Category: Events

connect with audiences • find content • build communities

Facebook and SPJ are committed to creating opportunities for journalists everywhere to learn about the ways Facebook tools can help create and share incredible works of journalism, as well as engage the public in the stories about their communities.

Arkansas SPJ is hosting a FREE training at 10 a.m. Friday, Jan 25 at the Darragh Center, 100 S. Rock St.

• How Journalists Can Best Utilize Facebook and Instagram
• Connect With Your Audience Using Facebook Live
• Immersive Storytelling With 360 Video and Photos
• Facebook Safety for Journalists
• Get Started with CrowdTangle
• Content Discovery and Social Monitoring with CrowdTangle
• Use Facebook Groups to Engage Your Audience

To register for this free training email jellis@arkansasonline.com or text (501) 533-0565
SPACE IS LIMITED • SIGN UP TODAY

Our trainer is Lynn Walsh, an Emmy award-winning freelance journalist who has worked in investigative, data and TV journalism at the national level as well as locally in California, Ohio, Texas and Florida. Based in San Diego, she is a past national president of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Project Manager at the Trusting News project, where she’s helping to rebuild trust between newsrooms and the public.
GET SOCIAL find her on the following
Facebook @LynnWalshJournalist
Twitter @lwalsh
Instagram @lynnkwalsh

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In an effort to extend its reach, Arkansas SPJ traveled more than 750 miles in the span of just over a month to bring Get the Scoop … and Check the Facts, a traveling ice cream social, to about 110 student journalists and professionals outside the Little Rock metropolitan area.

Speakers shared stories about how they got big scoops, ideas about how to cultivate sources on a beat and the importance of checking the facts. The tour included visits at the following:

• Henderson University in Arkadelphia at noon Oct. 30 at The Oracle newsroom with speaker Ginny Monk, projects reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Arkadelphia had recently lost its local newspaper. Fortunately, a new paper has emerged. There were about 30 people in attendance.
• University of Central Arkansas in Conway at 1:40 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1 at The Echo newsroom with speaker Debra Hale-Shelton, a reporter in the ADG’s Conway bureau. She has since joined SPJ. There were about 25 people in attendance.
• Arkansas State University in Jonesboro at 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 26 in The Herald newsroom with George Jared, an author and investigative journalist who has written two true-crime books about stories he covered as a reporter at the Jonesboro Sun, and Sarah Campbell-Miller of Arkansas Business. There were about 12 student journalists in attendance.
• Harding University in Searcy at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27 in the TV studio with speaker Tracy Whitaker of the Searcy Daily Citizen. There were about 20 in attendance.
• Arkansas Tech University in Russellville at 1 p.m. Dec. 3 in the Doc Bryan Student Services Center with speakers Tammy Keith of the ADG and Drew Brent of The Russellville Courier. There were about 22 in attendance.
The chapter didn’t make it to Lyon College in Batesville as it had planned, but has hopes to try to get there next semester as well as present the ice cream social in Little Rock, its regular stomping grounds. There are still plenty of scoops.

For photos and marketing materials of the events, visit Arkansas SPJ on Facebook.

Mix and mingle with fellow journalists at Arkansas SPJ’s Ugly Sweater Holiday Jingle at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 109 & Co. bar and lounge, 109 Main St. in downtown Little Rock. Tickets can be purchased HERE or at the door for $15 and include hors d’oeuvres and libations. Prizes will be given for the best ugly holiday sweaters.

Buy tickets now

By Maggie McNeary

Arkansas SPJ will present the first President’s Diamond in the Rough Award to a Greenbrier Eastside Elementary student who started his own school newspaper at the chapter’s Diamond Journalism Awards, set for 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25.

Israel Bollinger, who was a fourth grader when he helped create What’s Up Eastside, works with a staff of second through fifth graders to make the monthly publication, Eastside Elementary Principal Mandi Dunlap said.

The 10-year-old, now a fifth grader, said he got the idea to start the paper while reading The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz by Alan Silberberg. The characters in Silberberg’s book had a school paper, which made Bollinger realize that his school lacked one – a problem that he soon solved.

“I couldn’t help but be impressed by this kid’s gumption,” Arkansas SPJ President Jennifer Ellis said of Bollinger’s accomplishment.

After a conversation with Principal Dunlap, and the recruitment of about 16 elementary students, the publication started production in January.

“Israel had asked me about it back in the first semester and I began to think about how to make this happen,” Dunlap said.

Sherry Hogg, the school counselor, helps the students during their 30-minute daily production time. The students compose their stories in Google Docs, the principal said, and printed copies are distributed throughout the school.

“This has been a great creative outlet for a lot of students,” she said. “They not only learn literacy skills of writing articles, but also the power of networking with a group to produce a product! The kids absolutely love this!”

Students voted to name the paper What’s Up Eastside and decided on its topics together. Bollinger’s favorite part of the paper is the “Crackups” section, which features jokes from students.

Bollinger plans to continue working on the publication for the rest of the school year.

“I really like working on the paper,” he said. “It’s fun.”

In the future, he said he might even start a middle school newspaper if next year’s campus doesn’t have one. And he’s looking even further than that.

“I think that when I grow up I want to be an entrepreneur and maybe own a newspaper,” he said.

Bollinger said he had been surprised by the media attention to him and the paper, and that he was excited to receive the Diamond in the Rough award.

“It’s going to be quite an honor,” he said.

Bollinger’s parents, Kerrie and Jason, have also been surprised by all the interest. Jason Bollinger said that his son has many good ideas and that, just as importantly, he sees them through.

“He sees a problem and he works to fix it,” he said.

Join Israel Bollinger and this year’s Diamond Journalism Award winners from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25 in the private party room downstairs at the Flying Saucer in Little Rock, located at 323 President Clinton Ave. Tickets are $15 and include heavy hors d’oeuvres and libations.

For more information on the event and Arkansas SPJ, visit the chapter’s website and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.