June 2012

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Rep. Thomas Shope, R-8, and Rep. Phil Lovas, R-22, discuss the inner workings of the legislature during the ANA 2013 Legislative Reception.

NNA to honor L. Alan Cruikshank with Amos Award L. Alan Cruikshank will be honored during the National Newspaper Association’s 127th Annual ConventioL. Alan Cruikshank, NNA’s 2013 Amos Award winnern & Trade Show, when he will be presented with the 2013 James O. Amos Award.

Recognized as the highest and most dignified tributes in community journalism, the Amos and McKinney Awards are presented to a working or retired newspaperman and woman who have provided distinguished service and leadership to the com-

munity press and their community.

Cruikshank, publisher of The Fountain Hills Times, will receive the 2013 James O. Amos Award.

This award was established in 1938 in honor of General James O. Amos, a pioneer Ohio journalist and member of the National Editorial Association—now known as the National Newspaper Association.

The award will be presented at the business luncheon Sept. 14, 2013, which will be held during NNA’s convention in Phoenix, Az.

Past Amos award winners are listed at nnaweb.org.

Cruikshank will be recognized in the November issue of Publishers’ Auxiliary.

Established in 1885, the National Newspaper Association is the voice of America’s community newspapers and the largest newspaper association in the country. The nation’s community papers inform, educate and entertain nearly 150 million readers every week.

Check out these upcoming journalism events in Arizona The Valley of the Sun professional chapter of the society of Professional Journalists will hold their annual meeting July 11, 5:30 p.m. at SunUp Brewing, 322 E. Camelback. All are

welcome to attend.

The American Press Institute’s program “Growing Your Audiences and Growing Your Business” will be held July 15, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at

The Arizona Republic.

The First Amendment Coalition of Arizona will hold their quarterly meeting on July 25 at noon at the Phoenix office of Perkins & Coie.

Mid-year update from the executive director

BY Paula casey | Arizona newspapers association With half the year already behind us, I am happy to report that the financial position at ANA has seen a nice rebound.

We have beat budget numbers for both the 1st and 2nd quarters and can now say that we are in a profit position. Network programs are beating last year’s numbers and show signs of resurging. We have mailed checks this week for mid-year pool payments to the network participating newspapers and these checks will see an increase.

The legislative session wrapped up mid-June and ANA and the lobbying team had another very successful session. We were able to push back and defeat any changes to the Public Notice statutes and hold back any erosion on the public records front. Special thanks goes out to our Legislative Committee Chair, Ginger Lamb and ANA Lobbyist, John Moody for their untiring work for Arizona newspapers. The ANA Board and the Legislative Committee will work over the summer on our legislative agenda for the 2014 session. Watch for more on this later this summer.

The ANA staff has been working to continue to bring new revenue sources to ANA and we are proud to announce the addition of our partnership with GistCloud. GistCloud offers an Intermedia Press Release that incorporates video, audio, documents, photos, and web pages, along with multilingual content that is grammatically correct and technically accurate – forming a multimedia, multifaceted press release, equipped with instant broadcasting capability.

Have a client who needs a full-featured press release solution? Visit http://arizona.gistcloud.com or call (602) 2617655 ext. 108 for more information.

ANA also has partnered with the Colorado Press Association and Sync2Media to present Digital Advertising solutions for newspaper clients. ANA can now place buys for display, mobile, tablet and custom e‐mail blasts. The Sync2Media program allows a client to reach a targeted audience in many different formats.

Our Annual Convention for 2013 will be in partnership with the NNA, 127th Annual Convention & Trade Show. This meeting will be held at the Arizona Grand Resort, Sept. 12-14.

Because of our partnership, Arizona newspapers can register for all the NNA training sessions and functions at NNA member rates. We strongly encourage you to attend this educational…… program.

ANA will conduct our Annual Meeting prior to our Ad and BNC Awards Reception on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. The annual meeting is the time where ANA will elect it’s 2013-14 Board of Directors. Please call Paula if you have interest in serving on the ANA Board.

