EWA2017: “Nation’s Education Reporters Confident They’re Making a Difference”
Is the Job of an Education Reporter to Learn How to Write PR Instead of the Facts? Philanthropists, NGOs and EdReformers Hope So.
The Education Writers Association (EWA) is the invitation only event for writers covering education. The title of this article was taken from EWA’s website and the announcement of the EWA2017 recent seminar. Do you remember EWA2016?:
Richard Phelps writes in The Education Writers Association casts its narrowing gaze on Boston, May 1-3:
An organization claiming to represent and support all US education journalists sets up shop in Boston next week for its annual “National Seminar”. The Education Writers Association’s (EWA’s) national seminars introduce thousands of journalists to sources of information and expertise. Many sessions feature journalists talking with other journalists. Some sessions host teachers, students, or administrators in “reports from the front lines” type panel discussions. But, the remaining and most ballyhooed sessions feature non-journalist experts on education policy fronting panels with, typically, a journalist or two hosting. Allegedly, these sessions interpret “all the research”, and deliver truth, from the smartest, most enlightened on earth.Given its central role, and the profession it represents, one would expect diligence from EWA in representing all sides and evidence. Indeed, EWA claims a central purpose “to help journalists get the story right.”
The ‘seminar’ for 2017 seems much like 2016. Here is the agenda and sponsors:
Here are a few of the sessions:
Parents were represented at this conference and writers were asked to glimpse into the hearts and minds of EWA2017: “Nation’s Education Reporters Confident They’re Making a Difference” – Missouri Education Watchdog: