By Anthony Fenech
Another successful Society of Professional Journalists National Convention is in the books.

Tuesday night’s president’s installation banquet closes out the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2010 national conference. (TWANA PINSKEY / The Working Press)
“Here I am standing before you and I’m truly humbled,” Limor said. “We’re all here for a reason. We have all been drawn to this room at this moment by a common denominator.”
Her installation was the final display in a night that included laughs, cheers and raw emotion on the podium.

Darcie Lunsford (left) waits to accept an award for SPJ’s South Florida chapter. (CAROLINA HIDALGO / The Working Press)
Carol Rosenberg, a reporter at the Miami Herald, was one of three awarded the SPJ First Amendment Award. Rosenberg fought for access to public records involving the Guantanamo Bay controversy.
“It hasn’t been easy,” she said, her voice trembling. “They banned me, they smeared me and they tried to get my editors to take me off the case.”

Herschel Fink accepts an SPJ First Amendment award for fighting for journalists' rights in the courtroom. (CAROLINA HIDALGO / The Working Press)
“The First Amendment means everything to us,” Cuillier said. “I’ve seen it with my eyes. Journalism is not dead, it is alive and well.”

(CAROLINA HIDALGO / The Working Press)
David Perlman, a 91-year-old science writer from the San Francisco Chronicle, won the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Perlman started a 78-year journalism career at age 12 with his junior high paper but was unable to attend the banquet, instead blaming his “mean editors” through Chronicle city editor Audrey Cooper, drawing laughs from the crowd.