Here are some updates to, and apologies for, this morning's post...• A former SPJ leader has pointed out, "For all we know, the guy dictated this on the phone. He might have dashed off a hurried e-mail, assuming it would be edited." She could be right. While I was asked to submit an entry that was never edited, I'm also not a CNN top-level manager — the rules may be different higher up the food chain. If I've crucified this poor guy for something that's not his fault, mea culpa. But either way, this much is still true: It looks like crap on our website.
• A current SPJ leader accuses me of "ridiculing" SPJ's staff today and in this previous post. If so, that's not my intent. From the co-executive directors on down, SPJ's staff has done more with less, and under dire circumstances (the death of Terry Harper). In each post, I've been careful (or so I thought) to accuse all of us for any shortcomings — because, frankly, they come back to the board. In any professional organization, such as SPJ, staff problems are really board problems.
• There's been a suggestion that today's post publicly embarrasses SPJ, and as a board member, I'm not supposed to do that. But SPJ is embarrassing itself more than I ever can. The poor writing and editing I cited this morning on my obscure blog are there for everyone to see on the much more popular and official SPJ website. They're still there tonight, in fact.
• After a couple hours of fretting and wondering if I've ridiculed the staff, I've offered SPJ President Dave Aeikens an alternative to this blog: a listserve open to SPJ board members, committee chairs and members, chapter presidents, and active SPJers who want to talk about how their organization operates. That way, I (and presumably others) can be blunt about what's bugging us without being so public about it. I'm awaiting an answer.
