2022 SPJ Region 1 Virtual Conference March 19: Register Now for Free

The Press Club of Long Island hosts the 2022 SPJ Region 1 Virtual Conference on Saturday, March 19. Register online for FREE to get access to the Zoom link.

Join us for panels on investigative journalism and covering climate.

The virtual conference is sponsored by Newsday and News 12.

SPJ Region 1 Virtual Conference Schedule

• 8 – 9 a.m.: Chapter Leader Meeting
• 9 – 9:30 a.m.: Opening Remarks
  • PCLI President Brendan O’Reilly
  • SPJ Region 1 Coordinator Chris Vaccaro
  • SPJ President Rebecca Aguilar
• 9:30 – 10:30 a.m. PANEL 1 — Investigative Journalism
  • Moderator: Sandra Peddie (Newsday)
  • Speakers: Pei-Sze Cheng (NBC), Keith Herbert (NBC), Walt Kane (News 12), Rosalind Adams (Buzzfeed)
• 10:45 – 11:45 a.m.: PANEL 2 — Covering Climate
  • Moderator: Scott Brinton (Hofstra)
  • Speakers: David Abel (Boston Globe), Jase Bernhardt (Hofstra), JD Allen (WSHU), Dharna Noor (Boston Globe)

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM PANEL:

In an era of newsroom cutbacks, one area media companies have been committed to is investigative reporting. Top investigative journalists from NBC, BuzzFeed News, News12 New Jersey and Newsday will discuss how they got into investigative reporting, how it differs from daily coverage, investigations that have made a difference and what it takes to do it well. The panel will highlight career-focused, practical tips for journalists hoping to break into it.

Investigative Journalism Panel Speakers:

• MODERATOR: Newsday investigative reporter Sandra Peddie has won more than 70 awards, including the Selden Ring Award for stories on pension fraud in special government districts that led to changes in New York State law. A finalist for the Public Service Pulitzer in 2014 for a series of stories on police misconduct, Peddie also was a reporter on Newsday’s 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning police disability fraud series. In 2011, she was named Long Island’s Outstanding Journalist of the Year by the Press Club of Long Island and later was inducted into its Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame. She has won two New York Emmys, most recently for the documentary, “American Gangster.” Peddie served on the board of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She has taught journalism at Hofstra and Stony Brook universities. The graduate of Wellesley College is the author of two books: The Repetitive Strain Injury Sourcebook, published in 1997, and SONNY, The Last of the Old-Time Mafia Bosses, John Sonny Franzese, to be released this month.
• Emmy Award-winning reporter Pei-Sze Cheng is a member of NBC 4 New York’s investigative unit, the I-Team. Cheng’s investigations have generated results. Her reporting on a teenager’s overdose led police to make an arrest. Cheng-led investigations that found dozens of traffic signs missing along Routes 4 and 46 in New Jersey resulted in the installation of new signs and introduction of new state legislation to further remedy the situation. Cheng’s investigation of Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County found scores of “wrong way” signs missing from entrance exit ramps, resulting in the installation of 229 new signs. Before becoming a member of the I-Team in 2013, Cheng served as an NBC 4 New York general assignment reporter for more than eight years. A native of Suffolk County, Cheng began her reporting career at News 12 Connecticut and later moved to WFSB-TV in Hartford where she served as the New Haven bureau reporter and fill-in anchor. Cheng is a graduate of Columbia University, where she earned a BA in political science. She is an active member of the Asian American Journalists Association.
• Keith Herbert has been a politics editor at NBC News Digital since last May. Before that, he was a Newsday deputy Long Island editor for politics, an editor and reporter on the investigations team and a transportation reporter. Herbert was a member of the Newsday team that won the Polk Award in 2020 for “Long Island Divided,” an investigation of housing segregation. Before Newsday, Herbert was a court reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer and a general assignment reporter with the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa. He graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with a BA in journalism. He is a former president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists and former vice president of the Press Club of Long Island.
• Walt Kane has won nearly 300 awards, including 15 Emmy Awards, four Edward R. Murrow Awards, 10 National Headliner Awards and six Deadline Club Awards. Kane and his team are based at News 12 New Jersey but KIYC investigations run on all News 12 stations across the tristate area. Before joining News 12, Kane worked for television stations and newspapers in New York, Michigan, Oklahoma and Kansas. A native of Brooklyn, Kane is a graduate of Manhattan College and pursued graduate studies at the University of Nebraska.

COVERING CLIMATE PANEL:

Scientists tell us the climate crisis is no longer a theoretical construct that could play out in the distant future. It is here — today. We can see it, feel it, in the wild weather that we are experiencing around the globe — unusually destructive hurricanes, floods and tornadoes that lash communities without mercy, soaring temperatures that turn already parched forests into tinderboxes that burn for weeks. This panel will look in-depth at how to translate the arcane science behind global warming into everyday language that is understandable to an often confused and skeptical public.

Covering Climate Panel Speakers:

• MODERATOR: Scott Brinton is a special assistant professor of journalism at Hofstra University. He co-directs the university’s Summer High School Journalism Institute, which recruits students from nearby communities of color, and he is the editor of the award-winning Long Island Advocate, the online multimedia publication showcasing the best student work from their classes and internships. He previously worked as an award-winning executive editor of Herald Community Newspapers.
•  David Abel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and documentary filmmaker who currently covers the environment, including climate change, for The Boston Globe. Over the years, he has covered war in the Balkans, unrest in Latin America, national security issues in Washington, D.C., terrorism in New York and Boston, and poverty throughout New England. Abel’s most recent film, “Entangled,” chronicles the efforts to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, the impacts of those efforts on the lobster industry, and how government has struggled to balance the vying interests.
• J.D. Allen, a native Long Islander, is managing editor of WSHU Public Radio, an NPR member station that covers Long Island, Connecticut and the rest of New England. J.D. also leads WSHU’s Long Island News Bureau at Stony Brook University. He hosts the climate podcast “Higher Ground,” which tells the stories of communities exploring solutions to climate change. Allen has reported for public radio stations across the Northeast, healthcare and small businesses for Long Island Business News and real estate and land use for the Express News Group newspapers in the Hamptons. He is a lecturer at Stony Brook University, Quinnipiac University and Suffolk County Community College. He is vice president of the Press Club of Long Island.
• Jase Bernhardt is an assistant professor in the department of geology, environment and sustainability at Hofstra University and also director of the department’s MA in Sustainability program. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation and New York Sea Grant, the former a project to engage student teams in research, and the latter an initiative to improve rip current outreach to Long Island Latinx communities. He served as president of the Middle States Division of the American Association of Geographers in 2021. Jase received a BS in atmospheric science from Cornell University.
• Dharna Noor is the Boston Globe’s climate producer. Prior to joining the Globe’s climate team, Noor worked as a staff writer at Earther, Gizmodo’s climate vertical, where she co-produced a season of the podcast “Drilled” on the fossil fuel industry’s influence on education. Before that, she led the climate team at the Real News Network. Her writing has also appeared in Jacobin Magazine, In These Times and Truthout, and was also featured in a 2021 book from The New Press called The World We Need.

Register online for FREE to get access to the Zoom link.