Invictus Gets Nod From CJR

Check out the editorial on Dan Grech and the Dart Society’s Invictus gatherings in the recent edition of the Columbia Journalism Review.

The layoffs, buyouts, early retirements and fake-cations/furloughs experienced by Dart Society journalists and their colleagues beginning in 2008 were terrifying. Nearly 15,000 journalism jobs were lost in ’09, according to Erica Smith’s excellent Paper Cuts site. Fresh from his Ochberg Fellowship, Dan Grech worked with Dart Society leaders to find a way to address the job instability and ensure that the journalism Dart community members are committed to doing got done.

We created Project Invictus.

Named by Frank Ochberg after a poem by William Ernest Henley, invictus means unconquered. Frank particularly liked this line:

Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Invictus was designed to gather Dart fellows and trusted colleagues in their cities to provide professional support, networking and inspiration to find their place in the future of journalism. These were no griping sessions; Invictus was a reminder that journalism is key to a democracy, and even the steepest technological learning curves couldn’t stop today’s top journalists from shaping its future.

Dan gathered a group in Miami, and then trained society Vice-President Mike Walter (’05), who had an Invictus meeting at his home in Fairfax, Va. Mike trained Kim Komenich (’06), who held one in San Francisco. Other Dart Society-sponsored gatherings were held in Denver, Baltimore, Delray Beach, Fla., and just last November, at 2008 Fellow Moni Basu’s home in Atlanta.

I attended Mike’s, Moni’s and co-chaired one in Denver with society Vice-Prez Miles Moffeit. The thing that struck me about each gathering was the quality of the journalists who participated, and the reality that regardless of their awards or tenure, none was immune to a layoff. But the participants had journalism in their blood, and even amid job-market hopelessness, I knew they would find a way to keep doing the work they needed to do. And in most cases, I was right.

If you attended or hosted an Invictus gathering, please leave a comment telling us how you were impacted. Or just tell us what you’re up to.