We will also be honoring one of our own with the NNA Amos Award being presented to Alan Cruikshank, Publisher of the Fountain Hills Times. Alan will be honored during the Saturday Awards luncheon at Noon on Sept. 14. Link to register for NNA at: http://www.regonline.com/Register/ Checkin.aspx?EventID=1232153 The ANA Board of Directors will be meeting in Flagstaff on July 24-25 for a Board retreat. The retreat is an opportunity for the Board to reassess our goals and direction for ANA. Please contact a member of the Board if you have ideas or suggestions for the Board to consider.

Arizona Newspapers Foundation

- PLEDGE CARD Your pledge will fund scholarships and provide resources to train Arizona’s next generation of journalists.

□ This is my pledge for the 2013 campaign.

□ $10

□ $20

□ $50

□ $100 □ Other:_________

□ Check enclosed. □ Bill Me Charge to: □ VISA □ MasterCard □ AMEX □ Discover Card No._________________________________________ Exp. Date________ Your name________________________________________ Signature__________________________ Date___________ Newspaper/Organization_____________________________ Address___________________________________________

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Arizona papers both hit and miss with video

BY Perri collins| Arizona newspapers association Video on newspaper websites has been trending upwards in the past 18 months.

According to a study by the marketing research consultant Ipsos Insight, 75 percent of all Internet viewers watch video clips of news, sports or commentary.

USE VIDEO TO ENHANCE REGULAR FEATURES Many papers, however, aren’t able to go all out like national newspaper chains Gannett and Tribune. However, much can still be accomplished on a minimal budget with basic equipment.

Take the Phoenix Business Journal, for example. They have implemented video on their website over the past few months.

“We use the videos to provide readers with more information and let them in on what and who we’re writing about,” said Digital Editor Adam Kress.

These videos are not hidden behind a paywall and are accessible to everyone.

The Phoenix Business Journal, a part of Advance Publications Inc., had their reporters trained by the corporate office on using their iPhones to capture video while interviewing sources.

While the plan is to eventually have all the American City Business Journals incorporate video on their websites, “Phoenix is one of the markets leading the charge,” said Kress.

One way the Phoenix Business Journal is using video is in the weekly “Executive Profile.” Executives are asked one question, such as, “What was your first job?” And the answer they give is used to tease the story to readers via social media.

“We’re taking readers inside the story and giving them additional

insight,” said Kress.

Reporters use the Burst app for iOS to quickly record and share videos. Most reporters handle their own recording and uploading, although right now there is an intern who helps out.

“It’s been very ‘un-buggy’ so far, so that’s nice,” said Kress.

They’ve also done longer, more traditional broadcast-like packages for high-impact stories and events.

Those videos are edited in-house using iMovie software.

Start small Early last year, the Green Valley News & Sun, a semi-weekly paper in southern Arizona, began experimenting with video.

“It’s a relatively simple process,” according to Production Manager Graham Harrington.

Filmed with an inexpensive webcam in the corner of the publisher’s office, two reporters give viewers the top headlines, remind them to pick up a copy of the paper and say a few words about their sponsor.

There’s little to no editing involved, and after the headlines are filmed, they are uploaded to YouTube and shared on the newspaper’s website.

“It’s not that much extra work,” said Harrington. “Once it’s part of the workflow, it becomes second nature.”

In addition to each issue’s headline and the occasional video from reporters on the scene, schools and community members are also welcome to submit videos as companion multimedia to stories, for example, security footage from a local bank after a robbery.

According to Harrington, Green Valley News began recording the headlines as a way to build rapport with readers and help them put reporters’ names together with faces.

“We’re using it as another avenue to get info out there,” he said. Of course, as most of us in the journalism industry know, information is not free. Green Valley News offers advertisers the opportunity to sponsor the headline videos and so far, they feel it has been successful.

Do what works for your community The Navajo Times had been using video to provide readers with daily news updates, consisting of breaking news and daily headlines. That program lasted about 18 months before it was scrapped.

“It did not have the impact we thought it would have,” said Navajo Times Editor Candace Begody.

The staff didn’t have much training in video. Reporters often used the same script multiple times. In the morning, a reporter would call into local radio station KYAT-FM with the day’s headlines, then turn the camera on themselves, record the same info and upload it to YouTube.

Several factors played into the decision to fold the video updates, including staff intimidated by the technology, little training and slow, expensive Internet access on the reservation.

