Published by the Institute of International Studies, Missouri Southern State University, Joplin, MO
Volume 39, No. 5 • August 2014
Chronicle staff pulls double duty THE LARGEST WILDFIRE IN WASHINGTON STATE HISTORY So what does a twice-weekly paper with a news staff of five, including the publisher, do when The wildfire that ravaged our rural the biggest story of county in July made national headlines. the year ignites? We Our job at The Omak-Okanogan buckle down and County Chronicle was to provide accurate, report that up-to-date information that was story. more complete than the sound We also bytes that appeared in the help out. regional and national media. After all, The Carlton Complex – origithis is our nally four lightning-caused blazes communithat merged into one huge conty, too. flagration – was more than just a The fire big story for the evening news. started The fire was – and is, since it’s July 14. still burning as of July 30 – a We knew huge, ongoing story that impacts it had nearly everyone in our county of DEE CAMP potential 40,000 people. to be It is the largest wildfire in destructive when volWashington state history. unteer fire departAt 5,315 square miles, Okanogan County ments 50 or 60 miles is the largest, geographically, in the state of and a mountain Washington. Despite its size, it is a relativerange away were ly close-knit area. If you weren’t directly called to help protect affected, then you’re likely to know somestructures. Our July one who lost a home – 280 were reduced 16 paper carried a to ash – or lost cattle or suffered damage front page story to crops or had power off for days when about the fire, which transmission lines burned. was then relatively Along with direct losses, thousands of small. residents were affected when land line teleThe same issue carried an editorial phones, cellphones and Internet service warning our state and federal officials. The went down or experienced spotty service. The entire 911 system was down for a editorial, titled “Manage forests before fire time. hits,” called on forest managers to increase By Dee Camp Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle Omak, Washington
logging, keep forest roads open and clean up slash piles left from previous thinning projects. That editorial turned out to be an eerie forecast of the days to come. As the week went on, temperatures soared well above 100 degrees – topping out at 105 in Omak – and the winds kicked up. Much of Okanogan County is high desert and heavily treed mountains, with fruit orchards in the two main river valleys and livestock grazing in the highlands and mountains. The small blaze, high heat, windy condiCONTINUED ON PAGE 8
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PRESIDENT’S REPORT
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By Gary Sosniecki ISWNE President
Goals: Serve all members, recruit more Landon Wills walked into our Humansville (Missouri) Star-Leader office one July morning in 1982, introduced himself to Helen and me, and explained that he was driving home to Kentucky from the annual ISWNE conference in Denver and wanted to personally deliver my first Golden Dozen certificate. And, of course, he recruited us to become members. Thirty-two years and four newspapers later, I’m proud to serve as ISWNE president for the next year. What a unique organization this is! Our annual conferences are family reunions with more hugs than handshakes. Our membership includes Pulitzer Prize winners and first-time editors, but we have no cliques. As Pulitzer winner Dave Mitchell said in accepting his Cervi at the Durango conference, his first: “It’s like I discovered I have a family I never knew I had. You people are my family.” As rewarding as our conferences are, many of you never have attended one and maybe never will. I understand. Helen and I didn’t attend a conference until Erie in 1998 – 16 years after we became members. We couldn’t afford the expense, we couldn’t afford to be away so long, and we often had a conflict with an important community event. Helen and I missed the record-setting Rapid City conference in 2007 because we needed to be at our Vandalia Area Fair. It’s important that ISWNE remains an organization that serves all our members: the working editors who don’t have the time or money to attend conferences, the working editors who can get away from the office a few days every June; and the “mentors,” those of us who are retired or out of the business or in academia. Certainly the hotline has done more to serve members of all types than anything else in recent years. We need to develop other programs, such as one-on-one editorial-page critiques, that help the two-thirds of our members who don’t or can’t attend conferences. And we constantly need to be recruiting new members, especially young working journalists. As someone pointed out when the ISWNE board reviewed a proposed brochure at its summer meeting, our group photo had too many white-haired members on display. ISWNE is not for everyone. As I travel around the country visiting newspapers and press conventions in my present job, I’m often surprised that some editors – even those who excel at editorial writing – have no interest in joining another organization. For one, they’ve never heard of us. For two, they just don’t have time. There’s nothing we can do to put more hours in a weekly editor’s day. But there’s no reason we should continue to be the weekly industry’s best-kept secret. The positive publicity ISWNE received from Steve Thurston’s front-page blitz that convinced the Newseum to change its policy toward displaying weekly newspapers – and Bill Tubbs’ column about the blitz reprinted on the front page of Publishers’ Auxiliary – makes
this the time to act. Every member can and should be involved in this effort. Start by contacting the weekly winners of editorial-writing contests in your state, province or nation. Suggest that they submit their winning editorial in the next Golden Quill competition. Tell them about the hotline and our publications. Offer them a complimentary membership for the rest of this year. And we should expand our horizons beyond the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia and South Africa, the countries where we already have members. What about English-language weekly newspapers in New Zealand, India and elsewhere? How do we reach their editors? We started the Durango conference with 265 members. How close to 300 can we come in the next year? As I travel in the coming months, I VAN TYSON hope to meet many of you. When I do, you’ll get an official invitation to our 2015 conference in Columbia, Mo., which Helen and I are hosting. I’ll also snap a photo of you holding the invitation for my personal and the ISWNE Facebook pages. Last month at the Arkansas Press Association SuperConvention in Hot Springs, I presented an invitation to ISWNE member Van Tyson, editor and publisher of The Atkins Chronicle. I enjoyed sitting with Van during the awards luncheon. I learned that he owned the weekly Chronicle from 1959 to 1961, sold it, then bought it back in 1992 while he was teaching journalism at Arkansas Tech. He worked three years for the Des Moines Tribune and five years for the Arkansas Democrat in Little Rock before starting his teaching career, which included two years at Wayne State in Nebraska and 33 years at Arkansas Tech. He was thrilled that day when one of his former students received three awards. Van hopes to attend the 2015 conference, which would be his first. I wore my ISWNE polo shirt the first day of the convention. One APA member joked that at first he thought it said “I-SWINE.” I laughed and explained that our members can’t agree how to say it, despite a proclamation during the 2008-09 presidency of Don Brod that ISWNE should be pronounced ICE-WINE. Frankly, I don’t care if you call us ICE-WINE, I-SWINE, IS-WI-NEE or IS-W-N-E, as Helen and I do. I just thank you for being a member. Former Missouri editor and publisher Gary Sosniecki is ISWNE president. He can be contacted at sozsez@aol.com.
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ISWNE NEWS Vermont weekly celebrates 140th anniversary This year marks the 140th anniversary of continuous publication of The Herald, which is the second-oldest weekly newspaper in Vermont. “To prove it, we have walls and closets lined with volumes of Heralds, almost all the way back to its founding by L.P. Thayer in 1874,” wrote editor and publisher M. Dickey Drysdale. “During those 140 years, The Herald has had a number of different names and editions, but the formula hit upon by its first owner was always M. DICKEY DRYSDALE at the core of its continued success: The Herald would represent not just one small town, but 16, tied together by the White River and its three branches and linked also by a rural lifestyle carried on in a landscape of surpassing beauty.” The Herald’s mission has consistently been to create a community out of “our” 16 towns. Even more remarkable than the longevity of the newspaper is the fact that during
ISWNE OFFICERS: PRESIDENT: Gary Sosniecki - Term exp: June 2015 TownNews.com Moline, Illinois VICE PRESIDENT: Barry Wilson - Term exp: June 2015 Asset Media Services Kiama, NSW, Australia
those 140 years, The Herald has been published by just four owners. Thayer, a businessman with statewide ambitions, published the paper from 1874 to 1894. Luther B. Johnson, a Northfield native, succeeded Thayer, publishing the paper for an astounding 51 years before selling it to a down-country newspaperman, John Drysdale. John Drysdale steered the course for 26 years, before turning it over to his son, M. Dickey Drysdale, the current publisher, in 1971. He was 26 at the time, and a little arithmetic can show the reader that as of this writing, he is no longer a spring chicken.
ISWNE elects Sosniecki as president for 2014-15 Longtime Missouri publisher Gary Sosniecki has been elected ISWNE president for 2014-15. Sosniecki was elected by the membership at the recent ISWNE conference in Durango, Colorado. Barry Wilson, managing GARY SOSNIECKI director of Asset Media Services, a global newspaper con-
sulting business in Australia, was named vice president. Wilson will host the 2016 conference in Australia. Marcia Martinek, editor of the Herald Democrat in Leadville, Colorado, and Andy Schotz, managing editor of The Gazette in Gaithersburg, Maryland, were elected to three-year terms on the ISWNE board of directors. Steve Ranson, editor of the Lahontan Valley News in Fallon, Nevada, was elected to a two-year term.
Derek Sawvell to receive NNA leadership award Derek Sawvell, managing editor of the Wilton-Durant Advocate News in Wilton, Iowa, will be honored during the National Newspaper Association’s 128th Annual Convention & Trade Show, when he will be presented with the Daniel M. Phillips Leadership Award. NNA established this award in 2007 to honor DEREK SAWVELL Daniel Morris “Dan” Phillips, an award-winning writer, photographer and assistant publisher of the Oxford (Mississippi) Eagle, who died CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Dr. Chad Stebbins Director, Institute of International Studies, Missouri Southern State University, 3950 E. Newman Road, Joplin, MO 64801-1595
Steve Bonspiel - Term exp: June 2015 The Eastern Door, Kahnawake, Quebec
Phone: (417) 625-9736 Fax: (417) 659-4445
Jan Haupt - Term exp: June 2016 Lodi, Wisconsin
Immediate Past President:
Website: ISWNE.org E-Mail: stebbins-c@mssu.edu
Steve Ranson - Term exp: June 2016 Lahontan Valley News Fallon, Nevada
Kelly Clemmer Star News. Inc. Wainwright, Alberta
Dave Gordon - Term exp: June 2015 Professor Emeritus, University of Wisonsin - Eau Claire
Andy Schotz - Term exp: June 2017 The Gazette Gaithersburg, Maryland. Marcia Martinek - Term exp: June 2017 Herald Democrat Leadville, Colorado
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ISWNE BOARD MINUTES Minutes | Board of Directors Meeting, International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors Durango, Colorado | June 25, 2014 In Attendance: Kelly Clemmer Chad Stebbins Gary Sosniecki Cheryl Wormley David Gordon Jan Haupt
Barry Wilson Andy Schotz Steve Bonspiel John Hatcher* Helen Sosniecki*
President Kelly Clemmer called the meeting to order at 7:35 p.m. 1. The minutes of the January 18, 2014, meeting in Goodyear, Arizona, were approved (Cheryl Wormley/Jan Haupt).
