Outgoing president
feels your pain
By Rick Nagel
NINA Past President
Two days after Bill Clinton made a seven-minute speech on national television
to sum up his presidency, here I am trying to define mine.
As my final, defiant act as NINA president, I have decided to pardon Susan
McDougal, Patricia Hearst and Rick Baert.
Like Clinton, I feel that "America has done well" during my presidency
and that 2001 NINA President Lonny Cain is "in a great position to
meet the challenges of the future," despite the humiliating sex scandal
and bitter impeachment battle I endured last year.
But enough with these "negatives." We did some good things during
Y2K, and I'm using my bully pulpit to mention every last one of them:
- We established a new dues structure. Which was no small task. Perhaps the most important aspect of that action was that NINA showed a willingness to change. As this industry evolves, we have to be able and ready to evolve, as well. Lonny already has established a subcommittee to look at a revised fee structure for 2002.
- We identified new members and increased membership. Again, a big deal. NINA has been trying for years to launch a membership campaign, and we at last are off the ground. Jan Larsen deserves the credit.
- We donated $3,000 for three scholarships for students from the Northern Illinois University Department of Communication.
- We awarded three area high school students with honors as Northern Illinois High School Journalists of the Year. Students from Joliet, Yorkville, and Spring Valley won $1,300 in scholarship awards that included $600 from NINA and $700 in matching funds from newspaper sponsors.
- Lonny Cain put together two outstanding conferences. In April, Jim Jennings of Thompson Newspapers and Trevor Brown, dean of journalism at Indiana University, told us about innovative ways to develop training programs. In October, Pulitzer-winning Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic Blair Kamin and Linda Grist Cunningham, who chaired a Pulitzer nominating committee, gave us inside stories and offered practical advice about how small newspapers can compete for journalism's highest honor.
- More than 50 people attended our writer's workshop in July. Neil Hopp of the Northwest Herald delivered on our promise of low-cost, high-value workshops.
- We held our third Northern Illinois College Newspaper General Excellence Contest. The Northern Star came away a winner.
- Journalists won $1,000 in cash from NINA's first Best Clip Contest. In the process, we discovered some of the best writing -- and best writers -- in the state of Illinois.
There's a bunch more, of course. Jim Killam is doing wonderful stuff
with our newsletter and our Web site. John Etheredge ran the student journalist
of the year competition and did much of the work on the Best of the Press
section that was donated by the Ledger-Sentinel. Jim Slonoff put together
an updated brochure. Lois Self, Dana Ditrichs, Kim Kubiak, Pam Lannom, Cheryl
Wormley -- there are too many people to thank, and I am sure that I will
forget someone whose efforts were a key to our success last year. I'd like
to apologize for that, as well as for the whole Linda Tripp thing.
Some final thoughts: The Northern Illinois Newspaper Association is unique
among newspaper groups. It survives and flourishes through the hard work
of its volunteer members -- and we are blessed with an assortment of strange
and wonderful ink-stained wretches who give their time, energy and immense
talents to the cause of print journalism and journalism education in northern
Illinois.
It's been my great privilege to be president of the Northern Illinois Newspaper
Association. I leave office "more idealistic, more full of hope than
the day I arrived and more confident than ever that NINA's best days lie
ahead."
Now, on to the lecture circuit.
Rick Nagel is associate managing editor of the Aurora Beacon News.
Contact him at rnagel@scn1.com, or
(630) 844-5840.
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