“We just didn’t have the resources or training,” said Begody.

She said there’s potential to make it better and more appealing to the staff and readers, but at this moment they don’t have the time or manpower to fully devote to it like they want.

The video updates ended in December 2012, but the Navajo Times continue to partner with the radio station.

“We would certainly love to revisit video in the near future,” said Begody.

June 2013 ■ ANAgrams | Page 3

Star sues TUSD over district’s refusal to name superintendent finalists

BY Patrick McNamara | Arizona Daily Star The Arizona Daily Star has sued TUSD to compel the district to release the names of finalists in its search for a new superintendent.

“The selection process here has an acute public interest,” said Dan Barr, attorney with Perkins Coie LLP, which filed the complaint in Pima County Superior Court today on behalf of the Star.

In addition to the general interest, Barr said the public has a right to know who the school district interviewed for the job.

TUSD announced on June 10 that H.T. Sanchez, interim superintendent of Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Texas, was the sole remaining candidate for the superintendent position of Tucson’s 50,000-student district. The board is expected to name Sanchez superintendent at tonight’s meeting, making him the sixth person to hold the post in the past decade.

TUSD hired the firm PROACT to manage the job search.

The company initially corresponded with more than 60 applicants.

The list ultimately was reduced to four candidates, who the TUSD Governing Board interviewed individually in closed-door sessions on June 8.

Following the interviews, the governing board announced that Sanchez was the sole candidate under consideration for the job.

The Arizona Daily Star requested the names, resumes and other application materials the four candidates provided to the district. TUSD, however, refused to provide the requested information.

“All discussions and related documents held in executive session are protected from disclosure — (no documents available),” TUSD custodian of public records Imelda Cardenas wrote in response to the Star’s request.

Subseqently, lawyer Barr also asked the district to release the records to the Star.

In response to Barr’s June 12 letter, the district’s legal counsel, Nancy Woll, said the name of the only “seriously considered candidate,” Sanchez, was released.

“All applicants for this position were granted that their application would remain confidential through the screening process and that their names and resumes would be disclosed ONLY if they were seriously considered candidates and if they agreed to be named as finalists,” Woll wrote on June 14.

Candidates the board interviewed in executive session were “seriously considered” and their names and application materials should be made public, Barr said.

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He also said state law makes no distinction for the term “finalist.”

“They’re playing a cynical shell game,” Barr said.

Barr argued that the documents, specifically the resumes and application materials, existed before the executive session and wouldn’t reveal the substance of the private discussions. State law forbids the disclosure of specific details of executive session discussions.

He argued that TUSD, or any government, can’t claim documents that already existed become confidential once they are brought into an executive session.

“Imagine they brought a dictionary into an executive session, would the contents of the dictionary be confidential?” Barr said.

“The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on this very issue 22 years ago and said the public has the right to know the names of candidates “Imagine they brought seriously considered a dictionary into an for such an important taxpayer-funded posiexecutive session, tion,” Bobbie Jo Buel, would the contents of the Star’s editor, said the dictionary Tuesday.

TUSD was notified be confidential?”

June 17 about the -- Dan Barr Star’s intent to sue.

The district was to be served later this morning.

In the lawsuit, Barr cites the 1991 Arizona Supreme Court case, Arizona Board of Regents v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., wherein the newspaper wanted to know the names of the candidates interviewed for president of Arizona State University.

In that case, the Board of Regents narrowed a list of 236 applicants to three candidates. The regents then provided the name of only one, saying the other two had dropped out.

The court ruled the names of candidates a public body seriously considers for a job should be made public.

“The public’s legitimate interest in knowing which candidates are being considered for the job therefore outweighs the ‘countervailing interests of confidentiality, privacy (and) the best interests of the state,’ ” the court ruled.

TUSD has violated Arizona’s public records law by failing to provide access to the requested public documents, Barr argues in the complaint.

The suit asks the court to compel TUSD to release the records and to pay the Star attorney’s fees associated with filing the lawsuit.

Converged newsrooms yield video lessons

BY MEG HECKMAN | NETNEWSCHECK If other newspapers are flirting with digital video, the Arizona Republic and the Dayton Daily News have already said “I Do” by joining a small but growing group of media companies operating combined newsrooms where every story is a multiplatform project.

