public television network in the country had a similar structure, so no one was sure of the ways to make it work. In later years, other PBS stations would view this change as a good idea.

By the mid-1980s, the state was contributing 26 cents of each dollar spent on IdahoPTV (coming from 65 cents per Idahoan per year), but it wasn’t enough to replace video and electronic editing equipment that was beginning to conk out. For example, one tube socket shorted out at KUID-Moscow and the station was off the air for two days. Budgets were getting critical. Managers were unable to plan ahead for program purchases that they weren’t sure they could deliver to homes. And if they bought the equipment, they couldn’t afford the programs.

The network set up a fundraising program to buy new equipment. The goal was $3 million, which they managed to reach. But no sooner was the new equipment turned on than the second 10-year budget cut roared over the horizon. This time it was at the federal level, an attempt to squeeze the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the major source of grants to IdahoPTV (30 percent of the budget at the time).

President Ronald Reagan had vetoed the 1987-88-89 CPB budgets, one passed unanimously by the Congress. CPB argued that their budget was a small part of the total federal budget and worked out to less than a dollar per US citizen per year. The cuts did not materialize in that budget cycle, but the Republicans won a majority in Congress in 1994. New members were candidates who had promised to make meaningful cuts to the federal budget. The combination was a strong signal, and IdahoPTV announced major cuts in January of 1996 to give people losing jobs more time to find new ones before the July 1 deadline.

In a news release, the network announced the layoff of 10 staff people (four people in production; three in technical services; two in multi-media services and one in marketing-development), the result of notification by CPB of a total of $700,000 loss over the next four years. And the state, also in a budget cutting mood, had already stripped $100,000 from the network in the current year. There were significant cuts in the operational budget, too.

All of it was done under an umbrella with a deficit reduction imprint, but those opposed to the cuts countered that PTV’s tiny portion (.00025 percent) of the federal budget made a barely visible dent in the deficit. It wouldn’t come close to balancing the budget. At the time, the federal budget included more dollars for military bands than for both public television and radio. The friends of public television also pointed to national surveys that showed nearly 80 percent of the public thought the private-public partnership, including federal funds, worked just fine.

Outdoor Idaho and Dialogue escaped the 1990s cuts, but Idaho Reports was scaled back from a daily half-hour show; Portraits of Idaho was dropped; Child Care Almanac would not have a planned third season; and coverage of U of I Vandal Sports games was discontinued. Learning Link was dropped and the branch office in Coeur d’Alene was shut down, although broadcasting from the KCDT transmitter continued.

This round of funding cuts brought a decade-long discussion on whether or not the government should be involved in television at all. There were a lot of suggestions:

• The network should sell advertising. Selling ads would put public television in competition with commercial stations, and given the current ad market, there would not be enough dollars to cover the current number of stations. Also it would take nearly a third of the money raised by ads to hire people to design, produce and sell the ads, even if the station could get around a violation of the Federal Communications Commission license that ad sales would create. Ads would turn the public in public television into consumers, something that is the opposite of what public television was conceived to do – serve the underserved viewers. Plus ads coming from small towns and ranching country would be nil, leaving these viewers at the mercy of the cities.

• Cable or satellite television could do the work. Cable and satellite delivery of television is working well, but its major failing is the absence of local programming, something public television does quite well. The cost of local production can’t be covered by bills sent to cable. They aren’t buying. And cable rates to viewers are well above what Idahoans pay for public television.

• Set up a non-profit organization to run public television. Contributions from the public and dedicated funds now cover about 73 percent of the network’s costs. The state supports 27 percent, spent on program delivery to homes and schools. With this combination, Idahoans are paying $1.42 each per year for public television fare. It is doubtful this cost could go much higher and keep contributions at a level that would cover increasing costs. And in surveys of other funders, results show that a majority feels that government needs to be involved, needs to carry its weight.

• If government funds it, government should have a say in programming. This is a never-ending argument. Carried too far, it begins to resemble the Soviet or Middle Eastern system of information dissimilation. Yet, legislators are faced with constituents who often mistake coverage for advocacy and demand action, even punishment, by the legislator, putting him or her between a rock and a hard place politically. While it can sometimes be too much to ask of a legislator to fund programming that may express ideas and opinions contrary to ideology, public television depends upon his or her thick skin. Public television remains committed to listening to legislators’ complaints and responding to them and to their constituents as needed. The dichotomy is often quite apparent as a given legislator will claim to love watching public television, yet vote to cut its funding.

• The cost of public television outweighs its benefits. Costs are easy to pin down, but benefits of public television are nearly impossible to quantify. The costs sound high, but in comparison to other budgets, they remain reasonable. The benefits to children and other underserved audiences are substantial, based on responses from individual Idahoans on the depth and balance of the programming. Also, Idahoans consistently watch public television more than viewers in any other state. They are finding something they like or need.

