Candyce Clifft of WDRB-TV in Louisville, Andrew Wolfson of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, and Mark Story of the Lexington Herald-Leader

By Al Cross
Co-adviser, UK Campus Chapter

Kentucky journalists displayed remarkable restraint in handling the allegation of rape against University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino, the leading reporters on the story said at an SPJ meeting on UK’s campus Sept. 21.

Andrew Wolfson of The Courier-Journal and Candyce Clifft of Louisville’s WDRB-TV joined sports columnist Mark Story of the Lexington Herald-Leader for a panel discussion sponsored by SPJ’s Bluegrass Professional Chapter and UK Campus Chapter.

Wolfson and Clifft said the woman making the allegations, Karen Sypher, proved to be unreliable for several reasons. “Who gives their rapist a ride home?” Wolfson asked, noting that Sypher acknowledged taking Pitino home after they had sex in a closed restaurant several years earlier. Read more »

Join the SPJ Student Chapter on Monday at noon for free pizza and a discussion with Drew Curtis, founder of news (and non-news) aggregator Fark.com and author of It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News.

After a decade of curating his site’s daily collection of links from across the Web, Curtis has a unique perspective on the challenges facing journalism, and he’s identified the next “revolution” in online media: good editing, with real editors highlighting the most important information. Fark, which Curtis runs from his Lexington home, has grown significantly since he started it in 1999 and now receives nearly 4 million visitors each month.

The program will be Monday, Oct. 5, at noon in the Kentucky Kernel newsroom, room 035 in the basement of the Grehan Journalism Building. I know some journalism classes run until 12:15, so feel free to come in after class.

If you want to read up on Curtis before Monday, you might start by checking out these sites:

• “Why the media passes off bunk as news” by Drew Curtis in The Christian Science Monitor (March 5, 2007)
• “Frat House Meets Debate Club When It’s News and It’s Fark” — live chat with Poynter’s Kelly McBride (June 22, 2009)
• “Fark Founder Flattens Fourth Estate” by Jack Shafer in Slate (Oct. 4, 2007)
• Interview with Drew Curtis from MeetInnovators

The New York Post led with the Pitino story on Aug. 14

Our chapter and the Bluegrass Pro Chapter of SPJ are bringing three leading Kentucky journalists to UK’s campus to discuss how they broke the story of a woman who allegedly attempted to extort University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino after the two had a sexual encounter, which she claimed was rape. The story, which broke in August and continues to draw interest, presented journalists with a variety of thorny ethical questions:

• Is Karen Sypher credible?
• Is she the criminal or the victim?
• When should her name be printed and broadcast?
• Are officials and journalists trying to protect Pitino?
• Should Sypher’s police interview be aired?

The event, which is free and open to the general public, is Monday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. in the W.T. Young Library auditorium. The speakers will be Lexington Herald-Leader sports columnist Mark Story, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal courts reporter Andrew Wolfson, and Candyce Clifft, reporter and anchor for WDRB-41 (Fox) in Louisville.

Buttry

The Gazette newspaper in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been on the forefront of embracing new ways of storytelling and reaching out to the surrounding community. Tomorrow, Steve Buttry, the newspaper’s Complete Community Connection (C3) coach, will be at UK to talk about some of their initiatives and about what interns are expected to do at his multimedia, social-networked newsroom.

He’ll be speaking at 7 p.m. Sunday in the Kentucky Kernel newsroom in the basement of the Grehan Journalism Building. There will be free pizza at the event, so don’t worry about missing dinner.

Journalism professor Buck Ryan brought Buttry to campus, but SPJ members are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Thursday will mark the 222 years since the signing of the U.S. Constitution, and the

Mark Goodman, Knight Chair for Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University and former director of the Student Press Law Center

University of Kentucky is starting its celebration tonight. Mark Goodman, former director of the Student Press Law Center, will deliver the annual State of the First Amendment Address at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the auditorium of W.T. Young Library. At the same event, the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center will present the James Madison Award for Service to David Hawpe, a UK graduate and former Kentucky Kernel editor who recently left The Courier-Journal after more than 40 years. The Kentucky Kernel has more on the event.

On Wednesday, Goodman will join other panelists at 10 a.m. in the library auditorium for a discussion on “How Free Should the Student Press Be?” Other members of the panel will be Josh Moore, a Western Kentucky University student who led the push for legal protections for high school journalists in Kentucky; Betsey Bell, a journalism teacher at Louisville’s duPont Manual High School; and Richard Labunski, a professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications.

The First Amendment events wrap up on Thursday, first with free apple pie from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in front of Patterson Office Tower and on Rose Street in front of W.T. Young Library. At 6 p.m. in the Student Center’s Worsham Theater, Nashville-based band Freedom Sings! will present a multimedia concert of music that has been banned or censored throughout the years.

Thank you for your interest in the University of Kentucky chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Our first event of the Fall 2009 semester will be an internship panel on Thursday, Sept. 10, at 5:30 p.m. in the Maggie Room of the Grehan Journalism Building. The program will feature students and recent graduates who will share their internship experiences and tips on how current students can get the job experience they’ll need to start a journalism career.

We have several other programs in the work and will update the site soon with more information.