*non-board member
2. Chad Stebbins reported ISWNE had $20,197.73 in its checking account and three CDs totaling $28,000 for a net worth of $48,197.73 as of June 19. ISWNE had income of $23,602.04 from July 1, 2013, through June 19, and expenses of $21,950.66, for a net “profit” of $1,651.38. Stebbins reported the ISWNE Foundation had $29,298.78 in its checking account and two CDs totaling $33,000 for a net worth of $62,298.78 as of June 19. Wormley said ISWNE had too much money in its checking account and suggested that more be put into CDs. She asked if ISWNE funds could be transferred to the Foundation. Stebbins said no, that the two accounts must remain completely separate for tax and legal purposes. The financial statement was approved (Wormley/Haupt). 3. Stebbins reported ISWNE had 265 paid members in 2014, a decrease of five from 2013. He distributed a list of 27 people who had not renewed their memberships this year. He said they each had received three dues notices and at least two emails reminding them to renew, but that many of them had been signed up by other ISWNE members a year ago at the special $25 rate. Andy Schotz suggested that board members call all of the delinquent members. Haupt said ISWNE shouldn’t be overly concerned with the $25 members who didn’t renew. Stebbins also distributed a list of 32 individuals who were receiving complimentary memberships in 2014, most at the recommendation of Gary and Helen Sosniecki and others he had found by scouring newspaper websites. 4. John Hatcher discussed the upcoming special, joint issue of Grassroots Editor and Community Journalism, the online, peer-reviewed journal based at Texas Christian University that is the official journal of the Community Journalism Interest Group. Submission deadline is Sept. 2 for extended abstracts and Dec. 15 for full manuscripts, with the publication planned for March 2015. Hatcher said the journal will be published online through Community Journalism and in print through ISWNE. Titled “International Perspectives on Community Journalism,” the journal will describe the state of community journalism in various countries. “ISWNE will provide the perspective of working journalists,” Hatcher said. 5. Gary Sosniecki distributed an updated schedule for the 2015 conference in Columbia, Missouri. The hospitality suite will be at The Heidelberg, a cornerstone of the University of Missouri campus since 1963. ISWNE will have a downstairs room and a portion of the patio reserved for conference attendees. Each registrant will receive two drink tickets per evening. Sosniecki said he could arrange a pre-conference tour of the Missouri State Penitentiary and the State Capitol in Jefferson City on Tuesday, June 23, but would need a minimum of 15 participants for a private prison tour. The
prison closed in 2004 after 168 years of service and was once known as “the bloodiest 47 acres in America.” 6. Barry Wilson updated the board on his plans for the 2016 conference in Australia. He said it will be a moving conference, starting with three nights in Melbourne and ending in Sydney. Conference attendees from the United States would most likely depart from Los Angeles or Dallas on a Sunday and arrive in Melbourne around 7 a.m. Tuesday, which would be a free day. The conference would begin on Wednesday with a tour of the Herald Sun, the highest-circulating daily newspaper in Australia. Thursday would include a joint meeting of ISWNE and the Victorian Country Press Association and the editorial critique sessions. Wilson said the state of Victoria has the greatest proportion of family-owned weeklies and bi-weeklies in Australia. On Friday, attendees would travel three hours by coach to Bairnsdale, where ISWNE member and conference co-host Bob Yeates lives. Members may be hosted overnight by local Rotarian families. Saturday would feature a trip to the capital city of Canberra, a visit to the House of Parliament, and the annual awards banquet. The conference would conclude on Sunday in Sydney, with a Sydney Harbor dinner cruise. Attendees could choose to stay on for additional sightseeing in Sydney or elsewhere in Australia. The board discussed a possible sponsorship with the South Australian Tourism Commission, which might be willing to help offset some conference expenses if ISWNE newspapers placed ads promoting Australia as a travel destination. Wilson said he would continue his negotiations. He asked the board for input on conference dates, and it was decided that mid to late July might bring better prices. Average temperatures in Melbourne in July are 57 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 45 degrees at night. 7. Stebbins expressed concern that ISWNE hadn’t determined a conference location for 2017, noting that conferences are usually set three years in advance. He thought Washington, D.C. would be a big draw, but that it would require Schotz and Steve Thurston to serve as co-hosts. Clemmer said he had considered hosting a “low-rent” conference in Alberta. Steve Bonspiel said he would be interested in hosting a conference in Montreal in 2018 or 2019. Haupt said ISWNE should hire a conference coordinator and Sosniecki agreed, adding that it was something the organization should explore. 8. Stebbins presented a proposal from BetterBNC to provide an online Golden Quill contest, to “provide significant streamlining” for ISWNE, the contestants, and judges. Cost would be $1,450 annually, plus a one-time setup fee of $1,120. Golden Quill contestants no longer would have to mail in their entries, and the judge would have everything available on an online platform. Haupt said it wasn’t worth the money, and Schotz noted that “it’s pretty easy to send entries through the mail.” He added: “BNC is expensive.” The board voted to deny the proposal (Haupt/Wilson). 9. Stebbins brought up the possibility of securing advertisements for ISWNE publications. Wormley asked what the additional revenue could be used for. Stebbins said he might want to retire as executive director “someday” and that the money could be used to increase the new director’s annual stipend and cover additional expenses that might result. Wormley said ISWNE needed to do some strategic planning and encouraged the board to set aside ample time at a future meeting for this purpose.
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ISWNE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING Minutes | International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors Durango, Colorado | June 29, 2014 President Kelly Clemmer called the meeting to order at 8:18 a.m. 1. The minutes of the July 13, 2013, meeting in De Pere, Wisconsin, were approved (Vickie Canfield Peters/Kris O’Leary). 2. Chad Stebbins reported ISWNE had $20,197.73 in its checking account and three CDs totaling $28,000 for a net worth of $48,197.73 as of June 19. ISWNE had income of $23,602.04 from July 1, 2013, through June 19, and expenses of $21,950.66, for a net “profit” of $1,651.38. Stebbins reported the ISWNE Foundation had $29,298.78 in its checking account and two CDs totaling $33,000 for a net worth of $62,298.78 as of June 19. The financial statement was approved (Steve Bonspiel/Barry Wilson). 3. Stebbins reported ISWNE had 265 paid members in 2014, a decrease of five from 2013. He said 27 people had not renewed their memberships this year and that they each had received three dues notices and at least two emails reminding them to renew, but that many of them had been signed up by other ISWNE members a year ago at the special $25 rate. Ross Connelly asked which regions of the country ISWNE had the best representation in. Stebbins said the Midwest, with Wisconsin (28) and Illinois (24) having the most members. He said ISWNE was improving its showing in California (11), but that there were still a few states, such as Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, and Indiana, where there wasn’t a single member. “It is everyone’s responsibility to increase membership,” Cheryl Wormley said. “It is a membership responsibility.” 4. The membership approved a motion that ISWNE “cash in” on the exposure it received from April’s #Frontpageblitz of the Newseum and place an ad in Publishers’ Auxiliary touting the benefits of the ISWNE Hotline (Canfield Peters/Gary Sosniecki). The ad ran in the August 2014 issue of PubAux. 5. Sosniecki emphasized that the weather would be hot during the 2015 conference in Columbia, Missouri, but that the rooms would be air-conditioned. He said a highlight would be eating at Jack Stack Barbecue in Kansas City on Thursday, June 25, following a visit to the Truman Presidential Library and Museum and the National World War I Museum. “Jack Stack is costing almost as
ISWNE BOARD 10. The board reviewed a preliminary design of a new brochure for ISWNE and offered suggestions. Haupt asked board members to provide Stebbins with additional input by the end of the conference. (The brochure was printed in mid-July.) 11. Stebbins pointed out that the board, at its
much as the awards banquet,” Sosniecki said. “Paul MacNeill better be there – he wanted Kansas City barbecue.” Sosniecki distributed an “invitation” he is passing out at state press association conventions, urging everyone to come to Columbia June 24-28. 6. Wilson said the 2016 conference will begin in Melbourne, which may be Australia’s largest city in two years. He said he’s a “Melbournian,” and that it’s a beautiful city. Conference highlights include a boat trip on the Great Lakes of Gippsland, a combined editorial critique session with the Victorian Country Press Association, a bus ride through the iconic Merino sheep country (home of the world’s finest wool yarn) on the way to Australia’s capital – Canberra (hopefully a chance to visit Parliament House), and a Sydney Harbor cruise. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime destination,” he said. Wilson said he would require a $100 deposit per person by the end of the year, as “numbers are going to be critical.” Full conference payment is going to be required much earlier than usual. He said conference registration will cost around $800, but that he will get it as low as he possibly can. There will certainly be an early-bird saving. 7. Canfield Peters presented the same slate of officers for the ISWNE Foundation: Canfield Peters, president; Carol O’Leary, vice president; and Guy Wood, member. Other members are the ISWNE past president (Clemmer) and executive director (Stebbins). The slate of officers was approved (Tim Waltner/Kris O’Leary). 8. Wormley presented a slate of proposed officers from the past presidents: Sosniecki, president; Wilson, vice president; Andy Schotz, board member (three-year term); Marcia Martinek, board member (three-year term); and Steve Ranson, board member (two-year term). The slate was approved by the membership (Canfield Peters/Jim Painter). The meeting adjourned at 9:33 a.m. and was followed by an “In Memoriam” PowerPoint presentation by Dick McCord recognizing the six members of ISWNE who died in the past year: Edith Boys Enos, Ursula Freireich, Ellen Simon, Bob Horowitz, Howard Kessinger, and Bob Trapp.
from page 4 January 18 meeting, had agreed to form an ad-hoc committee of him, Clemmer, Wormley, and Haupt to review the outdated ISWNE Constitution & Bylaws and recommend changes, but that nothing had transpired. Haupt suggested that the ad-hoc committee could meet by conference call. David Gordon said it was crucial to get the recom-
mended changes to the board before the January 2015 meeting. Clemmer appointed Wormley as committee chair; Wormley will work with Haupt and issue a preliminary report by September. 12. Under new business, the board consid CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
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30 tips to improve editorial pages The ISWNE tradition of seeking to encourage and improve strong, independent editorial voices was in evidence as seven groups met in the Friday afternoon editorial critique sessions of the 2014 summer conference at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. The editorial critiques, a long-standing element of ISWNE conferences, are set up in a group discussion format in which the editorial pages of participating newspapers are reviewed with participants offering critiques, observations, suggestions and affirmations. Each group was asked to share a review of some of the “best practices” identified in its critique. Here are 30 tips to improve an editorial page as generated by the groups:
5. Educate readers with periodic columns as to what newspapers do and explain the difference between news, editorials, columns, ads, etc. (We deal with the difference every day, but our readers may not understand the differences.) 6. Have a uniform policy for handling corrections. 7. Use mug shots of the writers with columns… including local columns and op-ed pieces.
Ellen Albanese and Becky Dickerson
Group facilitated by Helen Sosniecki Group facilitated by Ellen Albanese 1. Editorials should take a leadership role, and, if labeled editorial, make sure they are really editorials. Make sure the editorial headline includes the headline topic (as opposed to a one- or two-word label.) And, keep them a reasonable length. 2. Use a local cartoonist where possible.
8. Readers need signposts on the editorial page as well as points of entry into editorials and columns. It’s a good idea to distinguish editorials from columns graphically. Ways to indicate the importance of an editorial and draw the eye include: larger type, drop caps, ragged right, the top left spot on the page. Running a headshot with columns is a good way to indicate that they are personal, not institutional, opinion pieces. 9. Pull-quotes or readouts are one way to stretch editorials to fill an allotted space. Others include running a letters policy or a list of municipal meetings directly beneath the editorial.
10. Some ideas for encouraging letters to the editor: (A) Make your letters policy welBarry Wilson, Areia Hathcock, and Don Brod participated in Gary coming, not intimidating; Sosniecki’s group. describe the kinds of letters you do accept, 3. Have a box or designated area on the instead of a laundry list of things you don’t editorial page to encourage letters to the accept. (B) Work a letters pitch into editoeditor and explain letters policies. rials that encourage civic participation. (C) Once a year, run a list of the names of 4. Give the editorial page a prominent, everyone who has written a letter to the consistent position in your newspaper. editor over the past year.
11. The editorial page should have a distinctive sense of place, reflecting the paper’s community. 12. The most popular item in the newspaper varies by community. In many, it’s the police log; in one of ours, it was the “mystery photo,” in another, “events of yesteryear.” 13. A quick way to elevate your writing: It’s “people who, things that.”
Group facilitated by Gary Sosniecki 14. The newspaper must be a leader in the community. Always have an editorial. 15. Don’t prostitute your fonts. Keep them simple. Don’t adjust spacing between letters. Scientific calculations were used to get it right. 16. We didn’t have 100-percent agreement on this, but there was considerable sentiment that all letters to the editor should be presented equally, with headlines of equal weight. Limit letter writers to one or two per month. 17. We liked how The Pagosa (Colorado) Springs SUN asked the same question in its online poll and man-in-the-street interviews, then packaged the results together on the opinion page. CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
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30 tips to improve Group facilitated by David Gordon 18. Make it totally and quickly clear who has written op-ed pieces – if you're noting their affiliation, be sure to explain exactly what that group stands for (e.g., don’t just indicate that author X is affiliated with the Nevada Policy Research Institute, but add that this is an organization that promotes policies that support free markets). 19. If a column deals with multiple topics, make it clear right at the start that this is what the reader can expect *and* distinguish between topics with asterisks, or bullets, or a dash between them – or any other device that will tell the reader “here’s something new/different.” Also, if you’re dealing with a local columnist in a situation like this, consider suggesting to her/him that one or more of those short topics might be developed into a full-scale column with a bit more research. 20. On controversial and complex topics (the specific example here was the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence), consider doing an editorial that provides, for example, “Five Reasons Why You Should Vote ‘Yes’ and Five Reasons for Voting ‘No’.” The number is arbitrary, but the presentation of opposing arguments is the key here, especially if you’re uncomfortable with endorsing one side or the other of the issue.
