The 1998 NASW membership meeting convened at 4:07 p.m. on February 14, 1998 in the Philadelphia Marriott Hotel.
President Richard Harris said NASW has been engaging in more and more activities, and one that is very successful is the annual professional program which this year drew 282 people, including "a last-minute crush of students."
He said that while the workshops will continue to be targeted to mid-career professionals, students will be welcome to attend. Paul Lowenberg, co-chair of the workshops, said he thought they went very well, and thanked the other principal organizers, including co-chair Carol Cruzan Morton, and Kathryn Brown. But he said the future of the workshops needs to be discussed. Harris thanked the organizers for their hard work in turning out a very good program.
Another area where our organization is continuing to grow, Harris said, is on NASW Online, where NASW-talk and NASW-freelance are often quite interesting and lively. Bob Finn, NASW cybrarian, said he gave out the one thousandth password, noting that half the members have already forgotten their passwords. He said that the NASW Online listservs have a combined total of 8,000 messages and that he also continually receives high-quality job openings to post. He thanked Merry Bruns for redesigning the NASW web page, and assistant cybrarian A'ndrea Messer.
While the newer activities NASW is engaged in are booming, "Some of the best things that we still do are things we've done for a long, long time," Harris said. ScienceWriters, which has grown into the status of a "quarterly review," is "stronger than ever," Harris commented, due largely to the tireless work of editor Howard Lewis. Harris pointed out that ScienceWriters is now posted on the NASW web page.
He asked for a brief report on the NASW book, A Field Guide for Science Writers, which has been out for a year. Mary Knudson, co-editor of the Field Guide, said Oxford reported selling 4,600 books, is preparing to publish the paperback version, and the Oxford editor has said she would like us to do a second edition of the hardback. Knudson said she and co-editor Deborah Blum invite suggestions from members for additions to the book, and are particularly interested in hearing from professors/instructors who have used the book for teaching.
The Field Guide, as well as many other books by NASW members, can be bought by going to the NASW web page and clicking on the NASW Science Bookstore. Harris and Finn explained that NASW gets a "kickback" (which NASW's Diane McGurgan says has amounted to $150 so far) for all books bought by first entering the NASW bookstore, although the purchases are actually made through Amazon.com. Finn said he would be happy to list any book by an NASW member that is available in Amazon.com. He said there are well over 200 books listed in the NASW Science Bookstore, of which the Field Guide is the best seller.
There was a short discussion of the NASW Science in Society Award which for the first time in many, many years was judged in California rather than New York. Joel Shurkin, chair of the award committee, and Harris urged more people to send in entries. Mitch Waldrop asked if there is a category for books, and Harris said the board discussed that and held it over to next year.
Yet another new and very successful program, Harris said, is the mentoring program, and he called on Rick Borchelt, its founder and principal organizer, to give a brief report.
Borchelt said there were 47 mentees this year, many of whom registered at the last minute. He noted that many of today's mentors started somewhere as mentees, and he and Harris urged NASW members to participate as mentors next year. Borchelt thanked Sandy Blakeslee and Knudson who helped him recruit mentors this year.
Paul Raeburn gave the treasurer's report, noting that advertising revenue increased due to ads on the website. Harris said that McGurgan, NASW's administrative secretary, "was given a substantial raise this year, more than 10 percent," in part because with all the added things NASW is doing, that means added work for her. NASW is "a healthy organization" with more than $140,000 in the bank, Harris said, largely because of McGurgan's efforts.
Proposed Changes to the Constitution
Harris said that a number of things in the NASW constitution don't reflect what the organization does; while, on the other hand, there are things that the organization has voted to do over the years that are not reflected in the constitution. He added that how to categorize freelancers, who make up a third of the membership, was one reason for changing the constitution. "Most of them are primarily journalists," Harris said, but "they do a bunch of other things as well. Some are relatively easy to pigeonhole and others are not very easy to pigeonhole. And as we dug into this, we realized that we as an organization were changing." Harris said he sees "how important freelance members are to this organization," and he thinks they can benefit from NASW more than any other category of members through such activities as the workshops and NASW Online.
