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.