In Phoenix, that means journalists from the Gannett Co.-owned Republic, AZCentral.com and KPNX share a renovated newsroom equipped to produce stories for print, Web and broadcast. In Dayton, reporters for the Daily News and six other papers work alongside their counterparts in TV and radio at the Cox Ohio Media Center.

This kind of arrangement is what journalists imagined when they talked about convergence a decade ago. Such close partnerships may not be possible for every news organization, but Dayton and Phoenix are useful case studies for how the right technology and a little collaboration can grow video’s audience and revenue potential.

Both organizations are producing more digital video than ever before and marking it as a new platform for potential advertisers. Cox lists video as one its many digital ad services, and Gannett is aggressively wooing brands that have traditionally limited their video advertising to broadcast TV. The daily production rhythms differ in Dayton and Phoenix, but they share one thing: The ability to produce more video for more platforms than ever before.

“Anything from a very rough video of a breaking news situation all the way up to documentary style,” says Randy Lovely, senior VP of audience development for AZCentral.com. “We’re able to get so much more in terms of sheer volume.”

The Phoenix merger began in 2010 with nearly a dozen work groups imagining how TV, Web and print journalists could work together. At the same time, Gannett began extensive

The Arizona Republic and KPNX share a renovated newsroom equipped to produce stories for print, Web and broadcast.

renovations to equip the AZCentral newsroom with a TV studio. In 2011, KPNX moved in.

“Gannett made the investment,” Lovely says. “At the same time, they’ve also given us the latitude to figure this out for ourselves.”

All of the reporters have iPhones and have received extensive video training. Photographers from the Republic and videographers from KPNX, meanwhile, have access to a mix of equipment including traditional digital video cameras and DSLR cameras that can take high-resolution still images and video.

Those videos can be broadcast from the studio or from the field, and it’s not uncommon for AZCentral.com to have three live streams running at any given time.

In terms of viewership, the results have been astounding. In December, online videos receive about 500,000 hits, according to the metrics the newsroom gathers through Omniture and Sitecatalyst. By April, monthly video hits had reached 4 million.

That jump is partly due to gavel-to-

gavel coverage of the murder trial of Jodi Arias — the California woman who last month was convicted of killing her former boyfriend — but Lovely expects some of that audience to remain loyal to AZCentral.com once that story winds down.

“We really don’t know what normal will be until we get past that,” he says.

“But we know we’ll be much better than what we started from.”

The Dayton collaboration also began in 2010, as part of a company-wide effort by Cox to revamp how its journalists gather and distribute the news.

The investment in facilities, training and technology was big, but Sean Dunster, the news technology manager for Cox Media Group Ohio, says it’s paying off.

The staff understands that, when news breaks, there are multiple ways to tell the story. What starts as a quick iPhone video could become a more polished digital video project shot on a DSLR by photojournalists. A reporter, meanwhile, might prepare a few minContinued on page 6 June 2013 ■ ANAgrams | Page 5

Native American media conference in Tempe The Native American Journalism Association and Native Public Media will co-host this year’s national conference, giving special focus to the latest innovations in the media industry and news developments in Indian Country.

NAJA and NPM are two of the most prominent Native media organizations in the United States and are excited to announce a partnership that will double their impact in 2013.

The national conference for media professionals interested in improving their reporting on and delivery of Native news will be held at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel and Conference Center July 18-21.

Register online at https://www.naja.com/conference/ registration/.

The Native American Journalists Association serves and

empowers Native journalists through programs and actions designed to enrich journalism and promote Native cultures.

NPM represents the fast growing radio network, stretching from Alaska to New York State. Currently serving 53 tribal communities, NPM provides broadcast training, radio compliance service, and digital journalism and storytelling courses to Native media makers.

NPM also advocates on behalf of Indian Country on communications and telecommunications issues. NAJA promotes the highest standards of professionalism, ethics and responsibility in reporting, through both educating and unifying journalists committed to increasing the representation of American Indian journalist in mainstream media as well as supporting the efforts of journalists working in tribal media.

People aren’t news reading; they’re ‘news snacking’

BY Sherry Yuan | 10,000 Words Mobiles Republic, a global news syndication company, recently released the results from its 2013 survey of news reading habits.