Group facilitated by Chad Stebbins 21. Make sure that your editorial appears
ISWNE BOARD ered changing the Golden Quill entry fee ($20 for members and $25 for non-members). “It doesn’t look good to raise it again so quickly,” Schotz said, and the matter was dropped after some discussion. Sosniecki said ISWNE needed to target the editorial writing winners of the state and provincial press associations for ISWNE membership. “Every member of the organization should do that,” he said. Schotz mentioned the success of April’s #Frontpageblitz of the Newseum and Melissa Hale-Spencer’s April 21 suggestion via the Hotline that “the next step is to work togeth-
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on a prominent place on the editorial page (normally the top left or across the top) and has the largest headline on the page. Use a bold font, not italic. 22. Make a commitment to writing an editorial every week. 23. Find local columnists. Former publisher Bill Haupt once lined up 26; each would write two columns annually. You might end up with a few Marcia Martinek and Ellen Miller-Goins permanent ones who are good. thought. Editorials deserve the same plan24. Make sure the masthead is accurate ning, research, and writing/revision time as and that you have a letters to the editor news articles. policy. 28. As a follow-up to previous point, edito25. Multiple entry points on the editorial rials should be supported with facts and page are good, such as a poll or “Just even original reporting. Curious” question. Take responses from Facebook or your website and run them on 29. Bring variety to the opinion page with the editorial page. different editorial types, including explanatory and educational. It’s OK to step down Group facilitated by Deborah Givens off the soapbox occasionally. 26. Find your focus. Ask: What’s the goal you have in mind? What are you trying to achieve? Why should the readers/community care? 27. Don’t make the editorial an after-
30. Don’t be afraid to break the rules, especially for important issues and editorials. A long editorial, well-written and documented, brings attention to an issue. The same goes for a front- page editorial if the issue deserves such attention.
from page 5 er, over the course of a year, on covering a single topic, each in our own way, each with the depth of knowledge we bring to our own location. If we were to each year choose a single topic that is germane to what we are all already covering (not an add on), like the oppression of women, the poverty of children, the pollution of the Earth, we would create a worldwide view of a particular topic and our editorials would offer varied solutions to its many parts. We could post these regularly as we write them on the ISWNE website with links (maybe with a print icon)
from each of our papers. This would not just raise the profile of weeklies and stress our critical role in each of our communities but, more importantly, perform a worthwhile public service.” Sosniecki said ISWNE needed to leverage the #Frontpageblitz success, which included a front-page column by member Bill Tubbs in the June issue of Publishers’ Auxiliary. 13. After agreeing to meet on January 10, 2015 in St. Augustine, Florida, the board adjourned at 10:40 p.m.
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Chronicle staff pulls tions, poorly managed forests, dry grasses, sagebrush and steep terrain were a recipe for disaster and flames erupted across the already parched hills. ROGER HARNACK By Thursday, July 17, the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office was knocking on rural residents’ doors, telling them to get out, now. Chronicle Publisher and Editor Roger AL CAMP Harnack, a member of Okanogan County Search and Rescue, was called to double duty – manage a newspaper and evacuate residents from the line of fire. Harnack and BROCK HIRES Chronicle Sports Editor/photographer Al Camp were in Indian Dan Canyon when the evacuation orders came. Wildfire raced through the canyon as residents feverishly gathered what they could and fled. Harnack and Camp remained in the canyon, helping deputies and photographing the approaching flames as they consumed trees, sage and homes. “I’m 63, use long lenses and stay in front of the fire,” Camp said, noting the wildfires were moving too fast to get close. With most residents out of the valley, Sheriff Frank Rogers directed his deputies out of harm’s way. Harnack and Camp left, too. Departing the canyon, Harnack went south to the city of Pateros where a shelter
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was set up for evacuees at Pateros High School. At the time, nobody expected winds to shift and drive the fire to the edge of the school grounds by the end of the night. Camp headed north to the city of Brewster – flames were advancing on the city known for its apple production. Brewster was thought to be the coming ground zero for the disaster. Camp said he felt like he was competing with everyone in Brewster, as anybody with a mobile phone, tablet or camera stopped
former Chronicle reporter Jennifer Marshall, who lives in Pateros with her husband, Aaron Best. “We lost our shed and took some heat damage to the back of the house, but overall we’re extremely lucky considering the flames were only about five feet from the house by the time Aaron was able to corral the cats, move his car out of the fire’s path and get out of there,” she said a few days after the fire. Volunteer firefighters and a retaining
Sheriff Frank Rogers watches the wildfire advance in Indian Dan Canyon. (Photo by Al Camp on July 17, just before the wind turns toward Pateros)
to take photographs. The fast-moving, growing wildfire exhibited some unusual behavior. Wildfires normally “lay down” at night and tend to burn uphill. This one, fanned by winds that sent burning embers aloft, burned downhill on Thursday and the wind shifted that evening toward Pateros, population about 675. Those embers rained down on the city, which sits at the confluence of the Methow and Columbia rivers. Its rapid advance overwhelmed law enforcement’s ability to warn everyone and firefighters’ ability to protect structures. About 30 homes burned in the coming hour. Residents had mere minutes to flee the city. “It really did feel like being in hell,” said
wall helped save their home. Back at the office that Thursday and later from our respective homes, I wrote up information provided by the Sheriff’s Office and phoned in by Harnack and Camp, and emailed it to fellow reporter Brock Hires to post on our website. Those postings went late into the night. Meanwhile in Pateros, Harnack tucked away his camera and put on his Search and Rescue hat and began evacuating the city, going door-to-door as the heat and firestorm bore down. The sky blackened with ash and smoke. And the heat rose to a level high enough to melt the light bars, bumper covers, headlamps and side view mirrors of fire trucks. CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
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Highway 97, where it skirted the communiHis camera still around his neck, ty of Malott. Harnack snapped a quick photo here and Camp was there to photograph the there as the fire engulfed the city’s water advance of the fire near Malott. He contintanks, destroyed homes and devoured the ued to supply me with information to be countryside. posted immediately to the web. With the city evacuated, Harnack eventu“I thought that was an extremely good ally found himself on the far side of the fire job of firefighting,” Camp said of the effort and wasn’t able to get out until the wee in Malott. “It was pretty amazing.” hours of the next morning. Camp, a veteran photographer of numerAs he photographed the blaze from ous other wildfires, said he had never across a small bridge, the Washington State Patrol asked him to put his Search and Rescue Fire races along Old Highway 97, south of Malott, hat back on and direct Washington, as utility crews inspect poles and lines. traffic. For the next (Photo by Roger Harnack on July 18) hour or so, he turned northbound U.S. Highway 97 motorists around, advising them to go to Chelan or Wenatchee. The fire continued to grow and advanced a resort community near Harnack’s location. With traffic under control, the State Patrol directed him to assist with evacuating Alta Lake, a golf course community atop a sagecovered hillside. He and a deputy evacuated the last of the residents as the fire ripped into the community. Eventually, 41 homes in the Alta Lake experienced anything like this year’s area would burn, including the home of a firestorm. trooper helping others as the fire began “I did Tripod, which was the last big one growing north. Golf carts burned, but the here. Barker Mountain (fire) threatened a green course survived. lot of homes,” he said, noting the wind and By the end of the last evacuation, dry heat this year fanned the flames. Harnack looked like a coal miner, his face Over the course of the first week of the and clothing blackened from the soot and wildfires, Camp shot close to 1,200 photos, ash. wrote 10 fire stories and supplied informaHarnack left the fire area about 4 a.m. tion to me for our social media and webafter being released from Search and sites. Over the second week, he added Rescue. He was allowed to head north another 800 images and several more stothrough the fire area and eventually back ries. to the newspaper office about 40 miles That was in addition to his role as the away. newspaper’s sports editor. Overnight and into Friday, another More houses burned, including the branch of the fire, burning northeast of the Chiliwist home of Chronicle Production blaze that attacked Pateros, moved along the edge of neighboring Brewster and Manager Katie Montanez and her husband, across the mountains into the Chiliwist Rick. Valley. It then turned north along Old Although disabled, Rick is credited for
saving the lives of many residents of the Chiliwist. As the fire raced in, he dialed up the “phone tree,” calling the first of the residents on the list, who then called more residents, and so on. Power, telephone and cell phone service was knocked out within minutes, literally leaving residents in the dark without help. But Rick’s efforts had afforded neighbors just enough time to get out of the valley before a majority of Chiliwist homes burned. “We got two phone calls from neighbors warning us of the fire,” Montanez said, noting that was the impetus for her husband to dial up the phone tree. “One of them said, ‘You and Rick need to get out now.’” Rural Chiliwist residents had little time for gathering belongings, and no time to get livestock out. Hundreds of cattle worth millions of dollars would die, tangled in barbed wire along the few roads in and out of the valley. “We were already getting ready to go,” Montanez said. “I had been outside a couple of times and could hear the roaring of the fire although I couldn’t see flames or even a glow. “By the time we were loading up in the van, the roar was much, much louder. We heard later that the fire trucks couldn’t get into our driveway, so we feel very fortunate we had time to leave. There would have come a point at which we wouldn’t have been able to leave and would have been trapped.” Despite the emergency evacuation, Montanez reported to work Friday, not knowing whether her home had survived. She set to work dummying the weekend and Wednesday editions, building ads and securing press times and runs. On Friday, we continued posting and reporting new developments – the fire’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
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advance, Red Cross shelter locations, Hires and me to post constant updates. At donations that began pouring in from all one point, Harnack texted me information, over the country, power outages, emerin short snippets, from a meeting involving gency declarations and where to take discounty officials dealing with the disaster. placed animals. We lost count of how many Our story was online before the meeting stories and photos we posted that day to broke up. our website, Facebook and Twitter. Shortly thereafter, Harnack “volunI would hit the save button on a completed teered” rookie reporter Hires to take over story, then immediately dive into another. the social media and public information That went on for hours and hours. I don’t campaign. think any of us remembered to grab a bite Hires relocated to the Emergency to eat that day as one horrible scenario Operations Center, where he continued to after another unfolded. write stories for the newspaper as well as Assisting us was intern Chelsee Johnson, View of the wildfire from afar taken by Roger a recent high school Harnack on July 17 graduate. Meanwhile, the paper called for donations of food and bottled water for fire victims. Our lobby began to fill up; Advertising Manager Teresa Myers and Circulation Manager Julie Bock headed the effort. Julie’s teenage son, Kash Heath, helped carry donations into the lobby. With the exception of sports, our entire Sunday paper – a fourpage broadsheet wrapped around the Wenatchee World in a joint distribution agreement – was devoted to fire coverage. By this time, Internet and phone services were intermittent counmanage the social media for us and the tywide. We made plans to put the Sunday Sheriff’s Office. paper on a flash drive and drive it to the Hires, who has been a reporter for less press in Wenatchee, 90 miles to the south. than two months, called the fire “truly devSince roads were closed much of the time, astating.” we plotted alternate routes. In the end, the Hires said it’s a real honor to have been Internet came back and we were able to tasked to not only report the news, but to transmit pages electronically, as usual. also keep up social media for emergency Camp went out photographing again and officials. Harnack, who hadn’t slept, was called into “Being able to get the information out Search and Rescue duty again at the just…it’s an honor to have that kind of Okanogan Emergency Operations Center as responsibility. It’s amazing how the whole an unofficial public information officer, thing came to be,” he said. posting updates to both the sheriff’s At 8 p.m., the center closed its phones Facebook site and ours, and “tweeting” and social media operations for the night, information online through Twitter. but our newsroom continued to operate. He and Camp continued to phone in or Helping with news coverage Saturday – text information about the fire, allowing production day for the Sunday paper –
were a couple freelancers – former reporter Sheila Corson and the Camps’ son, Doug (a music teacher home for the summer) – and advertising representative Kate MacKenzie, a former Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reporter. MacKenzie also took turns volunteering on the hotlines at the Sheriff’s Office, answering questions for fire victims and those still in harm’s way. Our volunteer efforts continued. With less than four hours sleep, Harnack started out at the emergency operations. Hires took over for Harnack later that morning and the publisher went in search of more photos. Camp, who also only had a few hours to sleep, went back to work with a camera, too. Doug took a truckload of donated food to Pateros, where a relief station was set up at the high school, and also photographed the destruction along the route and in town. He phoned in information, allowing us to alert residents, who had started to come back, about the relief effort and also of an impromptu community barbecue to use up perishable foods and dozens of pies made for the community’s Apple Pie Jamboree, which was to have been that day. During those hectic few days, Doug also posted information on his personal Facebook page to keep his acquaintances – many of whom moved away for college or jobs – up to date with accurate reports. He also consoled a close friend whose family lost their home in the Chiliwist area. On Sunday, Gov. Jay Inslee and several other state officials came to town to view some of the damage and meet with local officials. Harnack spent much of the day in the emergency center; he and I covered a meeting involving local officials and the governor’s entourage. CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
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By this time, TV crews had arrived tioning phones, a brief power outage and from larger cities elsewhere in the state. wonky computers that chose to act up on While they chatted in the parking lot, deadline. waiting for a sound byte from the goverA special section for our upcoming nor, we were in the meeting listening to Omak Stampede rodeo fell in the middle local officials assail Inslee with questions of it all. We got the section out, but with about state response to the fire. the Internet down that day, we ended up Monday, July 21 – a week after the fire sending Mailroom Supervisor Howard started – was our marathon day. We continued to write, Fire silhouettes Pateros church photograph and post updates cross (Photo by Roger Harnack all day and early into the on July 17) next morning. Harnack made the decision to devote the entire 12-page front section of the Wednesday paper to fire coverage and squeeze the remaining stories into the second section. In an unusual move, the paper quality was bumped up to 38 pound Hi-Brite. We knew people would want the issue as a keepsake and the “whiter” paper helped the photos stand out. We also increased our press run. (The Wednesday paper is not a partnership with the Wenatchee World.) We continued posting to our Web page, Facebook and Twitter during the second week of the fire, bringing much-needed information to our readers. A special Firestorm 2014 page was added to our website. Our goal was to be the first place people would visit for accurate, up-to-date information. Harnack and Hires continued to handle the social media. At one point, Hires posted key information that contradicted incorrect information posted by a Spokane TV station. The station later corrected its story. Throughout the coming week, our staff ended up correcting multiple television stories and social media posts Thompson to the press with the pages on dealing with fire evacuation levels, where a flash drive. Harnack, in the meantime, to make donations, road closures and found an Internet signal at the county fire status. operations center and tried to send the Throughout that time, we dealt with pages electronically. The connection was intermittent Internet service, non-funcso slow that pages were still arriving at
the press the next day, after the section had been printed. It was an ultra-high-stress time that could have resulted in personal meltdowns and professional blow-ups, but staff members kept their cool. The July 27 (Sunday) and July 30 newspapers also were full of fire information, including the beginnings of recovery mode as the fire slowed its rapid advance. At the fire’s height, there were more than 3,100 firefighters and support personnel assigned to the fire from all over the nation. Three fire camps served as temporary home for those crews, around 7,000 electrical customers were without power (some still are), three shelters were in operation and the only railroad line into the area was damaged when two trestles burned. Tons of clothing, food and water were donated, along with hay and other supplies for displaced animals. As this is written, on July 30, the fire continues to burn, although it’s now largely away from populated areas. Damage will be in the tens of millions of dollars. No one’s yet estimated how long it will take to assess and tally the damage. Harnack has been officially named as the public information officer for the Emergency Operations Center, which will shut down in the coming days when fire concerns subside. Hires continues to be on call for the center’s social media needs. “That whole two-week span is just a blur,” he said. While most of the TV crews have packed up and gone home, we will continue to cover the stories of our county’s residents and their struggle to recover from Firestorm 2014.
