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BUILDING A VIRTUAL NARRATIVE

2017 Mega-Conference Will Offer ‘Innovation and Insight’

DATA PAGE

Fader allows users to easily create virtual reality stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 8

SPARKING A DISCUSSION

The Cannifornian covers the impact of recreational marijuana legalization in California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 9

PLANTING JOURNALISTIC SEEDS

Taproot Edmonton draws story ideas from its online community . . . . . . p. 10

RAMPING UP DIGITAL

The News First widget lets readers access content from 15 Nebraskan newspapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 12

A STAR IN THE MAKING

Minneapolis Star Tribune is launching its own quarterly glossy magazine this spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 14

More than 700 attendees are expected to attend this year’s show in Orlando . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 21

Top multi-platform properties on desktop and mobile, how consumers classify native ads, top 10 brands for news alerts, most trusted news sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 18

Hook, Line, and Sinker

CRITICAL THINKING

Media disruptors that will influence the industry in 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 34

Should journalists be required to earn a license in order to practice journalism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 20

Game On! Six digital strategies newspapers should apply this year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 42

Making Social Media More Personal Publishers find new audiences through messaging apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 52 Cover illustration by Tony O. Champagne

PRODUCTION Publishers get a few steps closer to the ‘publish-once, output-many’ model p. 28

NEWSPEOPLE New hires, promotions and relocations across the industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 58

SHOPTALK Media companies may no longer control distribution, but they do control trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 66

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Katharine Lotze/Santa Clarita (Calif.)

Valley Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 16

Columns INDUSTRY INSIGHT

BUSINESS OF NEWS

DIGITAL PUBLISHING

Legal ad revenue will disappear soon unless newspapers innovate . . . . . . . . p. 22

Are you paying attention to your community’s needs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 24

Why fake news can be a good thing . . .p. 26

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editorial

The Force is Still Strong

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s 2016 came to an end, I read plenty of trend pieces predicting what the journalism industry would look like this year. Trust and accountability seemed to be one of the biggest issues. How the media will report during the Trump presidency was another key factor. Mergers and acquisition deals, also a hot topic. And let’s not forget how digital platforms like Facebook and Snapchat continue to grow among users.

But what really caught my attention was the annual Tech Trends Report produced by the Future Today Institute. According to founder Amy Webb, the report is now in its 10th year and “focuses on mid-to latestage emerging technologies that are on a growth trajectory.” The report isn’t light reading either—it features more than 150 trends across numerous industries. You can download the report at futuretodayinstitute. com/2017-tech-trends.

For the news, journalism, media, and publishing industry in 2017, the report indicated that key trend themes include artificial intelligence, recognition, digital frailty, accountability, video, mixed reality, security, privacy, Big Data, social payments, drones, automation, and internet mobs and trolls. Some of the items are new to the list; some are making a return. As I read through the list, I wondered how many newspapers are prepared to address these trends. Some media companies have already started experimenting with AI, social payments, and drones, but how soon will they become the norm?

Whether you agree with their list or not, you absolutely have to pay special attention.

The Tech Trends Report is just one source of predicting the future of journalism. This month, we also wrote about what we consider will be the media disruptors of 2017. They include some of the items already discussed here, but I hope you will take a look at the story and let me know if these disruptors are good or bad for the industry.

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Newspapers have had to deal with various disturbances for years, but what makes 2017 different? For one thing, we have a new president who took two months to hold a proper press conference after he was elected.

Trump’s preferred way of communicating with the public seems to be with tweets rather than one-on-one with journalists.

2017 will also see the rise of real-time fact checking. Now that the public can receive its news anywhere, journalists will have to work even harder and faster to decipher through the lies to get to the truth. It’s still their jobs to report fairly and accurately.

Guess who else is joining them? Facebook.

In a December interview, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admitted his social network is a media company (although not a “traditional one”) and that it plays a big part in how news gets distributed. That same month, Facebook announced it was taking several precautions, such as developing easier ways to report hoaxes and using trusted third parties to fact-check stories, to prevent fake news from spreading. Who would have thought that a tech giant like Facebook (once and probably still seen as the biggest media disruptor) would want to work alongside “old media” companies toward a common goal of distributing correct information?

I believe it’s a good start to this new era of news reporting.

As I write this editorial, the latest “Star Wars” movie, “Rogue One,” is still fresh in my mind—and it’s a perfect metaphor of where, I think, the newspaper industry is heading this year. “Rogue One” was about a small group of rebels going up against the must larger and much dominant empire.

