Warren is director of the J-Ideas High School Institute at Ball State University. The goal of the program is to foster and support high school journalism and First Amendment awareness at all levels nationwide.

The Institute develops a range of on-site, tailored and distance-learning training and development programs for press groups and individual schools. J-Ideas has been an active part of the recently released Future of the First Amendment study, a Knight Foundation project.

Watson was the 2003 president of the Society for News Design, a worldwide organization of 2,700 members. He is also an associate at the American Press Institute, a mid-career training institute for journalists based in Reston, Va. Watson, a 26-year veteran of U.S. newspapers, joined API as associate director in June 1998, and became director of extending learning in January 2001. He was promoted to vice president in 2002, and served in that capacity until joining Ball State's journalism faculty in July 2004.

Watson has held reporting, editing, art and management positions at newspapers as small as the 2,000-circulation Somersworth-Berwicks Free Press and as large as the St. Petersburg Times. He has also worked for the Gloucester (MA) Daily Times, Daily Peabody (MA) Times, Cleveland Press, and Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle. From 1988 to 1998, Watson was a news executive with Guy Gannett Communications of Portland, Maine, first serving as managing editor/ associate publisher of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, and later as executive editor of Central Maine Newspapers, publishers of the Kennebec Journal and Central Maine Morning Sentinel (1995-98).

Watson writes frequently for industry periodicals, including the American Editor, Presstime, the APME News and Design, SND's periodical. He is current co-chair of the ASNE American Editor committee. His recent writings on First Amendment issues have appeared in the AEJMC Scholastic Division magazine and numerous newspapers around the country.

Watson, 54, is a native of New Hampshire, and a 1973 graduate (bachelor's degree in history) of the University of New Hampshire. Currently a graduate student, he expects to earn a master's degree in journalism from Ball State in 2006.