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Bill Tubbs wins two NNA writing awards The North Scott Press of Eldridge, Iowa, thy remembrance.” placed first in two categories and will Tubbs’ sports column, “Winners in the receive seven awards during NNA’s 128th game of life,” told about the high achievAnnual Convention & Trade Show at the ing careers of the members of his homeGrand Hyatt in San Antonio, Oct. 2-5. town Elwood, Iowa, High School 1961 Publisher Bill Tubbs won first baseball team on the 51st place in two writing competianniversary of their state champitions for Best Serious Column onship. Judges commented, for daily and non-daily news“Excellent package presentation papers with circulations of of a column all readers could 3,000-5,999, and Best Sports both enjoy and learn something Column, for daily and nonfrom.” daily newspapers with circuThe NSP’s coverage of the lations under 6,000. spectacular fire that destroyed Tubbs’ serious column was the former Eldridge Turner Hall, entitled “People like Charlie Del’s Eatery & Pub, “She’s gone!” made King’s ‘dream’ real.” It won second place for editor was about a lawyer, Charlie Scott Campbell for Best Breaking BILL TUBBS Doster, whom Tubbs met while News Story for non-daily newspadoing polio immunizations in India, who pers, circulation 3,000-5,999. Judges integrated the public library in Anniston, commented, “Great job working the perAla., in 1963 amidst violence that was personal angle into the lead of the story. I petrated against African-American minislove how the story weaves together quotes ters who tried to check out a book two from residents, eyewitnesses, fire officials, weeks after Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous etc. Good use of drop quotes, sidebar sto“I have a dream” speech in the march on ries. Excellent overall package of a horriWashington. Judges commented, “This is a ble breaking news story that impacted great column about a great man, a couple many people.” of them, and a great subject. Really a worPictures from the Del’s fire won another
second place for The NSP for Best Use of Photographs, Daily & Non-daily (all circulations). “Good fire photos,” said the judges. The NSP won third place for overall excellence for Best Coverage of Local News, daily and non-daily, circulations 3,000-5,999. This is the same category in which The NSP won first place in 2010. Judges commented, “This publication has packed plenty of news coverage within its pages. This thorough coverage is demonstrated by a solid mixture of in-depth news and feature stories, as well as photos and news briefs. Of special note is the diversity of topics covered.” A feature photo by Jim Turley of a bald eagle entitled “Time for a little lunch,” won third place for Best Feature Photo for nondaily newspapers, circulation 3,000-5,999. Judges commented, “Oh what detail! What wonderful color! Just a fantastic shot!” The NSP’s seventh award was honorable mention for Best Agricultural Story, daily and non-daily division, “Inside Cinnamon Ridge,” by editor Scott Campbell. Judges’ comments were not available. There were 2,245 entries in the national contests with 530 awards won by 193 newspapers in 40 states.
ISWNE NEWS from page 3 in 2005 at the age of 47. This award is presented to an individual between 23-40 years old who is well respected in his or her community, of good reputation and integrity, provides active leadership in the newspaper industry and is active in his or her state press association and community and whose newspaper is a member of NNA. The award will be presented at the business luncheon, Oct. 4, which will be held during NNA’s annual convention in San Antonio, Texas. Sawvell, who was nominated by Bill Tubbs, publisher of the North Scott Press and Wilton-Durant Advocate News, will be the sixth recipient of the Daniel M. Phillips Leadership Award and will be recognized in the November issue of Publishers’ Auxiliary.
ISWNE designer Liz Ford dies of cancer at 59 Liz Ford, who designed all of ISWNE’s
publications from 2001 through October to his “In Memoriam” PowerPoint presen2013, died July 27 of cancer at her home tation. in Joplin, Missouri. She was 59. Ford, a 1977 MSSU graduate, is surFord was a graphic designer vived by her daughter, Emily with the University Relations & Nichole Lansford and husband, Marketing department at Matt, Joplin; her granddaughter, Missouri Southern State Katherine Elizabeth Lansford University for 15 years. She was (born Feb. 22); and three brothresponsible for layout and ers. She was known for her great design of university publications, sense of humor. ads, billboards and web graph“In addition to the ISWNE publiics. cations and advertisements, Liz “Liz told me a few months ago also designed all of my that her favorite thing to do was brochures, programs, and fliers to work on the ISWNE publicafor the Institute of International LIZ FORD tions,” said Chad Stebbins, Studies,” Stebbins said. “The minISWNE executive director. “She knew the ister referred to her as ‘Mrs. Job,’ at her names of all the prominent ISWNE memfuneral because of all the adversity she bers and kept a directory of their photos had faced – an earlier bout with breast on her computer.” cancer, a detached retina, and multiple Stebbins said when longtime member sclerosis. Plus, she fell and broke her Ursula Freireich died in July 2013, he was hand about four months before she died.” attending the ISWNE conference in Green Carl Fowler, a freelance designer from Bay, Wisconsin, and contacted Ford nearby Carl Junction, has replaced Ford immediately for a photo that he could add as the designer of ISWNE’s publications.
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Gary and Helen Sosniecki to join Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame Six newspaper people, including two husband-wife teams, will be inducted this fall into the Missouri Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame. The induction reception and banquet are scheduled 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26, during the 148th annual Convention of the Missouri Press Association (MPA) at the Holiday Inn Executive Center in Columbia. This will be the 24th group to be inducted into the Newspaper Hall of Fame, which was established by MPA in 1991. This year’s inductees are David Bradley, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News-Press & Gazette Company, St. Joseph; Judy Dixon, Festus, a cartoonist/illustrator with more than 30 years in the newspaper industry; Don and Kathy Ginnings, longtime publishers of the Hermitage Index; and Gary and Helen Sosniecki, former Missouri publishers of three community weekly newspapers and one daily. Hall of Fame inductees receive Pinnacle Awards in honor of their service to the Missouri newspaper industry and their communities. Inductees' plaques will join the permanent display of inductees in the
GARY AND HELEN SOSNIECKI
MPA office in Columbia and in the student lounge in Lee Hills Hall at the Missouri School of Journalism. Gary and Helen Sosniecki owned weekly newspapers in Humansville, Seymour and Vandalia and published The Lebanon Daily Record during a 34-year newspaper career that also included newspaper jobs in Tennessee, Illinois and Kansas. They are 1973 graduates of the University of Missouri School of Journalism
and will host the 2015 summer conference of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors at Mizzou. Their many awards include ISWNE’s lifetime-achievement honor, the Eugene Cervi Award, in 2003. Gary’s editorials won Golden Quill awards from ISWNE in 1998 and 2006. The Sosnieckis received the National Newspaper Association’s Community Development Award in 1998 for their efforts to build a new library in Seymour and its President’s Award in 2007 for their work on postal issues. Helen was the NNA’s Emma C. McKinney Memorial Award winner for 2011. Gary was 2004 president of the Missouri Press Association and is the current president of ISWNE. Helen was MPA’s state representative to NNA. Both served as presidents of the Ozark Press Association. The Sosnieckis have served on numerous local boards in their communities. Since 2008, Gary has been a regional sales manager for TownNews.com and Helen has been senior sales and marketing manager for Interlink Inc. They live in Le Claire, Iowa.
Provincial school sports association honours Macleod Gazette editor The Alberta Schools’ Athletic Macleod because of Frank McTighe.” Association honoured the editor of The McTighe said one of his early memories is Macleod Gazette for coverage of school attending a high school football champisports. onship game in Calgary. The association presented its “I was taken at a real early media recognition award to Frank age by the excitement of the McTighe last month at the 44th crowd,” McTighe said. “I never annual Routledge Award and Hall forgot it.” of Fame banquet at Edmonton. McTighe played football and “To say that Frank has a pasrugby while attending St. Francis sion for all sports is a bit of an high school in Calgary and expeunderstatement,” F.P. Walshe rienced the positive aspects of school athletic director Craig school sport. Patton said. “It’s very rare in the “It gave a guy who had the media to find someone who gives typical teenage angst an identity, FRANK McTIGHE as much attention to every sport.” a peer group and friendships Patton spoke of The Macleod Gazette’s that endure today,” McTighe said. commitment to covering sports of all McTighe later coached football at Senator kinds in Fort Macleod. Riley and Highwood high schools in High “He is approachable, he is professionRiver and was reminded of what school al,” Patton said of McTighe. “I’ve heard sports mean. many times from people outside the com“I watched a group of young men learn munity say they wish they could get that things about dedication and hard work kind of coverage.” and the things that come from that,” “We are definitely spoiled in Fort McTighe said.
Frank and Emily’s sons, Ryan, Dan and Michael, all played school sports, so McTighe later experienced school athletics from the perspective of a parent. In his career as a journalist McTighe covered school sports in Taber, Vauxhall, Coaldale, Picture Butte, High River, Nanton, Vulcan and Fort Macleod. “Everywhere I go it’s the same thing. You realize how much school sports mean to the community and how much it means to the kids.” McTighe said Fort Macleod and other towns take great pride in the achievements of student athletes. “Craig and the other coaches in Fort Macleod do an amazing job,” McTighe said. “The people I’ve worked with over the years through so many communities are all like that.” “I have so much respect and admiration for you people and the work you put into providing opportunities for young men and women,” McTighe said. “It’s just amazing. This award is very special.”
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Jackson Herald layout experiment GEORGIA NEWSPAPER EXPERIMENTS WITH DIGITAL LAYOUT IN PRINT Over the last decade, weekly newspapers have been trying to figure out how to mesh their online websites with their print editions. The Jackson Herald, Jefferson, Georgia, is experimenting with doing the reverse. During the month of July, The Herald has redesigned its front page to look like its website. “I’m not sure what the future of digital will be for community newspapers,” said co-publisher and editor Mike Buffington. “But many readers clearly like the online interface with shorter stories and more of a headline focus for casual readers. So we thought we’d take some of those concepts and apply to the front page for a month and ask readers what they think.” So far, the reaction has been positive, Buffington said. “We’re running a story each week on the front explaining what the experiment is about and asking people to email with their comments,” he said. “So far, it’s been overwhelmingly positive and we’ve tried to tweak the layout based on some of the emails we’ve gotten.” The front page of The Herald is a series of seven “boxes” that highlight a mix of stories. The top lead box has a photo with a blurb, or a promotion for a longer story inside the publication. The other boxes are a mix of crime, sports, features and news. Sometimes they are just a promo blurb, but others are short articles that don’t refer to an inside story. The design is more or less the same kind of layout and color scheme the newspaper uses on its website, JacksonHeraldToday.com. “Back in the 1980s, there was a brief newspaper design movement to make newspaper front pages more of an index rather than carrying stories,” said Buffington. “That may have been a little ahead of its time.
Now, with the impact of digital designs, readers may be ready for this kind of
index and short blurbs in print.” The other reason the newspaper is experimenting with the new layout is a
sense that readers are fatigued with traditional local government news. “It seems that readers here are tuning out the traditional city-county-school meeting stories that have long been our bread and butter of reporting and front page news,” said Buffington. “I think there’s a trickle down fatigue from all the national controversies – people seem to be sick of politics at all levels right now. Unless there’s some kind of huge controversy locally, government news has become stale for many readers. “So we’re putting government news inside on pages 2 and 3A, but we’re trying to focus the front with this design more on softer features, sports and crime to see if that will impact our readership. It is forcing us to rethink many of our old assumptions and ways of doing things. We’ve always been hard news and local government oriented in how we play news on the front, so this is a new approach for us.” Buffington said he isn’t sure yet if The Herald will stay with the new design after July. “That will depend on further evaluation,” he said. “School here starts back in early August, so maybe we’ll run it another month to see how people respond when they get back into a routine and out of vacation mode. We’re still looking at all of that.” The Jackson Herald is the flagship publication of Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc., which is a family-owned group of six weekly newspapers an associated websites in Northeast Georgia. Mike and his brother Scott are second-generation owners of the business, which their parents purchased in 1965.