Harris then described two ideas for changing membership categories that were discussed by the board, but dropped. One was creating multiple categories tailored to the various jobs members do. Another, which Harris had proposed, was a single membership category for all members, except that officers and a majority of board members would be required to be journalists. The board formally voted down the latter proposal.
What's left, Harris said, is a "working draft" that "reflects the way we actually do business in this organization," and also "does make some other significant changes." Harris said he would discuss "broad outlines" of the proposed changes at the meeting attended by about 120 NASW members, but not ask members to vote now. Later he will post the proposed new constitution on the NASW web page where all changes can be seen. Words taken out will be in red and crossed through, and words to be added will be in green. "We will gather feedback from you over the coming months," Harris said. When the final draft is prepared, he will use one of the two options that exist in the present constitution, getting a petition signed by 20 active members, to move the proposed constitutional changes to a mail vote by active members of NASW. Members will have a month to mail in ballots. "Unless a quarter of the active membership sends in a letter saying 'I disagree with this,' those changes will take place," Harris said. He then highlighted the proposed major changes:
Description of Changes
- Rename active members "journalists."
- Rename associate members "science communicators." This new label is still open to suggestions, Harris said. The category includes public information/public relations specialists, science writing instructors, people who work for museums, and all other members who are neither primarily journalists nor students. "We are working to sharpen those definitions as best we can," Harris said, so that "it's clearer what a journalist is and isn't, recognizing that the business is changing all the time."
- Eliminate the lifetime member category, but do something to recognize those people who remain members for 25 years.
- Eliminate the affiliated member category. NASW has no affiliated members.
- Codify our practice of allowing students in science writing programs to remain student members for two years only. After that, they would be required to become full dues-paying members.
- In a change from past practice, one nominating committee will be appointed having both "journalist" and "science communicator" members. The entire committee will nominate officers. After nominating officers, the committee will split into two groups, and the "journalist" members will nominate "journalist" candidates for seven seats on the board and the "science communicator" members will nominate "science communicator" candidates for four seats on the board.. The constitution had no function for nominating associate members to be on the board, although in practice, a nominating committee of associate members has been named to nominate associate member candidates.
- Candidates for the board and for officers will be asked to supply some evidence that they are in the proper membership category. "The nominating committee actually will ask for some materials from you, probably clips or videos, or whatever is appropriate considering how you are representing yourself, to make sure that you are in fact satisfying our definition of being a journalist member in order to serve (in that category) on the board," Harris said.
- A codification of existing practice: NASW members who have not paid their annual dues by May 15 will not have their names listed in the membership roster, will not be able to access the membership area of NASW online, and will no longer receive ScienceWriters.
- Update from 15 to 50 the number of members required to constitute a quorum at the annual membership meeting.
- A "substantial change" would, for the first time, give members formerly categorized as "associates" a role in amending the constitution. The current constitution allows only "active" members to vote for or against proposed amendments. Under the proposal, amendments would first be discussed and ratified by a two thirds vote of the board. After board approval, they would be voted on at the annual membership meeting or be endorsed by a petition signed by 20 members, and then they would be mailed to the entire membership. Returned ballots would be segregated in "journalist" or "science communicator" piles. Both "journalists" and "science communicators" would have "veto power" because the amendments would not take effect unless approved by both a majority of "journalists" who voted and a majority of "science communicators" who voted. This amendment would also eliminate the current wording that says constitutional amendments will take effect unless at least one fourth of the active members vote against the amendments.
Harris reiterated that the proposed constitutional changes are "a work in progress," and that the board is "still interested in hearing from people for suggestions of ways to not only make the language of the proposal I'm working on reflect what I just said, but maybe change it if that is the will of the membership as a whole."
Discussion
Q. Does the Constitution define which freelancers are journalists and which are not?
HARRIS: "The definition of journalist is altered slightly. (Reads proposed definition:) 'Journalist membership shall be restricted to those persons principally engaged in the preparation and interpretation of science news for recognized news media outlets and journalistic books. Provided that no person shall be admitted to journalism membership whose efforts are primarily directed to the promotion of a product or an organization.'"