As the 1990s wore on, it became obvious that IdahoPTV would have to develop new sources or try to expand existing sources of funds if it was to keep up with viewers’ needs. Whatever was designed also would have to give station managers some leeway in planning for the future needs of those same viewers. Of course, some up and down is expected in public funding and has to be heralded or absorbed. Both happened in the 1990s.

With budget cuts at the federal level, grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting didn’t dry up but were severely limited. In Idaho, cutting spending of nearly any kind was popular and IdahoPTV was planning on a cut of nearly $500,000 if the 1 percent property tax initiative passed and there was no increase in other taxes to offset the loss – highly unlikely. Since state funds are sometimes used to match funds from other grants, an additional $26,000 in grants might be lost, too. The state was in that decade’s budget cutting mood as well; it was futile to ask for more.

The initiative didn’t pass, but there was another huge cloud on the horizon. The Federal Communications Commission sent down a decree (unfunded mandate) that analog television was a thing of the past and every television station in the country had to switch to digital broadcasting by 2003. Making the switch would be an engineering nightmare at every transmitter tower in the state. All of it was projected to cost between $11 and $14 million.

IdahoPTV did what it could do. It set up an endowment with the goal of $3 million by the first year of the new century. Again, the network went to those private donors who had already given a lot and asked them to give more. Amazingly, they came through and the money was real and solved an immediate problem – replacement of worn-out and outdated production and editing equipment. It was equipment that would merge smoothly with the coming digital revolution.

The state came to bat in the switch to digital. From a low appropriation point in the mid-1990s, the state’s one-time funding jumped to a high of nearly $2 million in FY 2000. In the following three years and again in the last years of the decade, the state rustled up 60 percent of the cost of the transition to digital. With these one-time appropriations, IdahoPTV was able to put some money into matching grants that covered some of the remaining costs. Private donations made up 8 percent; federal grants paid 15 percent; CPB, 7 percent; USDA, 1 percent; and universities, 4 percent. Final cost of the project, less some replacement here and there, was just over $25 million.

Digital television has required replacement of most antennas around the state, and Idaho’s Legislature provided the money for 60 percent of the cost of the switch.

However, the appropriations that covered the ongoing expenses at the stations saw a drop in FY 2003, and IdahoPTV laid off four full-time employees. These annual appropriations (separate from any one-time spending authority) would climb slowly to a peak of $1.7 million in FY 2008, then start a decline that lasted through the Great Recession.

How much of the decline can be blamed on the recession and how much on dissatisfaction with programming is anyone’s guess, but the cuts early in the decade came after a program on gays (It’s Elementary) aired in 1999. Editors at IdahoPTV had some experience with the subject and took Governor Dirk Kempthorne’s request to air the show later in the evening as a not unreasonable suggestion. The experience had occurred 23 years earlier when KUID-Moscow did a show called Sweet Land of Liberty. In that show, producers talked to homosexuals in the Moscow-Pullman community who were willing to appear on television about losing jobs, about losing apartments, about being generally excluded from most of what the rest of the community took for granted.

Phones started ringing off the hook even before the credits rolled. But the resourceful producers took that as grounds for doing a follow-up program. They sat pro- and anti-gay people face to face and asked each side to confront the other. It’s Elementary was directed at adults and gave pointers on how they might handle questions from children about the issue. The television reaction in 1999 was a carbon copy of 1976. IdahoPTV did a follow-up call-in show on the issue, letting people ask qualified panelists about the topic.

In the reaction to the 1999 show, something that’s hard to pin down, there seemed to be a general acceptance of the subject as something worthy of coverage. There was a small group of legislators threatening both publcly and privately to eliminate state funding. After the two shows aired, there was little evidence to support a statement about a lot of people changing their minds on the subject. It was different in 1976. One vehemently anti-gay guest did a 180-degree on-camera opinion change about gays.

There is little question about the cause of the dip in the rollercoaster track that occurred with the beginning of the Great Recession. From the roughly $3.2 million in 2008, the appropriation of all income to the system slid to a low of about $1.4 million in 2012. Money wasn’t being appropriated from the Legislature because they simply didn’t have it. The cuts may have serendipitously agreed with the ideology of a few legislators, but it can’t be said that the cuts were punishment for programming.

State funds are necessary to build the numerous towers that are in turn necessary to get a video signal to all corners of the state’s rugged terrain. Idaho’s system gets television to 97 percent of the state’s citizens.

