Listen. Learn. Connect.

More than 60 people attended this year's second annual Listen. Learn. Connect. Conference, which was held on March 27 at Florida International University BBC campus. The event, which has two panels this year, is a tradition that SPJ-FIU is hoping to grow throughout the years. The first panel was hosted by the Miami Herald's editor Steve Rothaus and Cuba and international business correspondent Mimi Whitefield and WLRN reporter Nadege Green, along with the TC Palm's columnist Zaimarie De Guzman, who spoke about "Covering Communities." They mentioned ways journalists should approach members of communities when reporting and spoke about the nuances of covering different groups of people. The second panel, which was "Ethics in Covering Places in Turmoil," was hosted by Ricardo Brown from MundoFox, Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles from the Miami Herald, radio and television host Helen Aguirre Ferre from PBS' affiliate WPBT2 and Alejandro Aguirre, the former president of the Inter American Press Association. The four answered questions from the audience about necessary precautions when covering news in countries that do not offer the same freedoms of the press that we have in America. Along with this, the panelists discussed the ethics that American journalists follow and versed the ways news is covered in countries such as Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba and others. Throughout the day, both breakfast and lunch were provided to attendees, as well as SPJ reporters’ notepads, which were placed on everyone's seats.