Q. Do you recognize journalism on the web pages?
HARRIS: "That's an excellent question. I didn't read the next sentence, which is: 'The membership committee shall determine what constitutes a recognized news media outlet.' Because this is a very difficult issue and we do recognize that there are web pages that are clearly journalistic enterprises and web pages that are clearly not journalistic enterprises, and who knows what there will be after the web. We clearly do want to maintain flexibility in order to define that because the definition of media is changing."
RAEBURN: "One of the things we talked about was to strengthen the role of the membership committee to make some of these decisions" because after a lot of discussion, a definition "was difficult or impossible to codify."
HARRIS: "I think it's a real interesting issue regarding our profession as a whole and it's not something that we can codify and set into words, but it is clearly something that we need to continually hash out with whomever you guys are electing to be on the board after I am long gone."
Q. Will you refine it a little bit better? What is the definition of "primarily?" Is that by proportion of income or proportion of time?
HARRIS: "We are very sensitive to the fact that freelancers do not want to be told turn over your financial sheets and tell us how much money you've made, or how little money you've made. Yet strictly defining it by time is also not necessarily a realistic thing, either. So, again, we punt. I can not imagine an occasion where we actually have to get into financial data, but there may be a dispute where that's the best way to do it ... We can't write in that it's only based on time or only based on money. I think this is a time of transition for this whole profession, and we have to rely on personal judgment. For the membership as a whole, it's basically done on an honor system." At the time members pay their dues they will designate what category they belong in based on what they did the previous year.
Q. The Society of Environmental Journalists used the definition "someone who writes for the general public."
HARRIS: "We looked at that definition and we didn't like it because I would argue that Drugs could be an active member of SEJ — the Office of Drug Reports. Yet I don't think anybody in this room would consider that real journalism. For us it was too broad a definition and not very satisfying."
Q. Are editors excluded from the journalist category?
HARRIS: "We certainly are not excluding editors as journalists." Broadcasters such as those who cover science for NPR also consider themselves journalists.
Q. Why not use a percentage of the membership as a quorum at the annual meeting rather than a set number?
SEVERAL OFFICERS: Agreed that might be the better way.
Q. What is a journalistic book?
HARRIS: "Clearly there are people who write books that we would all look at and say this is a piece of journalism. ... A lot of things that are just long, long investigations ... Commonly chapters are spun off into journalistic outlets ... Many people write books for a corporation — something in particular that we would not consider a journalistic enterprise ... A work of fiction by a member would not qualify as a journalistic book."
Q. "What about feature books — How great the universe is? The cosmos? There are a lot of writers and people in TV doing things that are really features and are not investigative journalism or journalism by any means."
HARRIS: "Like so many other things, it's a real question of judgment. And I did not mention, but we do intend to include an appeals process. If the nominating committee says, 'That's not journalism,' you can say, 'I want to ask the board what the board thinks.' And the board will be able to hear the appeal."
DAVID PERLMAN: "We are the National Association of Science Writers. That doesn't necessarily mean journalists. We do an awful lot of other kind of writing about science."
HARRIS: "Absolutely."
PERLMAN: Why worry about whether the book is a journalistic book?
RAEBURN: "The category is for the writer, not for the book. There are plenty of features in newspapers. I don't know if somebody who edited the recipes column in a paper would be a journalist. There are lots of things in newspapers that might not be journalism. It was hard for us to try to find a way to identify all these possibilities. So we figured you know it when you see it. We hope the membership committee knows it when they see it."
HARRIS: "If somebody writes a book that is commissioned by a university to say all the wonderful things that the university did, should that person be a journalist member of the organization? Or should that person be a science communicator?"
PERLMAN: "What is the other 51 percent of that person's time spent doing?" What if he's doing journalism?
HARRIS: "Yes, well then that certainly would answer the question for us. If that would clearly be the case, then that person would be clearly classified as a journalist."
TAMMY POWLEDGE: What is the problem with categorizing a member based on time spent?
JOE PALCA: "Part of it was that PR work pays a lot better. So you can work 10 minutes for IBM and get a thousand bucks, and you can work six months on an article for New Scientist."
Q. But what difference does that make?
PALCA: "Because in those 10 minutes you are committing yourself to IBM because they're giving you a lot of money, versus the six months that you spend as a labor of love preparing an article for New Scientist. Am I not making it clear?"
