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KEYNOTE
Jacqui Banaszynski

GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND DANCE
The enduring power of the story

After three decades in the newsroom and on the streets, an aging journalist warns against the dangers of detachment, celebrates our special relationship with real life and tells you why she remains a believer in a time of doubt.

Jacqui Banaszynski holds the Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism and is an Editing Fellow at the Poynter Institute. She worked in newsrooms for more than 30 years, most recently as projects editor at The Seattle Times.

While at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Banaszynski won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing and the SPJ Distinguished Service Award for “AIDS in the Heartland,” an intimate account of the death of a gay farm couple. She was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for coverage of the Ethiopian famine, and won the national AP Sports Editors award with deadline coverage at the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Her edited work has won the ASNE Best Feature Writing Award and the Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Writing. She edited an investigative series on the failure of public defense that was a finalist for the Goldsmith Award and for the Selden Ring Award, and a series on the global economy that was a finalist for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award.

Banaszynski leads workshops for journalists around the world and has served four times as a Pulitzer juror.

Jacqui Banaszynski

WRITING FAST, WRITING WELL: When seconds count

Tip sheet

In this era of 24/7 news delivery, journalists need to strengthen their fast-twitch muscle, and honor the tenets of effective Web and deadline writing: priority, clarity and efficiency. That means they need tools at the ready that help them write fast, accurately and in plain English. We'll identify the key elements of strong writing on deadline for print, broadcast and the Web.

ART of the INTERVIEW: Turning sources and subjects into storytellers

Interviewing
Interview basics
Interview tips

Many stories fail before a writer ever sits down at the keyboard. They suffer from the question not asked, the detail not gathe, the description not noticed.

Interviewing remains the most important part of journalistic storytelling. But interviewing itself is requires a range of skills that can be learned and strengthened over time, and applied to different reporting situations.

We'll look at interviewing as more than the usual Q-and-A, but rather as a vibrant dynamic that turns subjects into storytellers, and articles into stories.

Workshop goals:

• Review the purposes of the interview beyond gathering information.
• Discuss the ethics and ground rules of good interviewing.
• Share techniques for interviewing to gather anecdote, description, telling detail and killer quotes.

Jacques Poitras

IS THERE DESPERATION ON THIS PAGE?
How to Turn a News Story into a Book

If you've ever thought to yourself, "this story would make a great book," come learn about the highs and lows of Canadian publishing. The CBC's Jacques Poitras, author of two journalistic books, will describe what publishers are looking for, why organization is half the battle, how to juggle writing 80,000 words with your day job, what to expect (and not to expect) for money, and how to navigate the surreal world of book marketing while keeping your ethics intact.

English and French / en anglais et français

Kelly Toughill

INTERVIEWING THE NUMBERS: Narrative power and pitfalls

This workshop will look at the dos and don’ts of handling numbers as a journalist. It is divided into two parts: mistakes and opportunities. In mistakes, we will look at the common errors made by journalists when dealing with number-rich stories such as elections, budgets, economic forecasts and financial statements. We will also look at how to examine the cibility of numbers presented to us by experts and others. In opportunities, we will look at the narrative power of numbers, how to spot stories buried in a sheet of figures, and how to use numbers to reinforce narrative in text. University of King's College professor Kelly Toughill explains how to fish a story from the murky depths of data. The award-winning Toughill has been a reporter and editor in the U.S. and Canada, including 20 years at the Toronto Star where she helped set up the investigative team and founded its Atlantic bureau.

Jack Branswell

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? Think like an editor

Jack Branswell, the Atlantic-Quebec editor for CanWest News Service, will focus on ways to help reporters produce cleaner, clearer copy that should sail through the desk. Among the elements in this session will be the Top 10 things editors hate about dealing with reporters’ copy. The session is meant to be a free-flowing exchange of ideas on how reporters and editors can work better together. Branswell also lectures at Concordia University's journalism department and brings to this insightful session more than two decades of experience as an editor and correspondent at CanWest and its interactive division, the Canadian Press, Telegraph Journal, Sherbrooke Record and freelance work for the Associated Press and Toronto Star.

Murray Brewster

COVERING A WAR: How to get the story without getting killed

The workshop will outline the challenges of covering conflicts independently and as an embedded reporter, the survival skills needed as a writer when the bullets and rockets are flying, and how to put it all together under some of the most horrendous conditions. Murray Brewster's award-winning journalism career has spanned 23 years and counting. He is currently the defence reporter on Parliament Hill for The Canadian Press. The last decade has seen Brewster cover the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, the 2005 London train bombings, hurricanes Juan and Katrina, the fatal fire aboard HMCS Chicoutimi off Ireland, the 1998 Swissair plane crash and most recently war in Afghanistan, where he just spent four months out of a year. His work has collected a number of national Radio-Television News Directors Awards and Atlantic Journalism Awards.

David McKie

NARRATIVE INVESTIGATION: Beginning to end

David McKie, a multiple award-winning journalist with the CBC's investigative unit will walk workshop participants through building narrative into the investigative process. Investigations hang on gathering facts and data but once you have all of the information, you still need the human element to tie it all together and tell the story in a way that lets your audience relate -- something that often gets left to the end. David, who also teaches at the Carleton University journalism school, will show attendees how to weave the storytelling component into the research phase and carry it through the reporting process, including how to find the right sources to use as your story's foundation.

A. Fees
Conference fees include all workshops and keynote speeches. The symposium begins Saturday morning with workshops throughout the day. On Sunday the workshops will end around noon.

New or lapsed CAJ members can renew/join to take advantage of CAJ member rates (Memberships cost $75 for regular or $150 for associate members, $40 for journalists earning less than $30,000 annually, and $30 for students)

National Writers' Symposium 2007 fees

$195 CAJ member (journalist)
$295 Non-member (journalist)
$345 Associate member (non-journalist)
$495 Non-member (non-journalist)
$90 Student member

B. Book your hotel
The CAJ has arranged special rates at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Moncton. For reservations call 1-506-854-6340.

C. Tally the charges

You can phone in your registration at (613) 526-8061, or complete this form and e-mail it back to canadianjour@magma.ca or fax it to (613) 521-3904

D. Registration information (Please complete ALL information)

E. Method of payment (Please ensure information is complete)

Enclosed is my cheque made payable to the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Send completed registration form to:

CAJ
Algonquin College
1385 Woodroffe Avenue, B224
Ottawa, ON K2G 1V8
FAX: 613-521-3904

Further information, contact:
John Dickins, CAJ Executive Director
Tel. 613-526-8061
e-mail: canadianjour@magma.ca - www.caj.ca

canadian, association, journalists, CAJ, journalist, journalism, canada, society, group, national, media, reporter, editor, producer, radio, television, newspaper, magazine, web, writer The Canadian Association of Journalists is Canada's largest organization for professional journalists and promotes excellence in journalism, investigative journalism and the public’s right to know.