UPDATED 3/20: Conference schedule

[Deirdre Edgar]

This conference schedule is intended to be accurate, although a few more sessions may may still materialize. It's also possible that some could change time slots depending on speakers' needs. (Updated 3/20.)

THURSDAY, APRIL 30

9-10:30 a.m.
Opening general session
Welcome to attendees, headline contest awards, scholarship announcements.

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Narrative Writing – The Editing Process
Laurie Hertzel, Star Tribune
Reporters who are interested in doing narrative need to work with editors who understand narrative structure. This session looks at narrative writing from an editor's perspective. What is narrative? When is it appropriate? What is narrative structure? Scenes vs. summary. Nuances to look for while editing (avoiding journalese, or traditional journalism sentence construction).

Nuts and Bolts Grammar
Lisa McLendon, Wichita Eagle
A refresher course on how to spot and fix common grammar errors, including punctuation, agreement, parallelism, verb tense and dangling modifiers.

10 Things You Need to Know About Online Editing
Rick Kenney, University of Central Florida

Whoa, What Just Happened? Editing Economic News Today
Neil Holdway, Daily Herald
What's happening to the economy? It can't all be detailed in 20 column inches. Yet, publications try every day, with terms like "toxic assets," "TARP," "consumer confidence," "GDP," "tax break of $500," "liquidity crisis," "consumer price index" and most commonly, "the Dow dropped 300 points." Can your readers understand what you're publishing? Over the past year, a lot of good copy on the economy has moved, and so has a lot of bad copy. With just a little bit of editing, you can turn the bad copy into good copy. Come see how.

12:30-2 p.m. Lunch on your own

2:15-3:45 p.m.
Selling Yourself
Bill Connolly, New York Times (retired)
Panel
How to promote yourself – in your own newsroom or to a future employer.

Committing Acts of Conscience
Sara Quinn, Poynter Institute
Deborah Gump, Committee of Concerned Journalists
Doing journalism often means we’re faced with tough decisions. Doing journalism in the digital age means those decisions can have instant and global consequences that can’t be undone. Nonstop news cycles leave us little time to consider our options. Blogging, Tweeting and Friending test the boundaries between the personal and the professional. Multimedia options multiply the ways that information can be skewed and mishandled. This session will offer strategies to navigate the ethics of the online world and its multimedia components. Does the rise of social media require a new approach to our concepts of fairness, balance and bias? Do we need to consider whether old media standards are still valid in the new media world? How does the Web change the playing field when it comes to visuals? What’s fair usage in an information world where everything is fetchable? This interactive session will ask participants to consider how personal and institutional values influence their decisions and whether they are practicing their purpose in becoming a journalist.

Skeptical Editing
Kathy Schenck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Forget about formatting as we reaffirm why it’s essential for copy editors to take time to ask tough content questions. We’ll go over stories with problems of libel, privacy, taste, sensitivity and fairness, using all new examples. You’ll also get tips to help set off the little warning bells in your head as you edit.

Staying Organized, Staying Sane
Sue Halena, St. Cloud Times
Practical advice you can use immediately to reduce the madness of a demanding job. You’ll hear what other editors do to manage well and have a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day.

4-5:30 p.m.
Going Alternative: Can Copy Editors Make The Best Story Forms?
Andy Bechtel, University of North Carolina
Panel
A hands-on exercise in brainstorming ideas for alternative storytelling. We'll break people into groups and give each group four budget lines. Then each group discusses and sketches out their ideas for how to tell each story in a non-traditional way, either for print or online. At the end of the session, each group describes its ideas, and then we see how an actual newspaper or Web site handled that topic.

Planning for Anything
Teresa Schmedding, Daily Herald
Sara Hendricks, Temple (Texas) Daily Telegram
Whether your organization plans for better stories and presentations or doesn’t, the key thing is to be prepared and to keep copy editors engaged and excited. Here are some tips for thriving in either environment.

