Hi @spj_tweets! I'm a board member with @SPJWash and a veteran visual journalist who is extremely concerned about your College Coronavirus Coverage weekly contest. /1

Encouraging college students to submit work to a weekly contest that will help them gain exposure will undoubtedly cause more harm than good. You might remember one of key principle of the SPJ ethics code....MINIMIZE HARM. /2

Telling a young journalist that you and other journalism-related orgs will recognize them for putting themselves and others in danger during what is arguably our nation's largest crisis in its history is ludicrous. /3

There's no need for this contest. Let's make sure these young and impressionable students are being told to do the right thing--STAY HOME. /4

Even for journalists who are part of newsrooms, these are tough choices--especially for visual journalists who are being forced to put themselves into the world. These conversations about safety are nuanced and complicated, college students aren't afforded those opportunities. /5

Thankfully @NPPA has pulled their support for this contest, and visual journalists around the country are applauding them for that. https://nppa.org/news/nppa-statement-withdrawal-student-contest?fbclid=IwAR1kNZBoatvxB01oNrwkFInHQ165ODlHHnWVgQIqrqLCA2jJehx1Q575mkU /6

Please do the right thing and shut this contest down before college journalists continually put themselves in harm's way & we find out they have been infected with #COVIDー19 while covering stories on their own--school is closed and some school newspapers aren't publishing. /7

If you really care about conducting a contest devoted to coverage of this, let's hold one a year from now after this is all (hopefully) over. Doing this now is endangering people further. /8

Shoutout to the @spj_tweets awards/contest committee for this thread: @UMNewsie @spjregion2 @AprilBethea @koretzky @jeparsley @alex_veeneman /end