The study, based off the responses of over 8,000 of its News Republic® app users, indicates that news consumption is rising; as the number of news outlets grows, so do readers’ appetites for accurate, multi-sourced and fresh news.

Here are key takeaways and the full infographic:

People are checking the news more frequently and for shorter amounts of time.

Forget news reading. Today, it’s all about “news snacking,” meaning people are checking the news more often and typically on mobile devices. 75 percent of readers with smartphones and 70 percent with tablets check the news more than once a day.

It’s all about aggregators.

According to the study, 73 percent of those surveyed said they use aggrega-

tors intensively, up from 33 percent a year ago. Use of branded news applications (such as leading national dailies), on the other hand, decreased from 60 percent to 40 percent in the same period.

Social media is on the rise for checking news.

The report also indicates that people are increasingly checking sites like Facebook and Twitter for news updates; Continued on page 7

Con’t from page 5: Converged newsrooms Continued from page 5

utes of iPhone video for TV before starting a written story.

This kind of cross-training is a far cry from the workflow that existed three years ago, when it wasn’t uncommon for four different reporters — print, Web, TV and radio — to make calls about the same story. Now, a single journalist is expected to handle breaking news for all four platforms.

Digital gets first priority, with reporters and photographers using email and a file transfer system called Aspera to send information back to the newsroom.

“The bottom line is for breaking news — get something back to digital right away,” Dunster said in an email. “Then other video, audio and still photos will be available later Page 6 | June 2013 ■ ANAgrams

and used as needed.”

Once the breaking news is reported, editors determine what they need for each platform: a longer written story and still photos for print, a more polished video for TV or an audio segment for radio.

Video and other forms of multimedia are an important part of Cox’s overall revenue and audience engagement strategy, according to Q. McElroy, senior director of digital for Cox Media Group Ohio.

“Our strategy is simple,” McElroy said in an email. “Identify the most effective ways to offer digital users the video they want while providing advertisers opportunities to reach this audience.”

Con’t from page 4: ‘News snacking’ Continued from page 6

43 percent of readers now use Facebook to check news, an increase of seven percent from last year.

What does this mean for the world’s primary news outlets? Gilles Raymond, mobile industry veteran and CEO of Mobiles Republic, said in a press release that the research, “confirms [news orgs] must have multiple streams of mobile news distribution in order to reach the mobile audiences and continue to thrive.”

June 2013 ■ ANAgrams | Page 7

Register online now for the NNA convention and the ANA awards reception http://goo.gl/xBLGo

Page 8 | June 2013 â– ANAgrams

8 common mistakes when writing for the web

BY PAUL BRADSHAW | ONLINE JOURNALISM BLOG Here is a checklist covering 8 mistakes made repeatedly by first-time web writers, which I’ve put together for one of my classes. The idea is simple: if you answer ‘No’ to any of these, carry on to the accompanying guidance that follows underneath.

Checklist: are you doing the following?

Getting straight to the most newsworthy, interesting piece of information in your first par?

Linking to your source whenever you refer to a piece of information/fact?

Linking phrases (e.g. “a report”) NOT putting in full URLs (e.g. “http://university.ac.uk/report”?

Indenting quotes by using the blockquote option?

Using brief pars – starting a new one for each new point?

Using a literal headline that makes sense in search results and includes key words that people might be looking for, NOT general or punny headlines Splitting up your article with subheadings?

Ending your post with a call to action and/or indication of what information is missing or what will happen next?

Solving it: 1. The first par When you write the first draft of an article some people begin with a ‘warming up’ paragraph. Here’s a classic example: “On Tuesday 14th February 2012, we went to the office of Bob Jones, for a brief discussion with a colleague…”

Ask yourself this: does your first par tell us anything new? Does it grab the reader and promise more? If it does neither then it needs rewriting.

Here are some examples of cutting to the key facts: “A vice chancellor who sparked a political storm over his views on the social mix of degree students has been

appointed England’s new university access tsar.”