Editing with Your Mind's Eye
Merrill Perlman, New York Times
A look at story organization or logic flaws, using visuals like the opening to a James Bond movie (the lede anecdote that doesn't really connect with the story), the trailer from “A Beautiful Mind” (too many numbers for a reader to process), and the like.

6:30-9:30 p.m. – Opening reception
(Included with three-day registration)
A chance to meet and mingle with fellow conference-goers. Hors d’oeuvres and cash bar.


FRIDAY, MAY 1

9-10:30 a.m.
Multimedia Storytelling
Steve Buttry, Cedar Rapids Gazette
We'll discuss techniques for using interactivity, databases, visual elements and immediacy to tell stories more effectively in the digital age. You'll see lots of examples of big-story coverage made memorable through digital tools.

Copy Editors: A Front Line Against Libel
Charles DeLaFuente, New York Times
Doing what comes naturally is also a good defense against letting libelous statements creep into print. Being careful about attributing statements, and about precisely where the attribution is placed, making sure that the newspaper is not stating something as fact when it doesn’t intend to, and ensuring that headlines don’t go beyond what the story says are all part of not only good journalism, but of good libel prevention. A review of the basics of libel law with examples of copy in which potential libel lurks or has been weeded out.

Copy Editing Beyond the Newsroom
David Brindley, National Geographic
Jennifer McNally, SmartBrief
Christine Steele, The Capitol Group Cos.
From feature magazines to trade publications to corporate communications, copy editors make a world of difference beyond traditional newspapers. Veteran copy editors will explore working outside the newsroom, offer tips to inspire colleagues, and discuss strategies to help you make a bigger impact in your work environment.

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Copy Editing in the Blogosphere and Social Media
Bryan Murley, Eastern Illinois University
Kathy Schenck, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
David Sullivan, Philadelphia Inquirer
Bill Walsh, Washington Post
How can copy editors and reporters who are blogging work together to strengthen the journalism? How can copy editors strengthen the blogging and use of social services like Twitter?

Design Across Platforms
Sara Quinn, Poynter Institute
Working in both the print and the online worlds.

From Newsroom to Classroom: Getting Into Teaching
Moderator: Andy Bechtel, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Deborah Gump, Committee of Concerned Journalists, formerly at Ohio University
Lisa McLendon, Wichita Eagle and adjunct at Friends University
Michael Deas, Northwestern University
Vicki Krueger, Poynter Institute
This panel discussion will offer tips on how to get a teaching position at a university or college. What are j-schools looking for in instructors? Full time or part time? How does someone get ready to teach a course for the first time?

Winning on the Web: Unbeatable sports coverage takes a team effort
Scott Toole, LehighValleyLive.com-The Express-Times
Panel

12:30-2 p.m. Lunch on your own

2:15-3:45 p.m.
Usability, Data Projects, Flash, S-E-Oh-No!
Dan Gaines, latimes.com
How copy editors are well-equipped to edit webby content, optimize stories and help web users - if if their web sites let them. The basics of these technologies and how copy editors' skill sets have applied and can apply to search engine optimization, web usability, new kinds of story telling and social media strategies.

The art of writing better captions
Steve Fisher and Sharon Kessler, Star Tribune
Do your captions sing? Or do they overstate the obvious and simply repeat information? This session will focus on writing sharp, focused and interesting captions with real-life examples and a couple of fun exercises. The goal is to give copy editors a renewed appreciation for this art.

What Else Can I Do With These Skills?
Moderator: Doug Ward, University of Kansas
Alan DeNiro, The Carrot
Jennifer McNally, SmartBrief
Jeff Sjerven, Dolan Media
It’s often difficult to see beyond the niches we’ve created for ourselves. Editing takes on many different forms in many different specialties, though. Editors from a B2B newsletter, an advertising agency, a medical school and a business publication join an editing professor in discussing the potential and the pitfalls of their respective fields.