Before going into battle, one of the rebel leaders gives an inspirational speech to his small army: “Make 10 men feel like 100.”

So, how about it? Let’s make 10 journalists feel like 100 because no matter how many disturbances occur within the force we call journalism, newspapers must prevail. —NY

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comments ))) Facebook isn’t a problem. All information is still available and “unfiltered” in the web— the only thing you have to do is open your eyes and look and read. And think.

ACHIM

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Facebook Hysteria is Over the Top

illustration by tony o. champagne

Journalists Must Always Report the Truth

Media Bias Was Apparent During Election

I would hope the goal of every journalist is to report the truth—period. (“From Both Sides,” December 2016) As a journalist, I am geared in that direction. I am not there to promote anyone or slant the truth in favor or against a specific agenda. Too often I get people standing in the way of the truth or pushing towards a “sin of omission” to make themselves or their project or own agenda look better or keep themselves from looking bad. My job isn’t to sell what someone wants—it is to report facts. I resent it when a publisher tells me to not print all the truth and leave things out because an advertiser is involved and it might offend them. If people don’t want the truth printed, then perhaps they should examine what they themselves are involved in that they don’t want in print.

Most media employees are liberal. Therefore, from the get-go, most all reporting will become biased. (“Protecting the Institution,” December 2016) No Republican candidate will be treated fairly, it’s not in the nature of most reporting. Media took on the role as the “hit-man” for Clinton. And they did it so effectively they actually believed in their own reporting, embellishments, and offthe-wall arguments and comments. Media shot themselves right in the heart because they failed to remove their own personal bias and report objectively. Never before has the facade of Main Street media been so effectively stripped down for all to see. The open bias and prejudice of media reporting has become a cancer that turned on its own originators.

LYNDA WORK

JERRY KURBATOFF

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Protecting Our Free Press

Don’t Let Facebook Decide News For You

Excellent, timely analysis, and a rallying cry reminder of the power and critical importance of our free press. (“Protecting the Institution,” December 2016) Truth matters.

Facts matter. Perseverance matters. This focus on circumstances, consequences and the job at hand will go a long way toward protecting our democracy. Thank you!

BETH PARKE

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The bridges aren’t destroyed; many people just stopped using them. (“Shoptalk: Bridges Mark Zuckerberg Destroyed,” December 2016) I don’t use Facebook for information with the exception of private ones about family and friends. I will never allow anybody to decide for me which blog or portal I may use and where I get the information I’d like to get. Users like that

While Facebook might have these features, the idea that mass amounts of people don’t venture off of it is ridiculous hysteria. (“Shoptalk: Bridges Mark Zuckerberg Destroyed,” December 2016) With the wide ranging and growing apps available and of course, search engine giants like Google, I see no fear that Facebook will control the world. Most young adults barely even use it. My twenty-something kids primarily use Instagram and Snapchat. While I am not a fan of Zuckerberg, it is not his job to create a product that satisfies society’s needs. He has a product that a lot of people use, but I see all those same people using lots of other product. Interesting technological discussion, but the hysteria and moral recriminations are over the top.

SAMIRA

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Newspapers Continue to Be Most Reliable Source The newspaper is the only place where you can get information that is not in 30 seconds or less sound bites. (“Your Message Here,” January 2017) The reporting is, and needs to continue to be in depth and reliable, not glitzy and glamorous. Research and accurate, unbiased, truthful reporting must continue to be the hallmark of the newspaper industry. This is expensive, but it is also critical to the continuation of our free society. In a time when anyone can say anything (no matter how outlandish) and be believed, newspapers are more important than ever.

ROXANNE BRADROW

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Send us your comments nu.yang@editorandpublisher.com “Comments,” Editor & Publisher, 18475 Bandilier Circle, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 Please include your name, title, city and state, and email address.

Letters may be edited for all the usual reasons.

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See us at

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Mega Conference

Feb. 23-25 Orlando

the A section VOLUME 150

FOR THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY 2017

ISSUE 2

> Look Ahead

Building a Virtual Narrative Fader allows users to easily create virtual reality stories

By Sean Stroh

A

lthough virtual reality has recently emerged as a viable new means of storytelling, it continues to serve as a confusing technology to grasp for many journalists.

After working with newsrooms on several VR projects for a little over a year, Berlinbased startup Vragments has created Fader, a tool that easily produces and publishes VR stories.

