Kathryn Jones and Dan Malone
Tally Ho at the Alamo Seminar, 2015, San Antonio, Texas
Sharpening our skills in journalism is paramount to an association that strives for media excellence. Three editorial sessions target topics of interest from members. They are presented by a husband and wife team of career journalists and journalism educators.
KATHRYN JONES has more than 30 years of experience writing for newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, Texas Monthly and Texas Highways. Her specialties are travel and feature writing and she often writes about the Southwest and its culture. Jones’ work also has appeared in Time, Life, Elle Décor, Town & Country, Endless Vacation, the Harvard Business School Bulletin and many other publications. She also teaches journalism at Tarleton State University.
DAN MALONE is a veteran journalist and author. As a staff writer for The Dallas Morning News, Dan and a colleague won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He also was the News’ Fort Worth Bureau chief. Earlier, Malone worked as a staff writer for Fort Worth Weekly and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He currently is an assistant professor of journalism at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas.
The couple live on a ranch south of Glen Rose, Texas, with horses, longhorn, miniature donkeys and assorted other critters.
Jones presented the first two sessions. Niche publications often cover the same topics year after year. Finding Fresh Approaches to Familiar Stories answers the questions: How do you revitalize stories with interesting angles and fresh approaches? How do you develop a writing style that matches your brand? This session will help you find that unique voice.
Engaging Ledes, Sources, and Quotes covers three areas of improvement often seen in awards contest critiques. Don’t bury that lede! Instead, develop the best lede that will engage your audience quickly. How to use multiple sources to give credibility to a story, and how to use quotes to their best effect to enliven stories are covered in this session.
The Changing Scope of News Reporting and Ethics is perhaps one of the most important sessions of the day to the future of journalism and was presented by Jones and Malone together. News reporting takes place on so many different platforms today – print, online and on social media. Standards of accuracy and fairness often aren’t the same, however, on Facebook and Twitter. Following ethical guidelines and fact checking information are more important than ever. How do you recycle news among print, online and social media platforms and keep it fresh, focused and factual?