Or, when your focus is an interview or guest post: “Attempts to block the appointment of the new head of Offa, and changes to the tuition-fee regime, make higher education policy resemble an Alice-inWonderland world, says Mike Baker” Or: “A new London park, 70,000 volunteers, a home crowd spurring on British athletes… Sebastian Coe tells Emma Brockes why the 2012 Olympics are worth the money” You can even start with the most colourful and attention-grabbing information gained in the interview, like so: “If in February 1941 the commander of the German battlecruiser Gneisenau had decided to steam off and leave Peter Coe to his fate in an open lifeboat in the North Atlantic, the world might never have taken delivery of his son, Sebastian.”

In short, if your paragraph is warming up, chop it out entirely – and look at each paragraph to see which one is the best to start with. If your article is trying to cover more than one basic angle, consider splitting it into two separate, shorter, posts.

Don’t tell us how you got here.

Another common mistake is to tell us about how you got to this point: “At first I had this idea, and then X happened, and I realised Y, so I decided to write about what I’m about to write.”

Remember the reader doesn’t care how you got to this point – unless it’s a stunning story in itself. So cut to the chase instead: “Here’s a list of some of the most informative and expert Twitter users in school sports.”

Solving it: 2. and 3. Linking to your sources – and linking phrases, not URLs. Any mention of any information that

you haven’t gathered in its raw form yourself should include a link to the source. For example: “According to the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s official website, they define “non-completion” by…”

Should be linked to the source material as follows: “According to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, they define “non-completion” by…”

Note that I’ve also removed “official website” – for two reasons: Never link to a general homepage – always deep-link to the specific page containing the information or report you’re referring to.

The link tells us it’s according to a webpage, you don’t need to repeat that.

Here are some more examples: “In September 2011 The Telegraph reported that…”

“John Smith told one blog that he…”

“While almost half of students don’t know about the policy...”

“Jane Jones said that...”

“The head of teaching and learning at HEFCE is Heather Fry...”

“Michael Gove voted in favour of...”

The more links your work contains, the more value it holds for users – it’s just good online journalism.

Solving it: 4. Formatting text: blockquotes, bullet lists, and subheadings Online text is easier to read the more that it is broken up. Get to know the formatting panel just above the space where you write your post (shown below).

Use the quotation marks button to indent quotes.

Use bullet lists and numbered lists to break up your post when your content suits a list.

Select text and use the link button Continued on page 10 June 2013 ■ ANAgrams | Page 9

Con’t from page 9: Writing for the web Continued from page 9

(the chain icon) to make it into a link.

Use the ‘Format’ drop-down to create subheadings (Heading 2 is best – Heading 1 is used for the headline already).

If you’re pasting text from elsewhere (always put it in quotes!) use the ‘eraser’ icon to strip out formatting such as font, size, colour etc. (Or better still, paste it into the HTML view so no formatting is retained.)

Solving it: 5. Splitting pars after every point is made Compare the following: “Firms and charities are to be invited to bid for a payment-by-results scheme to try to get “Neet” teenagers into work or training, in a project launched by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. The £126m scheme is aimed at 55,000 teenagers in England with poor qualifications who are currently not in education, employment or training. Mr Clegg says it is about “getting them out of the living room, away from the telly and into the world of work”. Labour says it won’t help the majority.”

And this: “Firms and charities are to be invited to bid for a payment-by-results scheme to try to get “Neet” teenagers into work or training, in a project launched by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

“The £126m scheme is aimed at 55,000 teenagers in England with poor qualifications who are currently not in education, employment or training.

“Mr. Clegg says it is about “getting them out of the living room, away from the telly and into the world of work”.

“Labour says it won’t help the majority.”

That’s from the BBC, an exemplar of good web writing.

Try to keep pars short, and start new Page 10 | June 2013 ■ ANAgrams

ones whenever a new point is being made.

Solving it: 6. and 7. Headlines and subheadings – keep them specific and literal.

Imagine what your headline looks like in the middle of a bunch of search results, or on Twitter. Imagine what it looks like to someone who has never read your site before, doesn’t know you, or your culture, jokes and phrases.

Here’s an example of a bad headline: Useful contacts for everyone Again, imagine this in search engine results. Twitter contacts in what field?

