SPJ26 Part 2: Colorado SPJ Pro’s wrapup dispatch from the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual conference

/ Colorado SPJ

SPJ26, the Society of Professional Journalists‘ annual conference, finished its four-day run in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 4. Isabel Guzman, SPJ Colorado Pro Chapter membership chair and board member, was on hand for SPJ26 and filed this dispatch on the conclusion of the conference. (CLICK HERE for Part 1.)

Left: Attendees of the SPJ Leadership Institute in July in Indianapolis met again at SPJ26 in Columbus. Right: Julia Wildman, a Colorado Mesa University student journalist, was awarded the 2026 Robert D.G. Lewis First Amendment Award. Photos by Isabel Guzman | SPJ Colorado Pro.

Learning from prison journalists

The Oct. 3 sessions included “What You Can Learn From Prison Journalists,”with Michael Anguille. Anguielle spent 8-1/2 years in prison. He said that while in those concrete walls, he rediscovered his favorite outlet – writing and reporting. He was partnered with a class from the University of Miami and wrote about his experience of being incarcerated in America. 

Now, Anguielle is the executive director of the SPJ Stillwater Awards, co-sponsored by the Prison Journalism Project. The Stillwater Awards honor and recognize prison journalism every year, giving an untapped, misunderstood and neglected population a voice. 

“The more we publish, the greater chance there is for change,” Anguielle said about his time reporting while incarcerated. Prison journalism is usually more creative, he said, and prisoners use “I” to write their stories, making their words more impactful. 

One major challenge for publishing journalism stories is censorship,Anguielle said, adding that anyone from the warden to correctional officers could have a hand in what is published. 

“One story getting published means weeks of mail, edits and going through approvals,” he said. 

‘Headless Body in Topless Bar’

Next came a lesson in headline writing in the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” session with Claire Regan, a past SPJ president. Some of the main tips Regan delivered were to balance when to be risky with a headline and when to be serious and informative. Not every story should get the same New York Post headline, nor should they be too confusing with the worldplay, Regan advised. 

“Readers don’t have the patience to decipher cryptic messages,” Regan said of headlines that don’t prioritize the story or efficiently engage with readers. 

Headlines should be easy to understand, be written in present tense and have a detail, Regan said. For example, Regan, who writes for a paper in Staten Island, had a informative but boring headline: “Heavy rain causes flooding across the island.” After reading the story, Regan then transformed it to, “On Foch Avenue, it’s Irene all over again,” tying in a specific — Foch Avenue — and an engaging detail about hurricane Irene. 

Fellows of the Society

Next up was the 2026 Fellows of the Society session with Walter Robinson and Robin Givhan. Robinson was an editor at The Boston Globe for 34 years. He was played by Michael Keaton in the movie “Spotlight,” which retold how the Globe’s investigative team broke the story of child abuse in the Boston clergy. Givhan is a fashion editor and writer who edited for The Washington Post for more than 25 years and wrote for the Detroit Free Press and Vogue magazine. She is also the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. 

The two discussed changes in journalism, from newsrooms shrinking in the early 2000s to modern-day mass layoffs, including McClatchy’s recent cut of at least 90 journalists. Robinson now works in nonprofit news, which is where the cream of the crop is, he said. 

“Nonprofit journalism … takes the big chains out of it — the advertisers and the hated publisher. You raise money from people who care about local news and are willing to support it,” he said. 

Givhan said the Washington Post also gutted its newsroom in February, essentially doing away with its sports section. 

“And the result, at least in Washington, is that there have been several publications that were smaller, that have grown exponentially and have taken up the slack, stepping in where the Post reduced local coverage,” she said. 

When asked what they would tell young reporters at the beginnings of their careers, Givhan said she jumped into fashion reporting simply because the opportunity presented itself. 

“I had no particular interest in the fashion industry, other than I was a teenager who hung out at the mall,” she said. “It was a beat that was open.”

Robinson said, “There’s no such thing as an investigator reporter. There are good reporters who happen to do investigations.”

Community-engaged journalism

After the session, I attended “Community-Engaged Journalism: All the News That Fits the People,” led by Briana Rice of Detroit’s Outlier Media, Richard Cunningham from Ideastream Public Media and Marty Fischhoff, who works for Detroit PBS. 

Outlier Media is a nonprofit newsroom that uses a texting service to send messages to Detroiters with helpful information and news about housing, utilities, transportation and local government. 

“We also focus on ‘here’s who to call when you’re dealing with an eviction notice, possible utility shut offs and this is where you can go to get help filing taxes,’” Rice said. 

Rice sometimes partners with Fischhoff, who is the director of community engagement at Detroit PBS. Fischhof has developed community advisory panels, where members of the panel are part of the community and come from different backgrounds. These members provide feedback on PBS programming and make recommendations to accurately capture the community, Fischoff said. 

For Cunningham, impactful community-engaged journalism is proactive.

“We’re used to extractive journalism, or reporting on things only when something bad happens,” he said. 

Instead, showing up to just be there is how journalists can be more community-centric, Cunningham said. “Just show up, even when it doesn’t result in a story, because the real experts we need in our stories are the people that live in our communities we report on,” he said.

“Photojournalism for Normal People”

Chris Hughes, a communications professional and journalism freelancer, then hosted “Photojournalism for Normal People.” 

“Imagine trying to describe Jan. 6 without any photos,” Hughes opened with.

While stories can tell a reader what happened, photos can allow a viewer to capture how it felt to be there, Hughes said.

Beyond technical tips, Hughes emphasized the importance of photos in journalism and encouraged journalists to avoid inferiority complexes by embracing the camera they have. 

“The best camera is the camera that’s with you,” Hughes said, quoting photographer Chase Jarvis. 

More from the conference

The day wrapped up with the SPJ Foundation Reception, where Colorado Mesa University student Julia Wildman received the 2026 Robert D.G. Lewis First Amendment Award for her work on a story about student government’s proposed budget cuts for student organizations. 

The morning of Oct. 4, after voting for SPJ officers closed, election results were announced by the SPJ Board of Directors. 

93% of voters approved revisions to the Code of Ethics and elected Stacie Overton Johnson as vice president. Patricia Gallagher Newberry was selected as secretary-treasurer while Fischhoff and Jillian Melero won election as directors at large on the SPJ Board of Directors. 

McKenzie Romero was re-elected as Region 9 coordinator. The region includes Colorado as well as Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. Also elected as region coordinators were Christine McGrath (Region 1), Ginny McCabe (Region 4) and Marcus Green (Region 5).

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