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Davenport’s news hub a misuse of tax money GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE IN THE NEWS BUSINESS By Bill Tubbs Publisher The North Scott Press Eldridge, Iowa July 23, 2014 Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. – Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba made headlines last week when he vetoed plans for a football stadium and riverfront restaurant, and said child refugees who are being warehoused on our Mexican border would be welcome in the Quad Cities. Those are important issues, but a fourth story about Davenport leapt off the pages when I read the morning paper last Thursday and I found myself screaming, “No! No! No! They can’t do that!” The headline of the article that provoked that reaction was, “Davenport creating its own news hub: City to hire staff for digital newsroom.” The article by Quad-City Times reporter Barb Ickes was as breathtaking – and disturbing – as the headline. The gist of it was this: The Pooh-Bahs at the City of Davenport got it in their heads that they should take citizens’ tax dollars to put their own spin on the news – and to wittingly, or unwittingly, compete with private enterprise. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt on the latter, but the reality is that they ARE competing with taxpaying, job-creating private enterprises. I wish I were making this up. Sadly, I am not. “The city of Davenport is doing something officials say no other U.S. city has done, creating a news-based website they vow will shine new light on positive and negative city happenings,” the story began. There was more: The city council approved a first-year budget of $185,000 for the “digital newsroom” that includes
hiring two part-time staffers, a website designer and money for freelance writers, among other things. This does not include $213,045 that the city already pays two staffers to manage information. (As one who has worked in the news business in this area for 44 years, I assure you that those salaries bear no relation to what most reporters make!) The stand-alone website, officials say, will cover city news and possibly add weather and sports. They’ve lined up wellknown local journalists (former Times reporters Kurt Allemeier and Tory Brecht) to write articles and are talking with meteorologist Terry Swails about providing a weather report. (Brecht previously worked at The North Scott Press, as well.) This is necessary, said Davenport city administrator Craig Malin, to create a positive buzz. “We do stuff all the time – good stuff, great stuff, life-changing stuff – that never sees the light of day.” Davenport says they’ll report bad news, too, just trust them. Hmm. I think Jefferson had something to say about that (see above). If these talented journalists want to earn their paychecks producing webbased news, more power to them. But they should invest their own money and go through all the audience-building expenses – and risks – that we who are engaged in free enterprise – and pay taxes – know all too well. Their “news” should NOT be subsidized by the taxpayers! THAT, my friends, is not only a black hole for tax dollars, it is a First Amendment issue. Let me repeat. This is a FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUE. Suppose, for example, that the website was being launched by the government of the United States and it was Barack Obama instead of Craig Malin saying, “We do stuff all the time – good stuff, great stuff, life-changing stuff – that never sees the light of day.” What would you think then if the president decided to use your tax dollars to start a government website to compete with CNN and Fox and Time Warner and AP and all the rest? The founders, in their wisdom, shunned a state-sponsored news media. They wanted the press to be free and independent. Substitute “website” for “newspapers” in the Jefferson quote at the top of this col-
umn and you’ll see how wrong it is for Davenport to even CONSIDER using public money to manage its own message. There are multiple news media outlets BILL TUBBS in the Quad Cities – two daily newspapers, four weekly newspapers, five TV stations, a dozen radio stations and more; most of them with websites (not to mention social media) – who will COMPETE to be first to report Davenport’s “great stuff” if it is truly newsworthy. Many times already I see them reporting “great stuff” about Davenport, so it’s not fair to say that a positive message isn't getting out. But apparently not enough to please Davenport leaders. Remember, though, that, each private sector media pays taxes and creates jobs for individuals who also pay taxes. It’s called free enterprise and it’s what made America’s economy the envy of the world. It just isn’t right that their taxes will be subsidizing their competition. No, a government website isn’t going to put any of us out of business. The public has figured that out: The traffic at government websites pales in comparison with media websites where we have to be better if we’re going to stay in business. But the resources available for the private sector media to tell about Davenport’s “great stuff” are diminished small step by small step every time a government entity – city, county, school – grabs a share of our audience. Instead of using public money to reinvent that which private enterprise knows best – and has learned how to make commercially successful – Davenport leaders would be ahead if they focused on doing what THEY do best: providing excellent public services – and let the news media do its job without fear or favor. Bill Tubbs can be contacted at btubbs@northscottpress.com.
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If nobody needs newspapers, why are we so busy? By Jan Anderson Editor and publisher Boulder Monitor Boulder, Montana July 2, 2014 Who needs newspapers any more, right? What with Google and other search engines putting all the information in the world, including plenty no one really ever needs, at your fingertips, a newspaper is simply old hat, useless, don’t you think? That’s one perspective. One morning last week got us thinking about a different perspective. Within 90 minutes, we heard from a wide range of folks who seemed to need what we offered as a newspaper. An author from Butte, about 35 miles away, researching a book stopped by the office. He wanted to know about economic factors making a difference in our community. Do the high school graduates leave town? Are there an increasing number of professional jobs? Low wage jobs? What are the driving factors behind the economy? What industries and occupations influence how the community is doing? We painted him a general picture but primarily referred him to other resources. He left with guidance on who else he should really talk to. A man from Missoula, about 120 miles west, wanted some information on a murder a couple decades earlier in Boulder. We told him he was welcomed to come into the office and do the research, could research the matter at a couple of other places, or could pay for our time to do the research. He pointed out he was a volunteer miles away with a non-profit organization and asked us to do the research free. We offered to provide it in exchange for a receipt acknowledging the value of our
donation. The next contact came from closer to home. A citizen concerned about a planned government expense wanted to know what kind of notice was required of a meeting to accept public comment on the issue. He wanted to voice his opposition. We referred him to a couple of resources, just as we had a few days earlier when someone else called, someone involved with setting up the meeting who said he wanted to be sure it was properly noticed. Then we got a phone call from Billings, about 225 miles east. A professor there wanted to know about the status of a mining operation in our area. We told him what we could and gave him a couple of sources who could answer his questions. All of that within 90 minutes. All of that producing no income whatsoever and costing us time. That does not include what came in the mail or the folks who walked through the door with various needs or the emails. Nor does it include the many folks who subscribe to the paper to help them decide whether they would like to move here or who subscribe to keep tabs on the place they used to call home. Or the letter writers and advertisers wanting to get the word out about various upcoming events. So, at least for that morning, folks in Missoula, Billings and Butte plus people right here in Jefferson County seemed to need our little weekly newspaper. Sure, if all of the newspaper's content since forever were available online some of that research could have been done online. But not all of it, and not necessarily very quickly. And in most of the cases, the questioner really wanted some degree of expertise and familiarity with the community they believed we could offer. Our credibility counts. While we marvel
at the wealth of information online and love the convenience, we are always amazed at the inaccuracies available there. As an aside, we are not always as helpJAN ANDERSON ful with every search as some folks would want. A couple of weeks earlier a man stopped in and identified himself as a private investigator from Las Vegas, over 700 miles away. He was asking about an incident in which a recent jailer was accused of sexual intercourse without consent with inmates. Did most folks in the community think he did it, we were asked. Even though he insisted that he had lived in a small town and knew people talk and come to conclusions, we told him we do not read minds and did not know what most folks in the community thought. We also pointed out that the man is officially presumed innocent. We still did our best to help him figure out what he needed, though, by referring him to court records and other official documents. We are not a library, or a museum, or the keeper of public records, but we are an information source for folks in our community – and, it seems, for others far and wide wanting to know about our community. We may not be as quick as a few keystrokes, but apparently folks still need us. So, who needs a newspaper anymore? Lots of folks, apparently. Jan Anderson can be contacted at janderson@jeffersoncountycourier.com.
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Flap Over IHOP Flapjacks By Don Corrigan Editor-In-Chief Webster-Kirkwood Times Webster Groves, Missouri July 18, 2014 Where's your favorite place to get a stack of pancakes? First Watch? Spencer’s? Chris’s? Uncle Bill’s? Boardwalk Café? Egg & I? Maybe you wait until the flatfoots at the Kirkwood Police Department have their famous flapjack feast to get your fill. Or maybe you are partial to the Webster Groves Rotary’s annual fall flapjack fest. In any case, I can name one place that’s not too popular with newspaper folks for pancakes right now. That would be IHOP, otherwise known as the International House of Pancakes. An organization to which I belong, the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE), had an allergic reaction recently to a digital pancake promotion by IHOP. IHOP sent digital press releases to newspaper editors asking them to publicize its buttermilk pancakes – still the most popular item on the menu after 56 years – for just 56 cents. IHOP noted this was less than the original cost of 60 cents when the
first IHOP eatery opened its doors 56 years ago on July 8, 1958! Here’s how an Illinois editor responded to IHOP’s request: “Ain’t that nice! We’re celebrating 151 years! We have had numerous restaurants over the years advertise their specials, including pancakes. We help them survive and they help us survive by interacting with our subscribers. I’m sure you have a great promotion, but IHOP has never spent a penny with our newspaper. For the life of me, I cannot believe you have the gall to ask us for free publicity. I guess corporations like yours simply have no shame and certainly no sense of community...” Editors also flipped out over the “Flapjack PR Fiasco,” because of a call for newspapers to publicize IHOP’s social media addresses. Find out the latest on Pineapple Upside Down Pancakes by following IHOP on Facebook, Twitter and the website. If social media is working out so well for pushing your pancakes, then why make a plea to “we in the dead-tree media” to get your hype into print? asked I-HOPping-mad editors. All of this inspired me to sit down with a short stack at home, which I smothered
with berry syrup (from one of our loyal advertisers), while reading the July issue of Columbia Journalism Review (CJR). After years of reading how DON CORRIGAN print is dead in CJR, I enjoyed reading John MacArthur’s piece on “Digitalization: The God That Failed.” He makes the point that digital online news media are unreliable, unvetted, scattershot, financially unsustainable and most of the “real news” is taken from print. MacArthur said he’s tired of the “digital correctness” of academics. He said their slogan, “Information Wants To Be Free” is as goofy as the notion of print’s inevitable death. He may be right, but those IHOP folks sure want their information to be free. Don Corrigan can be contacted at corrigan@timesnewspapers.com.
Those attending the Durango conference posed for a group photo on the campus of Fort Lewis College before the awards banquet on June 28.
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Why we do what we do By Cyndy Slovak-Barton Publisher Hays Free Press Buda, Texas July 30, 2014 A note to a friend in the newspaper business who had had a particularly tough week made me think about everything we do. Her response to me ended, “We’ve all done it ... and I wonder how we do it. But at the time it’s all happening, there’s never any question that it must be done.” The tragedy started with a simple horseback ride – by a young woman who was taking her niece out for a jaunt after a rainstorm. Neither returned. The body of the sixyear-old was found fairly quickly. The body of the older woman, in her mid-20s, took days. It took five days with the sheriff’s department officers, volunteers, firefighters, all searching through the river, trying to find the body. Finally, as water receded, her body was found in the mud trapped beneath a tree branch. How did the townspeople get a hint that something was wrong? When the two didn’t return on time, the horse was found, still saddled, standing by the spot where the youngster drowned. It was tragic for the families of both victims. But it was also difficult for the newspaper to cover. The publisher of this newspaper, because she covers a small town, knew everyone involved. She said her camera was sitting on the
seat of her car, but she couldn’t even touch it when the family of the young rider was told. She was at the river the morning searchers found the little girl’s aunt. No photos – just a hug to the sheriff, “who had tears streaming down his face,” she said. She wrote the story after waiting at the office while the sheriff contacted the family. This publisher stayed up nights blocking and deleting posts on the Facebook page announcing news of the deaths. Why? Because the families hadn’t been notified and rumors abounded about “whodunit.” Thankfully, it is rare that we have to cover such events. But, when it does happen, it makes us wonder “why do we do what we do?” Because tragedy happens, and maybe there is a lesson to be learned. Because the truth can stop the rumors that inevitably fly after a tragic happening. When someone calls our office locally, complaining that they don’t like the political cartoon, or that our editorial page leans too far left or too far right, we have to think that there is good in what we do. We shed light on what is happening in city hall; we give advertisers a way to get their names out to the public; we let people know which school team is winning or losing; we print pictures of people doing something good or helping out a neighbor. And, sometimes, we have to cover sad news and tragedy. It’s what we do, because there’s never any question that it must be done.
