J-Days to Feature Allan Siegal, NY Times Editor, and John Seigenthaler, Founder of the First Amendment Center

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The annual J-Days celebration hosted by the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas will be held April 7-9 and will feature two award-winning journalists, Allan Siegal, assistant managing editor and standards editor of The New York Times, and John Seigenthaler, former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, founder of the First Amendment Center, and founding editorial director of USA TODAY from 1982 until his retirement in 1991.

Seigenthaler will deliver the Roy Reed Lecture, "The Cracked Mirror: Reflections on the Media’s Reflection of Society," at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, in Giffels Auditorium, Old Main. Siegal will deliver a public talk on ethics in journalism at 11 a.m. the next morning, April 8, in Kimpel Hall 102. Both lectures are free and open to the public.

In addition to special lectures and visits by Lemke alumni and other professional journalists, J-Days will feature a Scholarship Banquet and Lemke Society Silent Auction on the evening of April 8 and the Lemke Alumni Society Golf Classic beginning at noon on April 9 at Stonebridge Meadows in southeast Fayetteville. To sign up for the golf tournament or purchase banquet tickets for $20 each, either contact Martha Langley, langley@uark.edu, or call the department at (479) 575-3601.

John Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center in 1991, in order to foster national dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values. For 43 years he was a reporter for The Tennessean, which he also served as editor, publisher and CEO. For a brief period in the early 1960s, he was an administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, work that led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides.

Today he chairs the annual "Profile in Courage Award" selection committee of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., co-chairs the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for the RFK Memorial. He is a member of the Constitution Project on Liberty and Security, created after the Sept. 11 tragedies in New York and Washington.

Seigenthaler is the author of a biography, "James K. Polk," published by Times Books and released in January 2004.

As standards editor at The New York Times, Allan Siegal is a sounding board for reporters and editors with concerns about news coverage. He assumed the position after reporter Jayson Blair resigned from the paper May 1 after filing some three dozen phony or plagiarized stories from October 2002 to April 2003.

Siegal organizes training for new reporters and editors in fact-checking and overall accuracy. In summer 2003, he directed a 28-member committee of staff and outsiders who reviewed the newsroom’s ethical and organizational practices.

He joined The Times in 1960, becoming assistant foreign editor in 1971, the year he led the editing team that produced the historic coverage of the Pentagon Pagers on government deception in Vietnam. In 1977, he was appointed news editor of the paper. He has taught editing at New York City University and at Columbia and is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Both Seigenthaler and Siegal will visit classes and talk to students while on campus. Other presentations include a panel discussion on "Covering Sports on Television" from 9:30 to 10:50 a.m. on April 8, moderated by Kevin Trainor, director and assistant athletic director of UA Sports Information. Panelists will be Mark Rushing, sports anchor/reporter, KARK Channel 4, Little Rock; Mitch Lilly, Sports Anchor/ reporter, Arkansas NBC-Fayetteville; Rusty Jackson: Sports Reporter, ABC 40/-29, Fort Smith-Fayetteville; Russell Schapp: Sports Photographer/Editor, ABC 40/-29; and Chris Scott:  KATV LR, Channel 7 Sports Producer.

Three UA graduates in journalism are also coming for J-Days: April Simpson, anchor/reporter for the Fox news station in St. Louis; Robyn Starling Ledbetter, a broadcast journalism teacher at Arkansas High in Texarkana; and Rashod Ollison, pop music critic for The Baltimore Sun. At 8:30 a.m. on April 9, Simpson and Starling will offer a panel discussion titled "Anchoring and Reporting and Making it Through Those First Tough Years."

Past speakers during J-Days include Susan Bennett, Newseum director of research and news history with the Freedom Forum; Robert McCord of Little Rock, author of the Arkansas FOI Act; and Gene Roberts, former managing editor of The New York Times and former executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

J-Days began during the tenure of Walter Lemke, who developed the journalism program at the University of Arkansas and taught for more than three decades, from 1928 until he retired in 1959.