They’re clearly not for “everyone” but something specific – in this case, the Olympics, so this is much better: 20 essential Olympics Twitter contacts Here’s one that’s even worse: An Update This tells us nothing unless we are already following the blog – and even then, it doesn’t tell us whether this is interesting or merely functional. Try this instead: Update: unemployment up; Grayling’s 3 reasons; we want your questions!

Don’t be afraid of long headlines – look at how the Daily Mail use them (extremely successfully) on their website.

Try and use key words and phrases in your headline so that search engines understand what they’re about.

This, for example, is bad: Match report This is much better: Rooney scores 4 in Roma Champions League clash …Because what will people be searching for? Rooney perhaps; Champions League; Roma. They might even be searching for “hat-trick” or “video”.

Think of how people search, and write your headline to answer that (assuming your content does too).

Subheadings: The same rules apply to subheadings. These serve two purposes: to break up your text so people can find their place in them more easily; and to help search engines understand your content.

They should therefore be mini-headlines, with keywords relevant to the pars that follow.

Solving it: 8. Ending your post – online is interactive One of the key ways in which online journalism differs from print or broadcast is that you are not dealing with an audience: you are dealing with potential collaborators and sources who can improve your journalism with a single comment.

The traditional way of ending articles, then – implying that the story is finished and the reader can move on to what’s on page 5 – does not apply.

Instead you should try to leave room for the user to contribute in some way.

Here are some examples: “This is the latest in a series of interviews with Olympic sponsors. You can read the rest here, and follow future updates on our Facebook page, Twitter account, and mailing list.”

“Next week we’ll be interviewing Graham Gordon on his role in the process. If you have any questions you’d like us to ask, please post a comment, or email us at…”

“Have we missed anything? Please let us know in the comments” “What we still don’t know is how much of this money reached the clubs.

If you can help us find out, get in touch at…”

“We’ll be discussing this at our next meetup at … – sign up to attend on our Meetup page.”

“We’re looking for people to contribute to the blog on this issue. If you’re interested, get in touch at…”

STORM CLOUD

Adobe opens can of worms with Creative Cloud Kevin Slimp The News Guru

kevin@kevinslimp.com

month goes up to $50 for folks who sign up after July 31, 2013. So beginning August 1, that $360 moves up to $600 annually.

Are people upset? Boy, howdy. There are blogs and online communities dedicated to complaining about the changes at Adobe.

They’ve recently been compared to Quark, whose corporate attitude in the 1990s led to their quick descent from their lofty perch as king of the creative world.

In 1997, Publish Magazine asked me to write an editorial comparing Adobe to Quark. Not a software comparison, but a comparison of the companies. At the time, it seemed like just about all of Quark’s customers were tired of their corporate “take it or leave it” attitude.

When I was a college student living in Texas, I got used to hearing people say, “Boy, howdy.”

This wasn’t a greeting, as you might think. It was more along the lines of “You’re not kidding!”

It’s struck me as funny that, as I thought about the best way to explain the reaction to Adobe’s Creative Cloud announcement, the first words that came to mind were, “Boy, howdy.”

Did Adobe open a huge can of worms by moving to the Creative Cloud model? Boy, howdy. Did they ever. Is the creative and publishing world up in arms about it? Boy, howdy.

Are they ever.

Is there anything we can do about Creative Cloud? Probably not.

For those who have been hiking the Appalachian Trail for the past two months and aren’t familiar with the changes at Adobe, here’s the short version: You no longer buy Adobe software. You lease it. Think of your cable company. For a monthly fee, you have access to hundreds of channels, even though you probably don’t watch more than three or four.

Cable seemed like a good idea when I moved into my place three years ago. I got 200 channels, HBO, high-speed Internet and a phone line for $99 per month. It’s hard to argue with that. What I haven’t been able to Umbrella illustration courtesy of Adbuilder.com figure out is how my cable bill went Quark customers left in droves after the from $99 per month to over $200 without release of Adobe InDesign. Over the next my noticing it. And I don’t even get HBO few years, the king of the creative world was anymore. sitting at the bottom of the heap, looking up And that’s the catch about Creative at the new king.

Cloud, isn’t it? Sure, we get InDesign, PhotoI’ve received calls and emails from pubshop, Illustrator, Flash, Acrobat InCopy and lishers from New York to California. I even a couple of dozen other apps. But let’s face it, received a call while I waited for a flight in how many of our people use more than two Boston last week from a National Newspaper or three Adobe applications?