There’s also this quote that my father-inlaw kept by his desk. I didn’t run this as it was inappropriate for this particular column, but it seems to say a lot about jourCYNDY SLOVAK-BARTON nalism: I.F. Stone: “And, I tell you, I really have so much fun, I ought to be arrested. Sometimes I think it’s wrong of me, because you know, if you’re a newspaperman, as I’ve been since I was fourteen years old, to have your own little paper, it may be very small, as Daniel Webster said about Dartmouth, ‘It may be a small college, but there are those that love it’ – to be able to spit in their eyre, and do what you think is right, and report the news, and have enough readers to make some impact, is such a pleasure, that you forget, you forget, what you’re writing about. “It becomes like, you’re like a journalistic Nero fiddling while Rome burns, or like a small boy covering a hell of a fire. It’s just wonderful and exciting and you’re a cub reporter and God has given you a big fire to cover. “And you forget – that it’s really burning.” Cyndy Slovak-Barton can be contacted at csb@haysfreepress.com.
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ISWNE new member: Marcus Ashlock Marcus Ashlock purchased The Syracuse (Kansas) Journal in August 2010 after leaving a university position as an assistant professor of agricultural communications and journalism at Kansas State University. His research emphasis was risk and crisis communication studies within food, agriculture and environmental systems. He was also a member of the graduate faculty at the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Prior to his academic career, Ashlock spent eight years with Tyson Foods, the
last four years as a corporate trainer, conducting training seminars for thousands of managers in leadership and management development training. He’s a native Arkansan and moved to Kansas in 2006 to begin working at KState. He has a B.S.A. in agricultural business and economics from Arkansas State University, an M.A. in interpersonal and organizational communication from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and a Ph.D. in agricultural communications from Oklahoma State University.
Ashlock got into journalism from an academic point of view and decided to take a side road and buy a small-town weekly, something he had always wanted to do.
MARCUS ASHLOCK
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A Website Dog Is Wagging Democracy’s Tail By Ross Connelly Editor and publisher The Hardwick Gazette Hardwick, Vermont July 2, 2014 Head down, eyes glued to the small rectangular phone in her hand, the citizen reads, searches, texts, on the screen, oblivious to those around her. A man walks down the sidewalk, smiling in a way that might have others looking askance at him were his eyes not also glued to a small phone he carries in his hand. He is oblivious to people around him. The scene is repeated millions of times each day, from the smallest village to the largest city in the land. People are glued to their phones, their tablets, their computers, as they travel, while they work, as they commute, on vacation. They are addicted to the devices that allow them to have a window on the world. When the window on the world and the world intersect, however, the interaction is not all the marketing mavens guaranteed as they spent millions, if not billions, over the past number of years touting how the new cellular technology would connect us. Although the rapid rise in technology and the hell-bent rush to hit the internet highway is nothing new, more than a few towns in Vermont are snared in a pickle this week that has them feeling like a fly in a spider’s web. As of July 1, all towns in Vermont with a website are mandated by state law to post the minutes of meetings on those websites, no later than five business days after the meeting was held. Some towns are not
worried about the requirement. Others are perplexed and claim the new law is onerous and unable to be met. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns, the lobbying and support organization for the state’s municipalities, suggested in a memo last month that towns that could not comply with the law take down their websites. Should drivers that have a tendency to speed be told to stop driving, or would it be better to tell them to obey the law? And tell them to take a refresher driver’s education course so they can relearn the finer motor skills needed to gently depress the brake with the left foot while gently lifting the right foot from the accelerator. There is no question that ever-changing technology – new gizmos, new software, compatibility – can have people scratching their heads. There’s no question, a smart phone is convenient, but the instrument is not always as user friendly as picking up the telephone receiver and talking to the switchboard operator. Town officials and the VLCT were not unaware the new requirement to post minutes was coming down the pike. The Legislature debated the bill this past winter, and the VLCT keeps a garage full of lobbyists sitting in on legislative committee hearings and roaming the halls of the Statehouse. Better had the organization offered workshops on website construction and development than suggest a town remove a website. The intent of the law is openness in government, also known as transparency or honoring the public’s right to know. Towns are already required to make min-
utes of meetings public after no more than five business days. If the minutes are there, and surely kept in a computer in this modern age, to let a technological ROSS CONNELLY pothole be used as an excuse to not send those minutes on to a website... Well, that sounds a bit like, “But Officer, I didn't see the speed limit sign.” The new law may require a town to spend money to hire a consultant to upgrade its website. The new law may require a town to add some duties onto an already busy town clerk. The new law may require a town to recruit a new employee or volunteer to keep the website up-to-date and within the law. That’s a cost of democracy. Another cost of democracy occurs when citizens fail to participate in government. Staring at the screen of a smart phone or computer is not the same as attending a meeting and engaging elected and appointed officials. Those officials are willing to take the time and make the effort to represent and serve the public. Members of the public strengthen democracy when they participate – face-to-face ?in the process, too. Ross Connelly can be contacted at news@thehardwickgazette.com.
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The Star News has obligation to accurate, unbiased reporting By Brian Wilson News Editor The Star News Medford, Wisconsin July 24, 2014 A longtime subscriber recently wrote a note to The Star News complaining about the liberal bias he said he observed in the paper’s news reporting. The accusation of bias in news reporting is a serious one to a newspaper. Bias in reporting the news, regardless of the issue or the form it takes, has no place in a news story. Unfortunately, bias is often in the eye of the beholder. The perception of bias in the media is generally tied to the specific world view of the person reading or viewing the article. Two people reading the same set of facts can draw different conclusions. The first step in news reporting is to gather the facts. In this case, a staff member looked back over the past few months of newspapers to see if the reader’s allegations were accurate. The staff member searched for a liberal bias and instead found lengthy articles about the opening of a new bank building and the work being done on another. There were other articles quoting financial experts urging consumers to use conservative financial tactics to manage their household finances and plan for the future. There were articles reporting on crime and punishment for those convicted of the crimes. There were lengthy front page stories for each of the assembly candidates. There was an entire section celebrating manufacturing and commerce in the state.
There were reports on new rules for student athletes and changes needed to ensure that people are safe in severe weather. There were also hundreds of items celebrating the achievements of local residents on the athletic field, in the classroom and in their professional lives. There were reports of milestones – births, deaths, centennial birthdays, anniversaries. There were stories about people seeking property tax relief. Other articles reported on the challenges of dealing with onerous government regulations and efforts to make change happen. Among those thousands of words of articles and features in the news pages, there were many things which could, and should, provoke reaction by readers. Whether it is learning of a new bill being proposed and calling a lawmaker to voice their support or opposition, or writing a Vox Pop to express an opinion about a topic of local interest, news articles seek to engage the reader and make them aware of what is going on in their community. This isn’t bias, it is a newspaper doing its job. Newspapers are mirrors of the communities they serve. As with any mirror, sometimes they show things people would choose not to see. Just as a mirror cannot pick and choose which images it reflects, a newspaper or any other news media worthy of the name, cannot choose to ignore news just because it will make people uncomfortable or because they happen to like or dislike a person’s lifestyle choices. One story from a few months ago stands out. It was about a state supreme court case challenging the constitutionality of a
state law. It has drawn significant reaction from all sides of the issue because it put a face to the contentious issue of defining marriage in a secular world, and that BRIAN WILSON face happened to be a familiar one to many in the community. It was a national story that hit close to home given the many ties those involved have to the community. It was the newspaper’s obligation to report on it. Being slapped with the accusation of having biased reporting simply because people disagree with the content of a story is nothing new. It is also one of the reasons The Star News provides an open forum on its opinion pages for people to write in and express their reaction to a story. There is an open invitation for readers to share their views on the issues facing the local community and the nation. The opinion pages are also where the newspaper’s editorial board expresses its opinion. The Star News takes seriously the job of reporting accurately and fairly on the people and events and has little tolerance for bias in whatever form on the news pages. This newspaper will not shirk its obligation to report the news simply because people are uncomfortable talking about a topic. Brian Wilson can be contacted at starnews@centralwinews.com.
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Mr. Reporter BLAME CANADA, AN APRIL FOOLS’ TIE-IN, THE ROCKEFELLER CONNECTION AND OTHER REPORTER-ISMS By Enrique Limón Santa Fe Reporter Santa Fe, New Mexico Editor’s note: ISWNE member Richard McCord started the Santa Fe Reporter on June 26, 1974. The issue of June 25-July 1, 2014, devoted some 15 pages to the 40year anniversary, including a story on McCord and another on his investigation into the Gannett Company and “The Newspaper That Was Murdered.” “It feels like it was just yesterday,” Richard McCord says, pulling up a chair at a local coffee house and reminiscing about the journey that led him from being a dogged Newsday vet at a large daily in New York state to become a New Mexico transplant and, eventually, founding editor and general manager of the weekly Santa Fe Reporter. Still toting a reporter’s notebook in his back pocket even now, McCord recalls the ebb and flow of negotiations to buy the then Santa Fe News shopper from owner Rudy Rodriguez. When first approached by McCord, Rodriguez said he had no interest in selling his operation. So McCord set out to create an entirely new paper. McCord mined just about every single advertiser in town, ringing them up personally and showing them a “dummy” issue of the paper he had in mind. “I didn’t say I’m trying to start a newspaper. I said I’m going to start a newspaper.” Meetings with prospective investors followed, usually held at the pricey Compound Restaurant, where McCord would share his “pipe dream” and breathe a sigh of relief every time they offered to pick up the tab. Each potential backer received a 21-page typewritten proposal that began with “Santa Fe is ready for another newspaper…” Hearing about McCord’s hustle and realizing he meant business, Rodriguez decided to sell the News. He made his decision known on April 1, 1974 – April Fool’s Day. McCord was quite discouraged at that point. He had not raised enough money to start his proposed newspaper, and seemed to have no other prospects to try. He was close to giving up, and decided to take that day off and just stay home and rest. Suddenly the phone rang.
The voice on the line: “‘Dick, this is Rudy Rodriguez. Everywhere I go, I’m running across your tracks. You seem to be serious about starting another weekly, and I don’t want to have another competitor in this town,’” McCord recalls – adding that because of the
SANTA FE REPORTER FOUNDING EDITOR AND GENERAL MANAGER, RICHARD MCCORD.
date, he believed the call to be a joke, someone playing a prank on him. He had reason to. Leading up to that moment, the process had been far from a cakewalk. Living in Albuquerque, he would often travel to Santa Fe to place his never-ending list of calls and save on long-distance charges. Upon returning to the house of a friend who had agreed to be the paper’s advertising manager, McCord found a typed letter of resignation left next to the telephone. The operation hadn’t even taken off the ground, and already it had lost a key staff member. Still, he was tenacious. And Rodriguez’s offer – which turned out to be genuine – gave the project the boost it needed. Among the benefits of taking over an existing outlet, McCord says, were an established base of advertisers, a set circulation system, and offices outfitted with typesetting equipment and a darkroom. Because of this new development, McCord was able to attract some more investment. But just barely enough. By then, he had exhausted every single penny he could come up with, including his own savings, and had camped out in a tent for a lengthy amount of time to save on rent. Then just a day before the transfer of ownership of
the weekly shopper was scheduled, an investor reneged on his $1,000 pledge, leaving the project that much short on cash. “The night before we were to sign the papers to buy the News, one of our investors pulled out. I had an escrow contract with everyone who had invested – if we didn’t pull it off by a certain date, they were supposed to get all their money back,” he recalls, a hint of his Georgia twang still lacing his words. That would have killed the project. But an old friend who had left Santa Fe for the Canadian Great White North called one of his would-be staffers “out of the blue” and asked how McCord was doing. After hearing about the fall-through, the friend wired the cash and saved the day. “I had – to the dollar – what I needed at that point, went and closed the deal, and then we more or less were in business,” McCord says. “It was just total luck, you know?” Up next was coming up with a snappy name. “I knew I didn’t want to keep the News. We were going to be so different,” he says. “We went through a bunch of names, shooting the bull, like The Santa Fe Sun, but then there was The Rio Grande Sun right up the road in Española. Somebody suggested we call it The Tortilla Press and we discussed calling it The Santa Fe Times Picayune,” he laughs. “I just wanted it to have a good, honest name. Something unpretentious that simply indicated what we want to do – we wanted to report the news,” he says. And so, the Santa Fe Reporter was born. Reflecting back now, however, McCord wishes the brainstorming session had led to a different name. “There are two reasons: One is that through the years, our staff members would find it awkward to say, ‘Hello, I’m a reporter from the Reporter.’ And years later, long after we were established, Editor & Publisher magazine did a survey on the most common newspaper names in America, and the most common was the Times, then maybe the News and next was the Reporter. I wish we were more unique.” That first drawback is still felt in the SFR newsroom to this day. “I told them to start saying, ‘I’m a writer with the Reporter – that’s my advice to you,” McCord chuckles. CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
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Jane Steinmetz’s husband dies in North Carolina Jon David Steinmetz, husband of ISWNE Trustees, the lay policy-making body of the “groupie” Jane Steinmetz, passed away at village, for three terms. He was inducted into Mission Memorial Hospital in Asheville, the Park Forest Historical Society’s Hall of North Carolina, on Sunday, Fame in 2006. June 1, 2014, three days As his career developed, shy of his 74th birthday. he became an administraHe was born in tor at Manteno, served as Brooklyn, New York, the assistant facility director at only child of the late Lewis Tinley Park (Illinois) State I. and Rose Josefsberg Hospital, and finished his Steinmetz; he grew up in tenure with the state of Long Island City, Queens, Illinois as facility director and attended the local pubof Chicago Read Mental lic schools. Jon earned his Health Center (formerly liberal arts degree from known to Chicagoans as New York University’s Dunning.) He was honored Heights campus in 1962, in Who’s Who in majoring in psychology with America’s Medicine and JON AND JANE STEINMETZ IN 2011 Health Care for his innoa minor in physics. He received his M.A. in clinical vative, creative and adappsychology from Bradley University, Peoria, tive programming in mental health care. Illinois, in 1963. Following an internship at After leaving state employment, Jon Galesburg (Illinois) State Research Hospital, worked as a consultant and intake superviJon became a staff psychologist at Manteno sor for one of Jane Addams’ Hull House (Illinois) State Hospital, 60 miles south of programs in Chicago and as acting director Chicago. of a satellite facility of SOS Children’s Villages He married Jane Hilton, whom he met at in Lockport, Illinois. He also had a stint as a Bradley, on Dec. 24, 1964. They lived in staff psychologist for a Bradley classmate in Park Forest, Illinois, for 42 years, where they Iowa City, Iowa – returning full circle to his raised their two children, Jonna Lynn and Jay early days in the field – before finally retiring Daniel. Jon was quite active in the communiand moving to Hendersonville in 2006. ty; among other volunteer activities, he was He is survived by his wife Jane, daughter elected to the seven-member Board of Jonna of Chicago, and son Dan (Marina,
Mr. Reporter
Ashton) of Ft. Mill, South Carolina. Jon was known for his kind and gentle disposition, quick wit and sense of humor, even up to the end. He loved his family very much and was so happy to have been able to travel with them over the past few years. He enjoyed music of all kinds (especially folk), theater productions, watching any sports as well as cooking shows on TV, all things Apple, and barbecuing on his Green Egg. “As a matter of fact, not only did he come to an ISWNE conference or two, he was a guest panelist at a session we held at Northern Illinois’ outdoor education camp,” Jane Steinmetz said. “It was the conference where my daughter and Jeannie and Don Pease’s daughter rode horses at White Pines State Park on the Rock River. It had to be either 1977 or 1978. “Jon, Sandy Horowitz, Bob Schneider (MJ’s then husband) and I were the presenters for a panel on mental health and psychology in the schools. I think people liked it; we were all in different aspects of the field. Sandy was in special education administration, Jon in mental hospitals, Bob in pastoral psychology and me in the trenches as a school psychologist.” Jane Steinmetz said she plans to attend the 2015 ISWNE conference in Columbia, Missouri.