HARRIS: 'The expectation is that time is often the primary determinant. It may not always be. And we don't want to tie the definition down to always having to be time. But, yes, my expectation is that is how somebody should appropriately take the first cut at judging how somebody's spending their work time."
SHURKIN: Can you plead poverty?
RAEBURN: "That's understood."
Q. Who is on the membership committee?
HARRIS: "Joe (Palca) is chairman of the membership committee, which is appropriate considering he's president-elect and he's going to get to deal with some of these issues as they bubble up. He's going to approach other members to be on the committee."
CHARLIE PETIT: These definitions need to be kept "very loose. The committee will get bogged down into protests and appeals if we don't ... The real intention of different categories is (separating) agents for a university or a company and those who are regarded as active or journalist members. It's very difficult to tell me 'You know one when you see one, but it isn't easy to write it down.'"
HARRIS: "And I agree with you completely, which is why the membership committee is not going to police the membership. People who are members are going to be asked to categorize yourself, based on how we lay things out, and leave the judgment in your lap. The only time when this is going to become an issue is when somebody wants to run for the board, and then the question is actually up to the nominating committee to determine whether that person really belongs in the category that they have selected for themselves."
Q. Does the constitution specify a membership committee and how many people are on it?
HARRIS: "Yes, it's in the constitution, but the number is not specified. Maybe we should .
PALCA: "As the person who is now going to chair that committee, it is my intention to ask people to categorize themselves, because I do feel that there has to be a lot of latitude. The reason I was opposed to doing anything more to codify it in the constitution is that we're talking about a moving target. Our profession is changing. The nature of publishing and journalism is changing. The whole world is changing. And the things we say in 1998 may not seem appropriate even in two years. So, I'm assuming that everybody comes to this organization in good faith ... and when they apply for a membership category, they're (using) the best judgment they can. And it's only going to be in those rare circumstances when somebody seems completely out of line to me, and I don't even know how I'm going to identify those people, except by looking through the lists of how people come in, that there will be any need to change them."
LARRY KRUMENAKER: Why can't we open up the election process and let all members vote for the seven journalist board members and the four science communicator board members, instead of having journalist members vote for journalist candidates for the board and science communicator members vote for science communicator candidates for the board?
HARRIS: "What do other people think about that idea? (Repeats it.) (APPLAUSE) Is there anyone who does not think that is a good idea. I hear good support for that."
KNUDSON: "We discussed that in the board and the board turned it down."
HARRIS: Agrees that the board discussed it earlier, but that there was no actual vote on it or anything else, except one issue, because the board tried to reach a consensus of opinion rather than hold votes.
BORCHELT: Go back and look at what we're changing. This is an infinitely better document. The fact that we've come to this level of consensus is nothing short of amazing.
PETIT: "In the role and function, the rights and privileges of the members of this organization have definitely come to some definite changes." Why?
HARRIS: "Let's discuss that right now."
RAEBURN: "I might just add one clarification. Under the current proposal, prior to Larry's comment, journalists vote for journalists and communicators vote for communicators. So, that's the current proposal."
HARRIS: "I would like to point out one other significant difference that is maintained in the constitution, which is what happens when you amend the constitution. This still gives journalists veto power over changes in the constitution, which would disappear if you had one membership category. I think that's an important distinction."
PERLMAN: "I'm still puzzled about this science communicator business, because reporters are communicators, too."
HARRIS: "Of course."
PERLMAN: "And book writers are communicators."
HARRIS: "Of course."
PERLMAN: "Book writers can be journalists, and how do you define whether a book is journalistic? "
HARRIS: "I agree it's an imperfect term."
PERLMAN: " I just want to make a prediction that five years from now we will be amending the constitution again."
HARRIS: "Well, I'm prepared to do that, but my philosophy is let's see where we have consensus now, and let's go with that."
MITCH WALDROP: With regard to the differences you just listed that still appear in the constitution, it seems to me that all those are functions of the nominating committee. The nominating committee picks the slate for officers and members at large. "What are people so afraid of would happen if you had just one membership category?"