Mentoring
Paula Devlin, Times-Picayune
Alex Cruden, Detroit Free Press (retired)
Sara Hendricks, Temple (Texas) Daily Telegram
How is effective knowledge shared? A panel discussion about mentoring, centered on ACES' own new mentor program but encompassing all aspects of the mentor-mentee relationship.

4-5:30 p.m. (general session)
Smackdown! Merrill Perlman vs. Bill Walsh (With Points for Style)
Battle of the grammar titans, ACES-style.

7-10 p.m. Silent auction and banquet (Included with three-day registration)
Keynote speaker Joe Grimm, winners of Robinson Prize and Glamann Award


SATURDAY, MAY 2

Yoga – An early-morning wake-up before sessions get started

9-10:30 a.m.
Brain Speed Bumps
Merrill Perlman
It’s often said that every error that makes it into a publication is a copy editor’s error. While that’s not exactly fair, it’s true that we can — and do — catch a lot of errors. It’s the ones that get away that cause us anguish. The causes of factual errors fall into some broad categories, and knowing them can make us more aware, and able to stop errors before they reach readers. We’ll include some resources and Internet searching tips — bring your own and share!

Twitter Means Business
Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Pioneer Press
How microblogging can help, or hurt, your company. And how it works in the journalism world.

Sports in the News
Rick Kenney, University of Central Florida
Many sports stories read more like traditional news coverage. Some of those stories make it to the news pages; others challenge sports journalists who never thought they’d edit stories about rape or grand jury investigations. This session addresses the basics of precision editing of sports copy and sports news.

Making the Switch: Implementing a New Publishing System
David Brindley, National Geographic
With technology constantly evolving, changes in publishing systems are inevitable. Being prepared for such changes isn't inevitable, however; it takes planning and preparation. We'll explore the process of switching to a new publishing system and assessing workflow, and offer best practices from a recent case study--dos and don'ts for when the inevitable happens in your workplace.

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Math Sampler
Neil Holdway, Daily Herald
Math is everywhere! Don’t be afraid. You can do it. Especially when the goal is to make it as simple as possible—because our readers don’t want to do the math, either. Come review some math basics, like dealing with percentages, and learn how using numbers the wrong way can make you inaccurate and even unethical.

The SEO headline game
Teresa Schmedding, Daily Herald
Search engine optimization can increase your Web traffic by 50%. How to write headlines that will get you higher on search engines and draw new traffic to your Web site without selling your journalistic soul.

Legal Language
Charles DeLaFuente, New York Times
A recovering lawyer presents an explanation of legal terms and jargon that can crop up in court stories.

Juggling Work and Family Life
Emily King, Pioneer Press
Jennifer McNally, SmartBrief
Vince Tuss, Star Tribune
Striking a balance between two full-time jobs.

12:30-2 p.m. Lunch on your own

2:15-3:45 p.m.
Copy Editors in Exile
Phillip Blanchard, The National (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)
As the Worldwide War on Copy Editing escalates, you may consider taking refuge overseas. But be warned: It's not a job, it's an adventure. Phillip Blanchard, lately of the Washington Post and proprietor of Testy Copy Editors, talks about editing in the United Arab Emirates. As is usual for these sessions, the discussion is sure to stray off-topic.

Small Staffs Forum
Moderators: Gerri Berendzen, Quincy (Ill.) Herald-Whig
Tim Yagle, Napa Valley (Calif.) Register
A round table discussion on issues specific to smaller staffs. We'll bring some ideas, and we want to share yours as well. Plus, bring a problem or an idea or two, and we’ll discuss solutions.

Copy Editors Forum
Moderator: TBA
Open discussion for copy editors of all mediums.

Students Forum
Moderator: Carla Correa, Baltimore Sun
Open discussion for students.

4-5 p.m.
Closing general session

6-10 p.m. – Conference wrap party
The Local pub, 931 Nicollet Mall – tickets $25
Hors d’oeuvres buffet and one drink included in ticket price.