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Looking back not just at his almost-15-year tenure as editor and the accolades and brawls that followed, McCord still gets a twinkle in his eye when picking up and looking at that first edition, on June 26, 1974. “Starting with this first issue,” he says, pausing, “we set a whole new journalistic story here in town.” Much of his favorite personal archive is now housed in an Italian leather briefcase, the same briefcase he took with him in 1981 to a Salem, Ore., federal courthouse where official trial records regarding a huge conglomerate that had succeeded in destroying the local weekly, were sealed by a gag order. But by a stroke of luck, McCord got the records and publicized them in Santa Fe. This prevented a similar fate from killing SFR, because the Santa Fe daily was then owned by the same huge conglomerate. Days after this interview for SFR’s 40thanniversary issue McCord dropped off the attaché case at our headquarters. The tattered
case holds everything from the last issue of the Santa Fe News to an “Adobe Christmas” supplement, and endless hard-hitting cover stories on everything from the 1980 prison riot to a long series on state hospital abuse. McCord helmed the Reporter until its sale to Hope Aldrich in 1988. Aldrich, a single mother of three, had walked into McCord’s office some years earlier to ask for a job as a staff writer under her married name, Hope Spencer. “I said, ‘Hope, we couldn’t possibly pay you enough to raise three boys,’ and she said, ‘Well, money is not a problem’ – that’s all she said.” Only after hiring her, would McCord would find out that Hope was Hope Aldrich Rockefeller, eldest daughter of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III. Aldrich came clean after her first deadline day at the weekly. “I said, ‘Hope, I know about your family, but that’s not why I hired you. I hired you on your credentials,’” he reminisces. “‘You had good
credentials, I hired you on the basis of them and then I learned about your family. And now I know about your family, so let’s get to work.’” Before ultimately buying the paper in 1988, Aldrich worked a number of years on the staff as a news writer. Looking back on his personal style as an editor, McCord is quick to shoot back, “I was great.” On a more serious note, he continues, “We cultivated excellent staff members, or were lucky enough to get excellent staff members. I gave a bunch of people their first writing job. Santa Fe was an excellent recruiter – because everyone wanted to come here.” It is those “adventurers” that would oftentimes show up at the office unannounced asking for a job, among those that McCord remembers the fondest. They included current staffers at the New York Times, Vanity CONTINUED ON PAGE 25
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In search of Gwendolyn Brooks in Durango By Christopher Wood When I was asked to prepare something about my newspaper experience in Durango 30 years ago to present informally at the recent ISWNE conference, I put together a couple of sheets of poster board with some of my old clippings from back then. They included stories from the Durango Herald, the FLC Independent and a couple of samples of the so-called “underground” newspaper that I and another guy had started at the north rim of the Grand Canyon where we were working for the summer. It worked out pretty well, since I arrived almost two days late due to flight cancellations. I was able to set the boards up against the wall in the ISWNE classroom for people to look at as they pleased if they were so inclined. However, missing was a story on a visit to Fort Lewis College by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks near the end of the 1984 school year. I didn’t have a copy of the article and found it surprising that I hadn’t saved one because as I remembered it, she was a very engaging and interesting speaker. Since she had passed on earlier this year, it would have been very timely. Could it be that I was just remembering it wrong and actually hadn’t covered it? I know that I initially declined due to it being very near the end of the school year and multiple projects all coming due at the same time. However, I could have sworn I had reconsidered because the editors were
in a jam and had no one to do it (and it was just too good an assignment to pass up!). I called Fort Lewis and asked the switchboard operator to connect me with the records department, which handles all areas of the school’s records. Unfortunately, I was told, their copies of the FLC Independent only went back as far as 1985, so I had missed the beginning of them being filed by one year and was out of luck! I thought there must be another way to find it and it had piqued my interest enough to get on the web and access the Fort Lewis College website. There weren’t any copies of the Independent available in any format but there was a catalog of press releases from that year. As I began looking them over, I found one from March 1984 indicating she was coming at the end of the month. After a couple of additional calls, I ascertained it would probably be nearly impossible to continue my search by remote control during the summer break. However, I decided I would give it another try while I was at the conference the following month. After finally arriving in Durango and checking in at the conference, I went up to the Independent archives one afternoon, introduced myself and asked if they would assist me in my quest. They agreed and we began looking through all of the newspapers from that semester. Unfortunately, the ones from March through May were missing! Of course, I was extremely disappointed and asked the
office manager if there was any possibility of them being loaned out or located somewhere else on campus. “No,” she said. “They should be here. However, CHRISTOPHER WOOD sometimes they’ve been known to be misfiled, so you could try looking in the months preceding that time as well as those following it.” We did that and continued our search more in depth, looking beyond that year as well as at the previous one. Imagine the happy surprise I felt when I came upon a familiar-looking front page from the April 6 edition that I still recognized after all these years! Eureka – it was the one we’d been looking for! Our efforts had been rewarded when we checked the previous year’s files and came across the object of our quest. Fortunately, we had taken the time and made the effort to do so because it would have been much easier to not bother. For me, it was a good reminder of an old newspaper adage (or two) to “leave no stone unturned” and “never give up until you’re 100 percent sure of the outcome,” whatever it may be! Christopher Wood can be contacted at cwood@mmclocal.com.
The Walter B. Potter Sr. Conference: Innovation and Transformation in Community Newspapers Have you successfully implemented an idea at your news organization and thought, “Wow, I could use 20 more like that”? The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) can help. RJI is inviting industry professionals to the second Walter B. Potter Sr. Conference this fall and the price of admission is two successful ideas – proven winners that generated revenue, boosted readership or improved your operation. The Potter Conference will bring togeth-
er community news executives and leaders at the Missouri School of Journalism for an exchange and dialogue of best practices that will help sustain local journalism, especially in small and rural markets. The two-day event will be held Nov. 2021 at RJI in Columbia, Missouri. All participants will be permitted to bring up to three colleagues from their outlet or media group. We’re looking for 40 unique ideas, not 40 versions of the same idea. So start brainstorming your idea(s) before someone else submits it and grabs your seat at
the conference. Or submit several ideas to increase your chances for participation. Seating is limited and registration will open soon. Those who make it to the conference will return home with access to all 40 (or more) innovations, including details on how you can implement them at your organization. • Registration will open soon, so save the date, start gathering your ideas and check www.rjionline.org/events/potter14 for updates.
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More from Hoppy: Afflictions that would not end By John Marshall Lindsborg News-Record Lindsborg, Kansas June 26, 2014 This is part of a series of occasional installments about the plight of Larry Hopkins, the death of his wife, Margaret, and the indifferent circumstances that led to it. ISWNE published the first installment on pages 22-23 of the February 2014 newsletter. The last thing the officer said to Hoppy when he delivered him to booking was “Thanks for not making me kill you.” It might have happened. A few hours earlier that day, on November 5, Hoppy had dialed 911 and told the operator he had just shot his wife at their home in Lawrence. She was dead. It was supposed to be a murder-suicide, he said, “but I lost my nerve.” During his interview with detectives the subject of suicide-by-cop (forcing an officer to gun him down) came up. “No, I wouldn’t do that.” Hoppy told the detectives. “It wouldn’t be fair to the officer.” * “Hoppy” is Larry Hopkins, 67, a boyhood pal from long ago. He is in the Douglas County Jail in Lawrence, Kansas, awaiting transfer to the state penitentiary at El Dorado; there he will be “evaluated” to determine at which of the state’s prisons he will spend the rest of his life. Larry has been “Hoppy” forever, it seems, since those heady, early days in Lincoln, Kansas, and that brief, sweet moment known as childhood, when life was simple. We were neighbors and played ball and rode bikes together and walked to school, and we wanted to be all the heroes we could be, back when we kicked around in our little town with our friends. He was a brilliant student, attended Kansas University on an academic scholarship but dropped out in his junior year after his father died (heart attack) at age 46. He had a 20-year Army career, and later joined the Spencer Research Library at KU and became the assistant librarian for special collections, specializing in science fiction. An insatiable reader, half of
his 11,500-volume personal library was in science fiction; he remains an expert. But all that was many years before a horrid tide of complexities would lead to his wife’s death and a no-contest plea to a charge of murder. Hoppy telephones from jail every other evening, each call limited to 15 minutes. This has been the arrangement since his plea hearing on March 27 in Douglas County District Court, and through his sentencing hearing on May 15. It was no surprise when Judge Michael Malone sentenced Hoppy to life in prison with no possibility for parole for 25 years. Hoppy expected that. He knows he will die in prison. * Larry and Margaret Thompson were married in October 1989, a hundred days after their first “blind” date, deeply in love and happy – he, recently retired after 20 years in the Army and about to begin his long career at the Spencer Library; she, an accomplished and renowned social worker in Lawrence and Douglas County. There were 15 or 20 wonderful years, in their tidy little home, its snug and leafy neighborhood. Margaret had chronic diabetes and it seemed well-managed, but about five years ago, things changed. The afflictions began to mount. Margaret had a mild stroke, a pulmonary embolism, then a knee replacement, later a hysterectomy, another knee replacement, then a second stroke and weeks of physical and occupational therapy. Then Margaret took a fall and broke her left femur in seven places; surgery took forever, then rehabilitation and therapy in Topeka and, weeks later, she came home to Lawrence in a wheelchair. Hoppy suffered one stroke, then another. He had several falls, a herniated disc. He had been getting ready for work and fell over. In the emergency room, he had another stroke. He was unconscious for a week. Margaret was learning to use a walker. She began to suffer sleep apnea. At home one morning, Hoppy turned gray. Margaret called 911. A routine exam with X-Ray revealed a spot on Hoppy’s left lung. He was sent to the KU Medical Center for surgical biopsy, and during a prelimi-
nary stress test doctors discovered four blocked arteries – one 85 percent blocked, two 95 percent and one 100 percent – and performed a quadruple JOHN MARSHALL bypass. The operation took a lot of veins. Hoppy’s legs had been savaged, but, as he now says, looking for cancer had saved his life. (The “spot” was benign.) In the spring of 2012 Margaret had damage to her right rotator cuff repaired. She was in a wheelchair, with one arm of no use. Hoppy had begun to learn to use a walker. The herniated disc, the legs weakened by heart surgery, were too much. No fun, Hoppy recalled. * Larry and Margaret Hopkins shared an anguish of deteriorating health. Margaret’s special torment, ceaseless pain, came from diabetes, nerve disease, arthritis, bad knees, the wreckage of two heart attacks and multiple strokes. Hoppy could walk only with the aid of a walker. Their home in Lawrence fell into disrepair, a home once celebrated, even written about in the local paper, for its gardens, its abundance of color and creativity. The couple was caught in what bureaucrats call a “resource gap.” In poor health himself, Hoppy was Margaret’s primary caregiver; he remained proud in spite of his own limits. The couple fit the profile of a caregiver reluctant to ask for help and a patient in an age gap, which kept her from receiving some services; they joined the ranks of growing waiting lists, a backlog due to depleted state funding. Age and income requirements were obstacles. Margaret was not 65. They were poor, but not poor enough. Or old enough. “He and Margaret were good people, solid people,” said Harry Boyle, the Hopkins’ neighbor to the west. “But there toward the end everything got to be too CONTINUED ON PAGE 27
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Be careful not to squelch reader exchange By Jim Pumarlo We’ve all received letters that give us pause as to whether they should ever see the light of day on our editorial pages. In the editor’s mind, there are numerous reasons to dismiss the letter out of hand. Take your pick: The writer’s a crackpot. The language is vicious. Statements presented as facts are half-truths. The subject has been thoroughly debated. The exchange is more appropriately handled privately. The dispute doesn’t rise to the level of a public forum. The writer is a frequent contributor to the page and has had enough say on the subject. If you decide to publish the letter, it’s only after taking one or more precautions. We’re all familiar with these, too: Demand attribution for every asserted fact. Give the “accused” a preview of the letter and an opportunity to present a rebuttal in the same edition as the letter from the “accuser.” Tack on an editor’s note. Or scrap the letter altogether and pursue a news story so you can decide which quotes and statements to use. Don’t get me wrong. Editors certainly have a responsibility to themselves and their readers to ride herd on their editorial pages. But I urge caution. Letters are the lifeblood of an editorial page; a lively reader exchange is at the foundation of a vibrant community newspaper. If editors overuse the “delete” button, or place too many restrictions on letters, you may well dampen the flow of community voices in your newspaper. Resist these temptations: Insist on verification: It’s necessary to fact-check letters to the extent that you are able. Some information is easy to track down. But, remember, writing a letter is like attorneys arguing a case in court. Everyone may agree on the same set of facts, but lawyers selectively use those facts that support their arguments. Omitting one fact can
Mr. Reporter
be just as misleading as presenting a falsehood. You’ll never have enough time to verify each statement in every letter. Share the letter: Sharing a letter in advance with the aggrieved, and allowing a response to the original letter in the same edition, should be done only in extreme circumstances. Implement this practice once, and you’ve set a precedent. You’ll almost certainly be challenged by others who believe they should have had a similar opportunity. One exception that comes to mind is when 11th-hour charges are leveled during an election campaign. Pursue a news story: An exchange in the letters column may well prompt pursuing a news story. By all means, assign a reporter – after the letters have been published. Don’t pre-empt what the writers have to say – don’t sanitize what you may consider offending language, or selectively edit what you consider to be the facts – by taking the keyboard out of their hands. Protect public figures: We all may cringe at some of the strong criticism leveled at public figures, but that’s the risk they assume when assuming office. It’s a good chance that some of these same public officials have used their bully pulpit to unleash a tongue-lashing of others, even private citizens. Remember, we often use harsh language in our editorials. Editor’s note: Tacking a P.S. on letters should be used sparingly and only as a last resort. From the writer’s perspective, editor’s notes are just an example of the newspaper having the “last word” and diminishing the impact of the letter. Do so, and it’s a good bet the authors will be hesitant to submit another letter. They will be unafraid to express that sentiment to friends. Am I endorsing a free-wheeling editorial page? Absolutely. Am I endorsing a commentary that is cruel and borders on libel? Absolutely not.
