Thanks to all of you who took the time to e-mail me questions to ask of the panel at Wednesday evening's forum on the future of journalism.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to pose any of those questions. The first part of the program, where the panelists made their individual presentations (scheduled to run about an hour) ran 30 minutes over the allotted time. That left 15 minutes to take questions and comments from the audience. And with more than 200 people in attendance there were plenty of questions and comments to fill-up the remaining time.
Well, at least I was prepared.
If you missed the program, you can view part of it on the web. Over at his Santa Barbara Local website, Jued Martinez, a former News-Press employee himself, has posted video of Chapman University journalism professor Susan Paterno's presentation, part of which recounts her successful defense against a libel suit brought against her by News-Press owner Wendy McCaw.
Martinez also has posted a number of still photos from the event.
Over on Facebook, Dianne Channing also has a nice online photo gallery from Wednesday's forum, but you may have to be signed up with Facebook to view it. Not sure about that.
There were lots of former News-Press employees in the audience Wednesday night including Richard Mineards, Starshine Roshell, Sara Sinclair, Barney Brantingham, Dennis Moran, Scott Hadly and John Leonard, just to name a few.
One of the questions that came up at the forum was whether there was a way to financially contribute to the cause of the former Santa Barbara News-Press journalists. The answer is, of course!
If you'd like to help the journalists who have been fired from the paper you can send a donation to:
S.B. Union Defense Fund
P.O. Box 30041
Santa Barbara, CA 93130
There is a separate fund to help out journalists, such as Jerry Roberts, who have incurred horrendous legal fees in defending themselves against lawsuits brought by Wendy McCaw. If you'd like to contribute to that cause you can send a donation to:
Lawyers Alliance for Free Speech
P.O. Box 5159
Santa Barbara, CA 93150
And with that, I think I've tied up all the loose ends from Wednesday evening's forum.
© 2009 by Craig Smith and www.craigsmithsblog.com
