SAN FRANCISCO PRESS CLUB MEETING
March 24, 2020
(Meeting via Zoom video conference)
Updates:
- Kevin Salwen, the co-author of “The Suspect” about Olympic bombing suspect Richard Jewell, lives is the Bay Area and is interested in working with SFPC as a guest speaker.
- There is a new CZI Community Space in Redwood City that offers free meeting and event space for nonprofit organizations in San Mateo County. This venue could serve as a potential hosting site for our public events. It’s a small auditorium that would fit a group of about 100 or so.
- Because of Covid-19 concerns, it’s not too early to think about moving the date of the contest. As it stands, the annual November awards night banquet is in jeopardy. The consensus among board members is that it’s too early to make a decision, but the situation bears watching.
- There’s the possibility of doing a video awards presentation, but the consensus was that the dinner format is just too valuable to abandon. It’s a good networking and journalism community-building opportunity that can’t be duplicated in a video conference format.
- Curtis Sparrer and Bill Parks echoed the sentiment that it’s unlikely that we’ll be having physical events by the end of the year. The best play might be to push the annual awards celebration until next spring.
- The annual high school conference in Palo Alto is likely to be postponed / canceled. That conference is looking for out-of-state judges this year.
- Dave Price suggested that the SFPC campaign to prevent school boards from shutting campus newspapers, which is happening at Marin-area high schools. The school budget gets finalized at some point in May.