Editors should take great pains to promote a civil and respectful exchange of opinions. At the same time, you don’t want to unnecessarily squelch reader comments. Be JIM PUMARLO careful that you don’t let your personal impressions of, or associations with, the author and/or the subject to interfere with the exchange for fear of reader reaction. The biggest surprise may be the expectations that a particular letter will generate an immediate and rather venomous response, and a black eye for the newspaper. Don’t underestimate your readers. They may well take the letter for what it is – a personal vendetta or passion on an issue. If a rather nasty dialogue develops and takes on a life of its own, you always have the ability to tone down the exchange or stop it altogether. Then write about it in a column explaining to readers the hows and whys behind your decisions. Jim Pumarlo writes, speaks and provides training on community newsroom success strategies. He is author of “Journalism Primer: A Guide to Community News Coverage,” “Votes and Quotes: A Guide to Outstanding Election Coverage” and “Bad News and Good Judgment: A Guide to Reporting on Sensitive Issues in Small-Town Newspapers.” He can be reached at www.pumarlo.com and welcomes comments and questions at jim@pumarlo.com.
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Fair and even a Pulitzer Prize winner at the Los Angeles Times. “We won something like, more than 200 awards and that was nice. But when I look back, it was so damned interesting, you know? It never got dull,” he says. “It got scary financially, that’s for sure, and it could wear you out physically, but it wasn’t like going down and taking drivers-license pictures all
day for a paycheck…every day was different, and you were always trying to be creative and do good journalism.” When the time did come for contributors to leave, a not-so-dreaded-talk would take place. “Someone would come to my office and say, ‘I hate to tell you this, but I will be leaving in two weeks.’ And I’d say, ‘Look, do not apologize. That’s our role in life. We look
for good talent, we try to give it the best training we can to try to make it better. We can’t afford to pay you very much. You give us your very best effort, and improve your skills. Then one day you come to me and say you’ve been hired at a bigger place for more money. But there is no need to apologize – that’s what we’re supposed to do in life.’ ”
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An open letter to United States Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe Dear Postmaster General Donahoe: I do hope this letter arrives at your office in reasonable time. Sarcasm aside, there was a time when I put a First Class stamp on a letter and mailed it, I had confidence, depending on its destination, it would get there overnight or within two or three days. There was a time when newspaper publishers could expect their latest edition would reach mail subscribers in a reasonable time frame as well. Today, that confidence doesn’t exist. And your latest plan to close more than 80 mail processing plants around the country – including the Dakota Central facility in Huron – will erase any shreds of remaining confidence. You have a difficult job. Mail trends have not been kind to your business the past several years, thanks in large part to the internet and 9-11. First Class mail – still the biggest generator of revenue for you – has dropped more than 35 percent the last dozen years or so. So how do you clear a path for the survival of the Postal Service in the face of some mighty strong headwinds? Obviously, you need to reduce expenditures and tighten the belt to fit new realities. But I believe your latest plan goes too far. From the 30,000-foot view at USPS headquarters, your latest plant consolidation plan may look good on the spreadsheet. But looking at it from here on Main Street and the mailbox-dotted gravel roads of South Dakota, it’s a clunker. The newspaper publishers of South Dakota who belong to the trade association I work for, know it’s a clunker as well. They have been fighting desperately now
for several years to find ways to get their newspapers delivered to customers in a timely manner. Fighting desperately despite the roadblocks and hurdles put up by your organization. Closing more mail processing plants will only contribute to the sclerosis of the mail network in this country. Your plan doesn’t save the Postal Service; it just makes things worse. The degradation and decline don’t happen all it once, but they happen. Newspaper subscribers become frustrated they can’t get their hometown paper delivered to them in a reasonable time, so they stop paying for it when the subscription comes due. Advertisers become frustrated when their promotions and marketing specials can’t reach the marketplace soon enough. But it is not just newspapers. It is all businesses that rely on the mail for delivery of invoices, checks, correspondence and so much more. It’s people who live so far from town that they must rely on the mail for delivery of their medical prescriptions. It’s the delivery of farm parts and legal documents. The list goes on. Mail service always has been and remains a vital part of the infrastructure serving rural America. For that matter, our entire country. Good, reliable mail service supports a strong economy and a connected, engaged society. Let’s not degrade and destroy that network. Instead, we should be working to protect and provide for a strong, reliable mail service that serves all of our country. If you won’t do it (and your latest plant consolidation announcement suggests you won’t), then we call on Congress to step in and put a halt to it. Congress should freeze any further plant consolidations and clos-
ings until it can agree upon meaningful reform legislation for the Postal Service. Postal reform legislation has been percolating in Congress for some time DAVID BORDEWYK now. Congress needs to act. Congress needs to remove the onerous, overly aggressive provisions that require the Postal Service to greatly accelerate setasides for postal retirees’ health benefits. Doing so would help the Postal Service’s balance sheet and remove some of the pressures that lead to policies and actions that have hurt, not helped, your organization. Postal reform legislation is not a headlines-grabbing, popularity-poll issue that Congress rallies around. Nevertheless, Congress needs to act now, before your organization, Mr. Postmaster General, regresses into a shell of its former self from which it cannot recover. I thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, David Bordewyk General Manager South Dakota Newspaper Association (South Dakota Newspaper Association represents the state’s weekly and daily newspapers with a total readership of more than 600,000 people.)
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Seniors more likely to read news on tablets By Roger Fidler Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute Both tablets and smartphones are used by a majority of owners for keeping up with the news, but tablets are used for news by a somewhat higher percentage of owners aged 55 or older than by those aged 18-34, according to the latest mobile media survey from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI). The opposite was found for news consumption on smartphones. The larger tablet displays undoubtedly make reading long news and feature stories easier on the eyes for seniors, but they also make viewing movies and TV programs, as well as reading books and magazine content, more appealing to tablet owners of all ages. The RJI survey found most owners appear to use tablets primarily as extensions to their smartphones, especially for leisure reading and watching movies, TV programs and other videos. More than half (52 percent) of tablet owners overall said they had watched videos in the week prior to participating in the survey. About 70 percent overall said
they spent more than 20 minutes with this activity in a typical day. By comparison, 41 percent of smartphone owners overall said they watched videos and 52 percent said they spent more than 20 minutes with this activity in a typical day. Among RJI’s other findings about the use of large media tablets: • Mobile media users were found to be much less likely to interact with social media on large tablets than on smartphones. They also were much less likely to read news found within social media on large tablets than on smartphones. • The percentages of large tablet owners who said they read books on their tablets were three times greater than the percentages of smartphone owners who said they read books on their smartphones. • Mobile media users also were more likely to read magazine content on large tablets than on smartphones. The difference was greatest for tablet owners aged 55 or older. • About one-third (33 percent) of large tablet owners overall said they had made purchases or reservations using their tablets in the week prior to taking the survey. Smartphone owners were slightly less
More from Hoppy much. “When Larry had his trouble – the heart attack and the strokes and all – my wife, Vicki, helped take Margaret to the hospital to see him. But Margaret had all her problems, too – diabetes, her heart attacks and strokes, and unable to get around, and then falling. Well, it got to be we’d see an ambulance there six or eight times a week.” * “I knew in general what it would be like,” Hoppy said recently. “I went into it with my eyes Open…and so what happened to me was immaterial.” He was talking about that morning, November 5. He rose early and went to the kitchen and made coffee in the little one-
likely to use their smartphones to make purchases or reservations in the same period. As with reading magazine content, the difference was greatest for ROGER FIDLER tablet owners aged 55 or older. Coming soon: Report 7 explores how tablet ownership influences news consumption on smartphones. Nearly 1,200 randomly selected U.S. adults participated in RJI’s third annual Mobile Media News Consumption survey between Jan. 1 and March 31. This phone survey focused exclusively on the use of smartphones and touch-screen tablets with mobile operating systems. RJI’s previous surveys included questions about the use of e-readers and other Internet-enabled mobile devices, such as netbooks, tablet PCs, hand-held computers and ultra-light notebooks.
from page 24
cup brewer, and drank cup after cup and smoked about a pack of cigarettes. Then he put down the cup and went to the bedroom where Margaret lay asleep. He took a Ruger Security Six .357 magnum revolver from a drawer in a bedside table. He held it a foot and a half from Margaret’s head as she lay sleeping, cocked it and pulled the trigger. “I knew I’d drawn my last breath as a free man, that there’s life in prison and I’d have to live with it. I knew what was going to happen in general terms and accepted it.”
the front deck at their house, sat down and lit a cigarette. “I was still talking to the (911) operator when I told the operator I heard the siren,” Hoppy said. The police were there in moments. An officer approached Hoppy as he sat on the deck. “The officer told me to drop the telephone, to move very slowly and keep my hands where he could see them.” Their lives had become unbearable, Hoppy said.
*
John Marshall is the retired editor and a columnist for the Lindsborg (Kansas) News-Record. He can be contacted at jtmarshall@cox.net.
“I laid the gun down after I fired the shot,” Hoppy said. He called 911 and carried the phone to
(Next: What Hoppy never told the police)
Brian Hunhoff (left) and Dave Mitchell were all smiles after winning the Golden Quill Award and Eugene Cervi Award, respectively, at the 2014 awards banquet in Durango, Colorado.
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