The theme of this year’s SPJ Region 1 Spring Conference is “Tough Times? Tougher Journalists!”

There’s no sense sugar coating recent history. Times have been tough for traditional journalism. Staff cutbacks. Shrinking news budgets. Declining revenues.

But the demand for news has never been greater among viewers, listeners and readers. And each day brings a new innovation on ways to report and deliver that news.

So tough times do call for tougher, smarter, more resourceful journalists – people who know how to turn a mobile device into an essential newsroom tool or who know how to shoot and edit video on the go.

But we also still need to know the basics: the best way to do a difficult interview; how to write a compelling narrative, how to cover a tough situation without compromising our ethics.

We can also learn lessons from others who been in tough situations, whether it’s covering a horrific school shooting, an epic hurricane or bloody drug war.

And we need inspiration, drawn from veteran journalists who can tell us stories from journalism’s rowdy past and apply them to the new reality of practicing journalism today.

You’ll find all of these things are more, in 36 intensive, worthwhile hours that will be the Society of Professional Journalists Region 1 Spring Conference.

Join journalists from throughout the northeast as we gather on April 12-13 at the New Brunswick, N.J. campus of Rutgers University.