HARRIS: "People are afraid that the organization might become overtaken by PIO's, by flacks. (responds to a few shouts.) Look, I'm not saying it's rational."
Q. Why should someone who has years of experience as a science writer at a university have less to offer than a first-year journalist?
HARRIS: "The fundamental words of the organization (are) that we are fostering the dissemination of accurate information through all media normally devoted to informing the public, in keeping with the highest standards of journalism ... Everybody in this organization — journalists and non journalists — is supposed to do that, absolutely. The question is, who is carrying the torch to make sure we are maintaining the highest standards of journalism? The answer is that our founding fathers said it should be journalists, and we are going to maintain that tradition in this organization."
JULIE MILLER: On the question of why not let both categories of members vote for all board candidates: If both groups voted for everybody, one group who has more members will influence the outcome of the vote.
Q. Some of you may not remember the debate of five or six years ago when associate members had "The bearer is a qualified science writer" taken off the back of their associate membership cards. Was that addressed by the board?
HARRIS: "No, it was not. Does anybody find the membership card a useful press pass? Is there any reason to have that wording on the back of the card at all?" (Several members said yes. One said it's getting harder to get into press rooms.)
HARRIS: "We have a tough case here, which is that we should not represent our active membership status as accrediting people as reporters because we in fact are not doing that. We are counting on the honor system ... I don't think we really want to be in the business of accrediting journalists."
Q. "I think you do." Freelance writers and authors should have the wording that helps give them access to news events.
Q. My point was not that I should have something special on the back of my card but that everyone should have the same thing. It could be nothing.
BORCHELT: Unless we see financial statements, we can not commission journalists.
HARRIS: "If we were a pure journalistic organization, we could really enforce that, but we are an organization of science writers and we embrace a much larger group than that. We have to bear in mind that journalists are a subset of this organization." (Calls for two more questions.)
Q. "Could you tell us what the time frame is?"
HARRIS: "I'm going to put together a draft that I believe reflects what we've been trying to achieve. I'll send it around to a few people to make sure they think it's what we want it to be. Then in a couple of months — a month or two maybe it will take — I'm going to post it on the NASW web site. Then ... everyone can look at it. Everyone can comment. We will take this conversation live over cyberspace and get more feedback."
Q. As somebody who has spent many years on both sides of the membership, I think we need to find ways to recognize work done by the other half of the members — such as good science writing at universities.
HARRIS: We discussed that and Joe promised to take it up next year.
Q. What is the genesis of having non-journalists in NASW?
HARRIS: "I think it's recognized from the beginning that there's always been an important symbiosis between journalists and people like public information officers in this field ... We all have generally the same interests and goals. We have different duties by virtue of the professions that separate us. But we have a lot in common. And I believe that is really why the organization was named not the National Association of Science Journalists, but the National Association of Science Writers, to recommend this broader community."
After discussion of the proposed constitutional amendments, Harris announced new committees. An education committee will deal with, among other things, the mentoring program. A workshops committee will look at the future of the annual professional workshops initiated by the last president, Laurie Garrett, Knudson and Blum. After running on a shoestring, Harris said, the board now recognizes this as a major new program "clearly here to stay" which needs a more formal structure. Harris also reminded members that this is an election year. He said he will chair the nominating committee, and members who want to run should let him know.
In other business, one member suggested that NASW establish a student fund, possibly through a dues checkoff of $5, to help defer the costs to students who attend the workshops. Harris said that student membership in NASW costs $15, and it cost $35 to attend the workshops this year, so we as an organization are not taxing students too severely. Bob Finn said that in view of the fact that we haven't raised dues in years and it doesn't look like we need to soon, people may be willing to have a dues checkoff. Another member asked how you would decide which students deserved the money. Palca and Borchelt suggested remanding the issue to the education committee, and Harris so ordered.
Harris said that this year's workshops were taped and will probably be transcribed because not every participant was miked and some questions were asked off mike. It will be announced later whether reproductions will be available as tapes or as transcripts, sold at a price to recoup the cost of making them. Harris adjourned the meeting at 5:35 p.m.
Respectfully submitted, Mary Knudson NASW Secretary
