Chris R. Vaccaro

For the third straight year I’ve won a Press Club of Long Island Media Award.

All three awards were from stories written in 2011 for Sachem Patch.

The awards:

• First place, Deadline news (online): Sachem alums endure Japanese quake
• First place, Best headline (online): Unhappy ending for two at massage parlor
• Third place, Deadline news (online): Sachem teachers unite in Albany

Click here to check out a write up on Patch about the awards.

As part of our new PCLI Speakers Series, Jerry Springer came to a Press Club of Long Island gathering to talk about media and society at Adelphi University.

Springer was very gracious with his time, conducting a Q&A for 90 minutes, posing for many photos with guests and doing a video interview with the Press Club.

Click here to read more about Springer’s talk

The Press Club of Long Island hosted the SPJ Region 1 Conference at Stony Brook University on March 23-24.

More than 50 guest speakers presented lectures about journalism and communications. Columnist Ellis Henican delivered the keynote address during the conference.

As a member of PCLI, I was on the Conference Committee and assisted as a Student Advisor for the #R1C2012 Working Press student-run news group.

On Thursday, January 26, the Press Club of Long Island hosted a social media lecture at Newsday in Melville, N.Y.

I hosted the panel, which was about exposing your work through social media.

PCLI is the local pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

I am attending SPJ’s Excellence in Journalism conference in New Orleans this year and blogging about the experience on PCLI.org.

To follow along, click here.

Check back at the end of the week for a link to photos from New Orleans and the conference.