But there was the overriding notion that the government at all levels was spending too much, and the opinion resurfaced in Governor Otter’s third inaugural address. He proposed eliminating all state funds to public television over four years starting in 2010. The old 10-year cycle of boom and bust was beginning. State appropriations did fall over the next two years, but as with all government cuts, support erodes as the cuts are felt at home. The governor ended up appropriating about $1.5 million in FY 2010.

The zero funding never materialized, and the governor was proposing in FY 2014 the same amount as he had proposed in FY 2010. There were even some dollars appropriated for one-time capital outlay spending.

And in FY 2015 the general fund appropriation for Idaho Public Television broke the $2 million mark for the first time in the network’s 50-year history. Also, in March of 2016, the Legislature approved spending $3 million in the FY 2017 fiscal year starting in July 2016. The state’s contribution to IdahoPTV remains at 26 percent of the network’s overall budget, money that pays for the hardware that takes television from the source to Idahoan’s homes and schools.

By Deanna Darr

It’s time to reserve your spot at the annual Best of 2016 Awards Banquet, where we’ll be honoring this year’s award winners. Mark your calendar for Saturday, May 6, to join the party celebrating some of the best work done by Idaho journalists in the last year.

This year, we’re gathering at the Riverside Hotel, 2900 W. Chinden Blvd., for our once-a-year excuse to get dressed up and celebrate. We’ll gather in the ballroom on the east side of the building – right inside the main doors to the banquet area – beginning at 6 p.m. for a social hour featuring a no-host bar and a chance to catch up with colleagues.

The awards portion of the evening will start at 7 p.m., when we’ll hand out our first round of awards, followed by a buffet dinner. This year’s menu is distinctly Idaho, with a Basque-themed lineup. Banquet attendees will be able to choose from pork loin with chorizo stuffing or salmon-wrapped fresh asparagus, accompanied by Spanish rice, sheepherder’s bread, red beans, salads and more.

Those who prefer a vegetarian option will need to reserve their entrée – vegetable Napoleon atop a tomato-basil reduction– in advance when they register online.

As an added advantage there is plenty of free parking, and the lobby bar will be open both before and after the event for additional merrymaking. For those who want to make a night of it, the Riverside is offering a special Idaho Press Club rate of $94 for a room. There are a limited number of these rooms available, so if you’re interested in reserving a room, please call 208-343-1871 and ask for the Idaho Press Club rate.

Cost for the banquet is $40 for members or $45 for non-members, or you can make sure you get to sit with all your friends by purchasing a reserved table. Reserved tables of seating for up to eight people are $300, and reserved tables with seating up to 10 are $360. Reserved tables are the only way to guarantee preferred seating. All other seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Registration deadline to reserve your seat is Friday, April 28.

Registration can be done online at idahopressclub.org, where you can also pay for your ticket. There is a $2 service charge per ticket for those who pay online.

Deanna Darr is an Idaho Press Club board member, and is chair of this year’s awards banquet.

(NOTE: This article first appeared on Mike Prater’s Facebook page on April 3, and is reprinted here by permission)

Words I thought I would never type … Thirty-seven years after my high school yearbook said I would one day become sports editor at the Idaho Statesman, and nearly 28 years after taking a job at my dream newspaper in my beloved homestate, I have resigned.

The decision was made last week and the emotions of the past six days have been off the charts. Even after a weekend getaway to the mountains, where I was supposed to find clarity, there continues to be regret, guilt, some relief and an unbelievable angst about what’s next in my life. But deep down in my heart, especially after talking with the greatest family and friends a man could have, I also know it’s the right thing to do.

A massive reorganization is taking place at the Statesman, which by the way, isn’t dying a newspaper death but is evolving and thriving and will continue to be a 21st century digital journalism giant in Idaho. My job is changing. Many jobs are changing. There is an insane corporate push that doesn’t always mesh with my own personal philosophies. I have new bosses. Sometimes we get along. Sometimes we don’t.

I believe in a strong digital future, but I also believe in strong platforms across the company. This week, production of the Idaho Statesman print product is being outsourced to a corporate hub in California, where the Statesman will be produced, designed and edited by copy editors who know very little to nothing about sports in the Treasure Valley.

The good news is, the Statesman newsroom is full of those types of talented and passionate editors, journalists and close personal friends who will continue to produce compelling content for our digital and print products. For nearly 28 years, I have loved every minute working here, mostly because of those exact same people, past and present. I love my staff. I love my peers. I love everything about the Idaho Statesman, even the four bland walls with no windows, my stupid cubicle, my dumb green lamp and the rusty water fountain that refuses to spit out cold water.

I love everything about this place except the way I’ve felt the last couple of months – a small loss of confidence, passion and daily work ethic. And if you know anything about me, you know there is no way I’m going to give a half-assed effort toward something I love so much.