Association board member. He called, durAnd that price of $30 per month per user?

That sounds like an OK deal. $360 per year for ing their meeting, to learn what our alternatives are as an industry. Apparently it was the latest version of Adobe software. But what the board’s “hot” topic at that moment. My about next year. That price is only guaranteed answer, “Not much.” for the length of the one-year agreement.

At this moment, however, I’m letting my And, unless something changes, the $30 per

mind play “What if?” The game is played something like this: • What if Quark got together with Corel and packaged the latest version of QuarkXPress with Corel Paintshop Pro and sold the bundle for $699?

• What if Quark bundled QuarkXPress with GIMP, a free Photoshop “clone” application and made some tweaks so the two applications could work seamlessly together, like InDesign and Photoshop?

The problem with playing “What if?” is that it’s just a game. It looks like none of these scenarios are going to happen. I just got off the phone with Gavin Drake, VP of Marketing at Quark, and it sounds like they’re not planning any bundles or making any plans to take on the Creative Cloud.

And let’s face it. If Quark’s not interested in competing with Adobe on the publishing front, who will?

And, for those of you who are wondering, I did talk to Liz Mitchell, PR Manager at Corel. She was very kind and happy to answer my questions concerning Adobe users looking for alternatives. However, in the end, Corel has products that serve as alternatives for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, but their products are primarily Windows-based and there is nothing to compare to InDesign or QuarkXPress.

I’m not worried about the changes with Adobe software. We can always keep producing newspapers and other publications the way we always have. What does worry me is that companies like Adobe and Quark don’t see the traditional publishing world as a market worth concern any longer.

And as logical as it seems, creating an alternative to InDesign just isn’t feasible. I was involved in the K-2 project - what later became InDesign - and it seems like it took seven years or more to develop the original version of the application.

So what’s my advice? There doesn’t seem to be a viable option to Adobe Creative Cloud at the moment. Eventually you will be forced to upgrade equipment and software and, when you do, you’ll probably sign up for Creative Cloud.

In the meantime, read carefully. The price goes up significantly after July 31, 2013. If you are going to upgrade software, do it before then. Otherwise, you’ll spend $240 extra per user over the next year.

Am I a little frustrated that we don’t seem to have other options? Boy, howdy, am I ever.

But like everyone else, there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it at this point.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about the changes at Adobe. Email those to me at kevin@kevinslimp.com.

Webinar Calendar Savings, Costs and the How-to You Need on Full-Service IMb

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Getting Responses from your Print and Digital Ads

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Effective Social Speak - How to Engage and Win with Social Chatter

WHEN: Thursday, July 18 | 1 p.m. EST DESCRIPTION: Though social networks and social media have been a part of our professional and personal lives for some time now, many businesses find forming effective conversations, with the right audience, via the right social platform somewhat daunting. In this session, we’ll not only talk about the power of these platforms today

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PRESENTER: Beverly Crandon, Director, Media Partnerships, Dream Local Digital COST: $195 MORE INFO: http://bit.ly/10I5LU9

Time-Saving Tips for InDesign Users

WHEN: Friday, July 19 | 1 p.m. CST DESCRIPTION: Do you find yourself digging through menus and panels to find the commands you need in InDesign? Are you spending time on repetitive setup tasks that could be spent more productively? InDesign has a variety of features that allow you to speed up your workflow without compromising the quality of your design.

Learning to use these features effectively will help you on your way to becoming an InDesign expert.

PRESENTER: Sherry Berghefer, Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University.

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Native Ads: Targeting the Right Customer at the Right Time

WHEN: Tuesday, July 23 | 3 p.m. EST DESCRIPTION: Native ads which attempt to gain attention by providing appropriate content in the context of the Web user’s experience is the latest in hot advertising techniques. It sounds simple but there are various formats and platforms for capturing attention and increasing click through. Our in-house advertising expert Amie Stein will explain it all in this 30-minute webinar.

PRESENTER: Amie Stein, LMA Training & Development Director COST: $39 MORE INFO: http://bit.ly/16hVih0

Looking for more webinars? Check out the ANA training calendar at:

http://ananews.com/calendar