President Harris invited comments from representatives of three fields: journalism, public information, and freelance writing.
The new NASW Constitution is a positive step for everyone in this organization, not least staff journalists. Changes were needed. The new document is relevant to the organization as it exists today, and it reaffirms NASW's commitment to science writing "in keeping with the highest standards of journalism."
As Richard Harris has mentioned above, reaching a consensus on a new constitution has been difficult. Some staff journalists believed-and no doubt continue to believe-that the elimination of categories for "active" and "associate" will ultimately be harmful to the organization, that somehow aggressive PR-types will undermine NASW, turning it into a rubber stamp of legitimacy for anyone calling him or herself a journalist, regardless of that person's true qualifications.
This just doesn't seem credible to me. First, I haven't run
across anyone in the organization who seems intent on doing this.
Second, it's a little hard to imagine an avowed PR-person trying
to pass him or herself off as a true journalist by waving an NASW
membership card. But should that happen, it would still be a violation
of "the highest standards of journalism," and
therefore the person who tried it would be subject to sanction.
Third, I don't believe the old constitution really protected against
this. True, there were separate categories of membership, but
were they strictly enforced?
All the old constitution did was condemn some of our most active
and influential members to a kind of second-class citizenship.
I know that chafed on them, and as the incoming president of NASW,
I'm glad I don't have to tell people like Rick Borchelt or Earle
Holland or Dennis Meredith or Catherine Foster to take their seats
at the back of the bus. The new constitution also will go a long
way toward eliminating a long-standing and legitimate complaint
that officers' positions in NASW were the private bastion of staff
journalists. We needed to open this organization up to people
who don't draw a regular paycheck from a news
outlet, and now I believe we can. The Constitution that Richard
has drafted will serve this organization well for decades. But
in the end, people will look at NASW for what it does and what
it stands for, not for what it says in its bylaws and constitution.
So
long as we continue to help young science writers start their
careers, help our members find jobs, offer professional training
through writing guides and workshops, provide print and on-line
mechanisms for the discussion to issues relevant to all science
writers, then we will have a healthy organization, one worth joining.
One worth leading.
Joe Palca is an NPR Science Correspondent -- 202-414-2776; jpalca@npr.org
A friar passed a stonemason every day on his way to and from the construction site for a new cathedral -- Strasbourg, perhaps, or Cologne -- and always the man was focused on his work, the chips of stone flying from each deft blow of the mallet. The friar admired the single-minded dedication of the mason, and one day stopped to remark on his work.
"It is good to see a simple stonemason so dedicated to his work, my son," the friar benificently observed. "After all, it must get quite monotonous, chipping stones like this."
"It would be, Father, if I were only chipping stones," the mason replied.
"But you see, I am building a cathedral."
To many of our members, it may have seemed over the past few
years that your board has spent an inordinate amount of time chipping
stones. But as the new constitution that Richard has placed before
you demonstrates, what we've really been doing is building a new
framework to carry NASW into the next century. And while the gains
along the way were incremental, the
document the board is asking you to adopt is nothing short of
remarkable. It is particularly remarkable, from my perch as a
member representing the current class of "associate"
membership, to those of us who are engaged in many of the fields
of science writing that do not qualify as science journalism per
se -- writers of books, museum educators, academics, public
information officers, university research magazine editors, and
a host of others. For years, we've been grumbling about being
treated as second-class citizens, and indeed, the old constitution
treated us pretty harshly: Few voting rights, little or no say
in important decisions about the future of the Association, and
almost no visibility in the organization.
New members of NASW may not have felt the stigma so keenly, since we've been ignoring the constitution for some time now. Everybody votes at the general membership meeting. Associate members have reserved board seats. Professional programs at the annual meeting have served both associate and active members well; I've never felt stifled in having a say in any important Association controversy.
But the old constitution still cast a pall over the membership on those rare occasions on which we exhumed it. The field of science writing has changed dramatically in the years since our founding fathers (all men, all journalists) penned it; Richard made it a priority of his tenure as President to bring the constitution into the 21st century with our members.
The first thing you'll notice is that there is only one general membership category. We are, after all, each of us science writers first, and journalists, PIOs, and educators second. But the clout of NASW in the outside world is a function of how it is perceived, and it is perceived -- to the Association's ultimate benefit, I believe -- as the voice of professional science journalists. For that reason, we have agreed to hold our officers and officer-track board members to a higher journalistic standard than our general membership.
If you haven't read the old constitution lately, most of the
rest of the changes will probably slip right past you without
notice. By and large, they codify what have been our common practices
in NASW rather than reflecting the biases of the old constitution
and the times in which it was originally drafted. And in the future,
when we want to change the new constitution, there are new and
more sensible mechanisms for doing this that keep any one interest
group in NASW from hijacking the agenda of the
whole.
I'm very proud of the effort it took to establish a consensus on the board to make these changes and present them to the membership. At the end, while none of us were satisfied -- hey, we're all perfectionists on the board, and can talk ourselves into and out of almost anything with dizzying speed -- we were all happy. And relieved. And really, really tired. Exhausting work, this business of chipping stones.
But the effort it took makes it possible for me to recommend
adoption of this new constitution to our current associate members.
We've taken a fossil document and turned it into a living, breathing
framework for ALL the members of NASW. We'll fine-tune it in the
future, I'm sure, and already my mind is working on some changes
(small, I swear!) that will make
it even better, but this new constitution deserves your support.
With it, we can grow our membership and our professional activities
into the next century without being dragged back by a document
that no longer reflects who we are or where we're going.
We can get back to building cathedrals.
Rick Borchelt is manager, Media Relations, Lockheed Martin Energy
Research Corporation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge,
TN 37831-6416.
The freelance committee spent an inordinate amount of time
(inordinate in that it was in lieu of paying work) producing a
proposal for the board on the new constitution. Our goal was twofold:
first, to make sure that the needs of the freelance community--which
makes up a third of the membership--were not forgotten, and second,
to make sure that as many
freelances as possible could participate in the governance of
NASW, could sit on the board, could run for office. We did that
in the context of an organization that is basically a journalistic
enterprise. That meant we fought and debated long and hard about
definitions. What's journalism? What's public relations? What
are all those things that fall somewhere in between? This was
a fascinating discussion largely because the way freelances work
these days is dramatically different from how we worked 20
years ago, and we wanted the new constitution to reflect that.
We are satisfied we have a proposal that protects the interest
of
freelances, and protects the critical nature of the organization.
The freelance committee is happily returning to work for themselves
for a while.
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Joel Shurkin chairs NASW's Freelance Committee from 500 Jupiter
Terrace, Santa Cruz, California 95065