After being a reporter and columnist since December 1989, I have been the sports editor for about the past 15 years. I start every morning with an editors teleconference call at 8:30 a.m. My goal is to get home by midnight. I work weekends half the year. My family and friends have always come second, and that’s OK because I made a decision a long time ago to dive into a crazy and time-consuming career, a career that has been very good to me … until now.

I’m tired of working 70-hour weeks and going home and beating my head against the wall for another hour, just hoping I can fall asleep before the alarm goes off to start the routine again. It’s time to put family and friends first, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do starting Friday, April 14.

If you have called me over the past 28 years to tell me I’m an idiot, today is your lucky day. I will miss you, too. And for all the hundreds and thousands of other people I’ve met, places I’ve gone, stories I’ve covered and sports sections I’ve edited … it’s been an unbelievable and amazing ride that I will never forget. The Idaho Statesman and YOU have changed my life. Thank you!

Mike Prater is the longtime sports editor of the Idaho Statesman. He also is the co-host of Idaho Sports Talk on KTIK 93.1 FM.

Happy Sunshine Week, everyone! That’s the week each March when, nationwide, we celebrate openness in government and access to public information. And here in Idaho, we’ve had some gains in that area, including a unanimous House vote – 70-0 – just yesterday in favor of expanding the Idaho Open Meeting Law.

That bill, HB 273, would add boards, commissions or councils created by executive order to the law; it now heads to the Senate. We’re hoping it becomes law.

“We go to great lengths as public officials … that we hold open meetings,” Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, the bill’s sponsor, told the House. “We are subject to the Open Meetings Law in Idaho. Sometimes it’s not very comfortable, Mr. Speaker, to do all of our business in public, but it’s the right thing to do.”

“We’ve always assumed that virtually everything that government does in the state of Idaho is open to the public, and always operated with that assumption,” he said. “However, we discovered that there is just a little flaw in our law, that unwittingly exempts certain agencies that are created by executive order from the Open Meetings Law. It wasn’t intended to be that way, should not be that way.”

Loertscher said, “This is something that we need to do.” The most common reaction he said he’s gotten to the proposal has been, “You mean, it’s not that way? This corrects something that needs to be done.”

That is far from the only proposal this session that affects public records or open meetings. Our Idaho Press Club First Amendment Committee, chaired by Clark Corbin, has been very busy, with help from our excellent volunteer lobbyist, Skip Smyser.

Among the developments: Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, proposed a sweeping new public records exemption to make legislators’ communications, including emails, texts, correspondence and more, secret. After an outcry, Barbieri decided not to proceed with the bill.

A proposal from Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise, for a new public records exemption to hide the identity of anyone who wins $600 or more in the Idaho Lottery passed the House, but died in a Senate committee after negative testimony from Smyser, Newspaper Association of Idaho lobbyist Jeremy Pisca, and Idaho Lottery Director Jeff Anderson.

The state Board of Education proposed problematic provisions in a student data privacy bill that would have impacted journalists’ public records requests for such basic education data as test scores and enrollment information; we worked with them, and thus far, it hasn’t been pursued.

We’ve also reviewed numerous other proposals for their impacts on open meetings or public records, and weighed in when need be; our hard-working committee meets weekly during the legislative session to keep tabs on it all.

Thanks again to Skip, Clark, and everyone on the committee – we’ll keep up the fight!

Betsy Russell is a Boise-based reporter for The Spokesman-Review, and is the president of the Idaho Press Club.

By Frankie Barnhill

Boise’s Treefort Music Fest (March 22-26) isn’t just about the music. This year, the festival will include some rockstar-caliber journalists sharing a behind-the-scenes look at their craft.

Topping the Hackfort billing is a live taping of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast Friday, March 24 at 5:00 p.m. FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver will be joined on stage at the Egyptian Theatre by podcast host and producer Jody Avirgan, political reporters Clare Malone, Harry Enten and Galen Druke. The podcast team will interview Boise Mayor Dave Bieter to bring the national political scene into local focus.

Tickets to the event are included in the cost of a Hackfort badge ($30), or can be purchased separately for $25.

A day earlier, American Public Media’s Lizzie O’Leary is finishing out the first day of Storyfort (Thursday, March 23) with a free talk at the Owyhee. O’Leary will expound on the craft of audio storytelling with a special focus on podcasts.

The Marketplace Weekend host brings the economy home each week on KBSX 91.5 FM, reporting on the intersection of politics, policy and Wall Street. The event starts at 4 p.m. and is sponsored by Boise State Public Radio.

Frankie Barnhill is a reporter for Boise State Public Radio.