PHOENIX – SABEW will conduct a two-day journalism ethics seminar here in October in honor of its late president who many thought contributed to the ethics conscience of its 50-year-old organization.
Veteran journalists Margaret Sullivan, Clark Hoyt and Barney Calame, who all have been public editors at The New York Times, will lead the speakers for the Gary Klott Ethics Symposium Oct. 24-25 at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, SABEW Executive Director Warren Watson announced today.
Aaron Brown, former CNN reporter/anchor and current Cronkite faculty member, will be the Thursday leadoff speaker. Kelly McBride, ethicist at the Poynter Institute, will be the Friday lunch speaker.
The Cronkite School will have a strong imprint on the program. Tim McGuire, faculty member and former ASNE president, will conclude the seminar, conducting a conversation with Sullivan about the future of ethics in the digitally dominated journalism world.
The program, open to the public, will be a special event as SABEW celebrates its 50th anniversary throughout 2013. It will start at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 24 with a reception and evening program. It will conclude at 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 25.
Sullivan, the current Times public editor, has confirmed along with Hoyt and Calame, who performed the Times’ role earlier, Watson said. Calame is now retired but active in speaking circles. Hoyt is senior advisor to the chief executive officer of Bloomberg LP.
Rick Rodriguez, former president of the American Society of News Editors and also a member of the Cronkite faculty, will be part of the program, focusing on the ethics of covering immigration and border strife.
“This will be a memorable part of SABEW’s 50th anniversary,” said Warren Watson, executive director of SABEW. We’re assembling an excellent cast for some important dialogue on how we do what we do.”
Klott, who was SABEW president in 1994-95, died of a massive heart attack in 2002 at age 52. He is credited with getting SABEW to expand its tough ethics guidelines for business journalism. At the time of his death, Klott was a widely syndicated tax-advice columnist and ran a tax information website he founded. Previously, he was a business writer for United Press International and The New York Times. He also wrote three books, including “The New York Times Complete Guide to Personal Investing” in 1987.
Sandy Duerr, Klott’s widow and vice president and executive editor of The Tribune in San Luis Obispo, Calif., is part of a planning group organizing the Phoenix seminar. Other members of the committee include Randy Smith, journalism professor at the University of Missouri, and Calame, a former top editor at The Wall Street Journal. Duerr, Smith and Calame are all past presidents of SABEW.
After Klott’s death, Duerr and Klott’s brothers, David and Richard, led a SABEW ethics fund drive in Gary’s honor. Money from the fund will be used to defray some seminar costs in Phoenix.
Since Klott died, SABEW has conducted one-hour ethics programs in Klott’s honor at its annual spring conference. This will be the first extended workshop in his honor.
