Some of you may remember Andy Rooney's speech at our closing banquet in Providence in 2003. On the occasion of his retirement from "60 Minutes," an editorial in the Independent Mail (Anderson, S.C.) offers a tribute and recollection of his talk. Check it out at

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2011/sep/30/andy-rooney-one-kind/

For journalists, any time you're fortunate enough to hear former Rep. Lee Hamilton and Sen. Richard Lugar discuss national security and foreign policy, that�s a teachable moment.

Likewise, hearing Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels speak about what he has tried to accomplish running the Hoosier State, that�s a teachable moment.

Or listening to syndicated columnists Esther J. Cepeda and Connie Schultz discuss writing in the digital age, yep, that�s a teachable moment.

All of this education, and much more, took place last week in Indianapolis as the National Conference of Editorial Writers held its annual convention. Pity the fact that not many editorial writers showed up. Low attendance at conventions has been a problem now for several years as newspapers struggle with declining circulation and advertising revenues amid an economy that stubbornly refuses to improve and may be heading back into recession.

Nor is it confined to NCEW alone � most of the major journalism organizations have been suffering similar problems. The American Society of News Editors, once the profession�s premier association, had to cancel its 2009 convention because too few editors committed to attend. (An exception seems to be the Online News Association, an organization begun in 1999 and gathering in Boston this week.)

Yet for NCEW, the trend is distressing because the organization tries so darned hard. Case in point: Seeing the writing on the wall, NCEW�s leadership began looking for ways to make the conference, and thus the convention, more relevant, especially to editorial writers in smaller shops. A host of initiatives have been tried, including one called the Civility Project, of which anyone who observes public life today should be shouting "hear, hear" in approval. Old standbys, such as the annual briefing in Washington at the Department of State, were given added emphasis.

The convention, however, is NCEW's lifeblood, and the association has put quite a bit of creative energy into making it a showcase event where participants could return home and say they really had learned something. Besides beefing up the programs, NCEW also condensed the schedule, getting in as much in three days � I'd say even more � than it previously did in four.

Thus the gathering was already well under way when Daniels delivered his keynote address at the Indiana History Center � and gladly fielded questions after. Last year's convention in Dallas was notable because Texas Gov. Rick Perry stiffed the group when it came time for the traditional Q&A. Perhaps it says something about presidential aspirations. Perry has them, Daniels doesn't. But I talked to a lot of writers and editors who thought the order should be reversed. Call that a teachable moment too.

The Hamilton-Lugar seminar, staged appropriately enough at Butler University, was a tour de force that ranked with anything you�d get in graduate school, by two gentlemen who know the meaning of civility and respect � Hamilton is a Democrat; Lugar a Republican � and have worked together for years for the good of the country. Seeing these wise men share their knowledge was to realize our politics need not be so polluted, that there are other ways to solve our differences and protect our way of life. That�s another teachable moment.

Next year, NCEW will move deeper into the teachable moment business when it partners with the University of Central Florida to host the convention on the UCF campus in Orlando. This is a new approach, proposed by John Bersia, who directs the Global Perspectives Office at UCF and knows a thing or two about editorial writing. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 in that category when he was with The Orlando Sentinel.

It would be nice if the bean-counters of newspaperdom would stash something away in their budgets so that more editorial writers and editors could attend this event. If they can't find it in themselves to put it under "conventions," they could file it as "continuing education."

James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group. This post was republished from The Washington Post Writers Group Blog with permission.

          We who live with earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and terrorism must sometimes face the frustrating prospect of having something urgent to say but no way of getting it out.  What do you do after the electricity goes off for 24 hours? Cell phone and computer batteries don�t last forever, as anyone on a long car trip knows. And what do you do while they�re trying to fix the cell-phone tower?

         Even landlines don�t always work.  On the day of the 9/11 attacks, New Yorkers could call out on their landlines, but others couldn�t call in.

         Any ideas?

         Interesting ideas on mocoNews.net: Mobile Risks and Rewards in the Eye of the Storm.

One indelible memory from the Dallas convention was Gov. Rick Perry's refusal to take questions after his talk -- from us, that it.  He left the room to meet a bunch of TV camera in the hall outside.

Kate Riley's blog at The Seattle Times recalls the event, and its readers react. The Hartford Courant then ran the blog item on its Facebook page, drumming up more comment. An interesting way of combining forces.

         Frank Partsch has taken the helm of NCEW�s Civility Project. A longtime NCEW member, Frank served as editorial page editor of the Omaha World-Herald for a quarter of a century.

         Raising the quality of public discourse is a complex and subjective endeavour that requires crafting definitions, self-criticism and navigating through infinite grays areas.

I quote Frank: 

Let's give some individual thought to what incivility is and what it is not. Let's be thinking about where we, individually, might draw the line between robust, hard-hitting, withering commentary and, on the other hand, cheap-shot, below-the-belt incivility. Most of us know that effectively scoring on a point of argument opens us to the accusation of mean-spiritedness. It comes with the territory, and a commitment to civility should not suggest that punches will be pulled in order to avoid such accusations.

It's possible that a good part of the audience isn't ready for the finer distinctions. So our commitment to civility may have to involve, in part, building up the understanding that not every smartly-targeted rhetorical barb is an automatic example of incivility.

Let the conversation move forward.