Deadline extension: Early bird prices for Spring Convention tickets now vanish April 4
The Illinois Capitol / Photo courtesy of UIS
Journalists don’t often get deadline extensions. But here’s one for you. We’re extending the deadline to purchase early bird-priced tickets to the 2023 INBA Spring Convention in Springfield by three days. That means you now have until 11:59 p.m. on April 3 to purchase tickets. Prices go up April 4.
The convention is set for April 28-30 at the Wyndham City Centre in downtown Springfield.
Buzz Bomb Brewing, 406 E. Adams St., just a five-minute walk from the Wyndham at 700 E. Adams, will be the site of the traditional Friday night Opening Reception. INBA has booked the upper floor of the popular downtown brewery. If you’re rolling into town Friday, please join us!
Meanwhile, the schedule for the event’s educational sessions is almost set. Journalists, professors and other experts will teach on emerging and important topics in journalism, including the use of artificial intelligence, education in Illinois, reporter safety in the field and fostering an inclusive newsroom.
The keynote event will occur Saturday night, when INBA’s H. Wayne Wilson has a conversation with former U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos about her career in Congress (and previously as a journalist). The Saturday night dinner also highlights the accomplishments of college broadcasters, with the annual presentation of scholarships and the SINBA Awards.
Ticket options include an all-inclusive pass that provides three meals, educational sessions and the keynote address. Partial day tickets are also available. We also have a very limited number of free day passes available for active journalists working in Springfield or Decatur. Contact INBA board member Jason Piscia at jason.piscia@gmail.com for more information.
The Wyndham is offering special hotel room rates for convention attendees — $104 a night plus taxes.
We’re still looking for convention sponsors. If you’d like to purchase an ad in the convention program to promote a business or your station, get details here.
Here is the schedule (as of now) for our weekend in Springfield. More details to come!
Friday
Noon: INBA Board Meeting, Innovate Springfield, 15 S. Old State Capitol Plaza
7-9 p.m.: Opening Reception. Join us for drinks and conversation at Buzz Bomb Brewing Co., 406 E. Adams St., in downtown Springfield just three blocks from the hotel.
Saturday
All events at Wyndham City Centre, 700 E. Adams St.
9:15 a.m.: Opening remarks
9:30 to 10:45 a.m.: Knowing your First Amendment rights and exercising them safely. Learn best practices for maintaining situational awareness in field reporting with a representative from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and another speaker TBA.
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.: The State of Education. Teachers’ Lounge podcast host Peter Medlin from WNIJ will moderate a panel discussing hot topics in education policy in Illinois. Panelists include Samantha Smylie with Chalkbeat, and Dr. Cara Gutzmer and Dr. Paul Bruno from the University of Illinois.
12:15 to 1:45 p.m.: Lunch (choice of turkey and ham club or grilled portabella) and business meeting.
2 to 3:15 p.m. GPT-3/AI and News. Don’t fear the robots! One of the developers behind the YESEO app will walk through how it can help newsrooms better apply SEO best practices. The app was developed as part of the Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship program with the ability to analyze published stories as well as unpublished stories. It features GPT-3 generated data for use in your workflows. According to the Institute, “This Slack app seeks to tackle the search problem head on of what journalists can impact, starting with the headline, focusing on the keywords in a story and uses the GPT-3 language models to generate suggestions that you can reformat to your own publications’ style.” In addition, Dr. Margaret Ng from the U of I will join the conversation to talk about the ethics of AI technology.
3:15 p.m.: Student critique session. Students, bring your reel and portfolio work to be looked at by a professional for feedback.
3:30 to 4 p.m.: Illinois Public Radio breakout meeting
4-4:30 p.m.: INBA Foundation breakout meeting
6 p.m.: Cocktail reception
6:30 p.m.: Dinner (chicken bruschetta and buffet)
7 p.m.: An evening with former U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos
8 p.m.: Student scholarship presentations and SINBA awards
Sunday
9:30 a.m.: Breakfast (horseshoe buffet)
10 to 11 a.m.: Creating an inclusive newsroom. National Association of Black Journalists – Chicago Chapter President Brandon Pope and KWQC’s Redrick Terry talk about incorporating best practices in newsrooms across Illinois where every team member is empowered to do their jobs in a respectful and safe environment.
11:15 to 11:45 a.m.: Capitol News Illinois broadcast expansion update with Jeff Rogers of CNI
Noon: Final resolution and farewell.
