You have been pitching your “dream panel” ideas every year, but each time you get a polite rejection email from the program chair.    A super idea, the chair sympathizes, but there were no willing co-sponsors. And when you attend the AEJMC convention, you question how some panels were even proposed, much less got two divisions or interest groups to sponsor them.

Two conventions down the road, you open the program and there is your panel idea with someone else moderating/discussing/presenting.   Slapping the book closed, you wonder how that proposer succeeded- connections, seniority, reputation, networking or just plain luck?

Before joining the MED leadership, my panel proposal batting average was at minor league level with only three of a dozen ideas accepted.   So I understand the feeling of frustration when your panel gets rejected.

As has happened to many potential AEJMC panel organizers, both rookies and veterans, your perfect panel idea fell victim to the infamous “chip auction,” where a group of sleepy academics hammer out the entire convention schedule grid in four hours or less.  It’s where some great panels are born and many more never happen. Understanding the inner working of this mysterious process will increase your chances of pitching your future panel ideas successfully.

It’s called the “chip auction” because each recognized division gets seven “chips” for programming panels and research sessions; interest groups and others get fewer.  Each chip means one hour-and-a-half session. 

To maximize programming/research opportunities, the programming chairs must budget those chips carefully, e.g. two chips reserved for four research panels.  The remaining chips must be split into halves or co-sponsorships lest the division have only four solely sponsored panels instead of eight sessions.   According to the “chip reduction rotation,” every three years a division loses a chip.  This was our year, so MED only had six chips.

Planning time

Getting that perfect panel accepted starts at the previous convention.   You check out what papers and panels various divisions feature.   Seeking possible panelists, especially new faces with innovative ideas, will enhance your proposal rather than listing the usual suspects who appear every year. 

Looking at convention programs reveals what topics have been overdone or neglected.   You also might find a pattern (or lack thereof) in the kind of ideas that attract certain divisions and interest groups.

Ask the program chair for samples of successful panel proposals.   Your proposal should be as complete as possible – catchy title, strong panelists, compelling description.   The crucial ingredient, however, is not the panel content or talking heads, but possible co-sponsoring divisions or interest groups.

Get your panel proposals to the division/interest group program chairs by early October, so you can make any suggested changes.   They must get the proposals to AEJMC by November first.

Bargaining time

The real bargaining starts a month before the actual convention scheduling session.   As soon as the AEJMC site opens the panel link, the “organized” program chair (probably tenured with a two-class load) looks through more than 200 proposals being floated by 17 divisions, nine interest groups and three other parties.   Some large divisions list up to 20 proposals, while smaller interest groups might have six ideas.

In surveying possible co-sponsors for the division’s ideas (MED listed ten out of fifteen submitted), the program chair also hunts for media ethics-related panels we can co-sponsor.   Meanwhile, other chairs solicit our co-sponsorship for their panels.   We co-sponsor their panel; they co-sponsor ours; and each uses only a half chip.

I was amazed to see how many groups listed MED as a possible co-sponsor for ideas that only remotely related to media ethics.   As a former MED program chair commented: “Everyone wants to be seen as having a concern for the ethical dimensions of their fields or work, so a lot of folks want a piece of us.”  Other chairs contacted me with some solid ideas and welcomed our suggestions.

Emails start flying, “We would be interested in co-sponsoring 198, if you’ll co-sponsor 40.”  Reply: “Deal. See you in Louisville.” 

Most panel deals get nailed down in the weeks before the auction.   Those who wait until the actual meeting for co-sponsors will be left on the frigid sidewalk outside the hotel. 

Chip time

The annual “chip auction” or grid planning session unfolds at the midwinter meeting the first weekend of December -- this year in chilly Louisville.   While the AEJMC board and other committees met in other rooms, the Council of Divisions (heads, vice heads and interested parties) gathered for a business meeting on Friday evening.   Some procrastinating chairs were still passing around paper copies of last-minute panel proposals desperate for co-sponsors.

With a full uncommitted chip left, we dined with MED’s favorite co-sponsors, the Law Division, to make our own final deal.   But with only a half-chip left, they couldn’t co-sponsor any of our panels, so we committed a half-chip to them and kept our last half-chip for dessert. 

For two hours beside a sumptuous, calorie-loaded dessert buffet, the chairs strolled around the room confirming or making deals.  They also agreed on suitable days and times, and who would “call” the panel tomorrow morning.

 Most of our deals were confirmed, but a few dropped (miscounted chips), so Patrick Plaisance, our Division Head, helped me lure co-sponsors to our orphaned panels.  Within an hour, our planning sheet was full and all chips committed.  We were willing to commit a whole chip to our “Legacy of Cliff Christians” panel, if we could not find a co-sponsor, but we did.

At 7:30 a.m., Saturday, the breakfast buffet opened, and at 8 a.m., Council of Divisions Chair Kim Bissell called the planning session to order.   The program chairs were seated at tables shaped in a large square.   Heads and others sat behind (like aides at a Congressional hearing). 

On the carpet in the middle was a small silver bucket, resembling a spittoon.  The program chairs nervously fiddled with their real poker chips.   As they (or their co-sponsor) called a session, they tossed a chip toward the bucket.   A few chips magically landed in the bucket (Patrick got one in last year), but most rolled harmlessly on the carpet.

Chips committed, the chairs now jockeyed for the days and times when their research sessions and panels would draw the best audience.  For the next three hours, according to order selected by lot, the program chairs called out their desired day, time, panel and co-sponsor until all four convention days were filled.   

We got our most desired time slots for our pre-convention teaching workshop, four refereed research sessions, six panels and mini-plenary and business meeting. We also avoided Saturday sessions and we didn’t have any uncommitted chips left over, as three chairs did.

With a relieved round of applause, the chairs and friends departed for the airport or elsewhere (e.g. the Louisville Slugger bat museum or U of Louisville basketball, as I did).  Once back in their offices, the chairs would notify those whose proposals found co-sponsors, and console those whose panels were left orphaned.   They would nudge the creators to finish their panel planning, since program copy must arrive at AEJMC by March 15.

While all this might sound like a confusing pain, once you “get the hang of it” (as one veteran said), you realize how much you help develop a program that thousands of professors will share with thousands of students who later communicate with millions of people.   Back at my first convention in ’98 at Baltimore, I never imagined that I would someday have this privilege.

 Last year in St. Louis when the auction was done, a chair’s young daughter arrived looking for her exhausted father in the crowded banquet room.

“Why are all those poker chips out in the middle of the floor?” the bewildered child asked, staring at some 200 chips scattered inside the square of tables.

“The people, ah, toss them out there,” he shrugged.

“Why do they do that?” she persisted.

Her father didn’t even try to explain. 

But now you know.