“We learned that journalists are still quite hesitant to experiment with VR and there are little to no established workflows within newsrooms,” said Linda Rath-Wiggins, cofounder and CEO of Vragments. “Only a few journalists really have any ‘VR skills’ so we wanted to create a tool that allows them to skip many of the uncertainties.”

Fader streamlines the process of producing a VR into four steps: upload, enrich, tell your story and publish. Though users can’t alter the content they upload, they can align it in different scenes and add layers of data on top of the content before releasing it.

Additionally, journalists don’t have to worry about any specific platforms, as the story is published in the form of a URL and accessible on both mobile and desktop along with a public or private mode option.

The idea of developing a tool to turn reporting into VR experiences was born back in 2015 at an event hosted by The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). Rath-Wiggins said she and her team conceptualized Fader in a manner that journalists are used to—going from scene to scene with a focus on narrative. The prototype is currently free to use through the Vragments website

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 Fader is designed and developed by Vragments, a Berlin based virtual reality startup.

(fader.vragments.com).

“We’re looking for journalists who are interested in using it and giving us feedback so that we can optimize the tool for journalistic work,” Rath-Wiggins said. “While immersive storytelling techniques have emerged, we want newsrooms to utilize this new medium by not having to focus on the technical challenges.”

As part of Google’s Digital News Initiative, Vragments will soon partner with Deutsche Welle and Euronews.

“It’s thrilling to work with two prestigious and highly respected media organizations and learn more about their specific needs in regards to VR productions,” Rath-Wiggins said. “There is a demand for tools to make VR feasible, which is why they are interested in using Fader.”

Toward the end of 2016, CIR provided the first case study of Fader’s value during their investigation into Jehovah’s Witnesses and child sexual abuse claims.

“The problem that Fader tackles is very important for VR—how to make the production process more responsive to the needs of journalists on a deadline,” said David Ritsher, senior supervising editor for CIR’s digital video production team. “While Fader is still in prototype stage, it already has capabilities that are valuable to VR

 The Center for Investigative Reporting used Fader to create a three episode VR documentary series about hidden child abuse within Jehovah’s witnesses communities in the US.

journalists looking to do quick turn-around VR projects. The underlying architecture of the tool will allow more features to be easily added, so we are excited to see the tool continue to grow.”

Virtual Reality by the Numbers 43 million

Estimated amount of active VR users worldwide in 2016

6.31 million

Projection for unit shipments of VR head-mounted displays worldwide in 2017

171 million

Projected number of active worldwide VR users by 2018

$4.6 billion

Projected worldwide revenue of VR products in 2017 Source: Statista

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the A section

Sparking a Discussion

The Cannifornian covers the impact of recreational marijuana legalization in California

 The Cannifornian site launched the day after California voters approved Proposition 64, which legalized recreational marijuana.

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n the morning after California voters approved Proposition 64 last November, which legalized recreational marijuana in the state, Digital First Media had a surprise ready for its readers—The Cannifornian.

Built specifically as a resource to explain the health, economic, societal, political and cultural impacts of cannabis, the mobile-first website (thecannifornian.com) draws upon the seasoned reporting of journalists in 25 newsrooms across California that are part of Digital First Media. The newspaper groups involved in the project include the Bay Area News Group and Southern California News Group. Brooke Edwards Staggs, a veteran of the cannabis beat for The Orange County Register, directs the site and serves as its lead reporter. Other key contributors include Will Houston from the Eureka Times-Standard and Lisa M. Krieger of the Bay Area News Group.

“It’s something for new us, and we’re still finding our way with the best ways to market it and build the audience, but the results have been pretty positive so far,” said Bay Area News Group executive editor Neil Chase.

“Every little corner of society is going to be affected by this in some way and that’s why we needed access to all the different newsrooms. In a sense, we’ve been planning for this ever since Colorado legalized marijuana three years ago.”

The Denver Post, another Digital First Media property, unveiled The Cannabist, a similar marijuana-focused website, in December 2013 shortly before the state was set to allow the legal purchase of recreational marijuana. The website has since developed a strong following and now averages nearly 2 million views monthly.

“They’ve produced some incredible work and really set the standard for how to do this,” Chase said.

Content posted on The Cannifornian ranges from standard news stories, photo galleries and videos, to lifestyle features and information on upcoming marijuana-related events. The site provides readers with four category tabs  Neil Chase, Bay Area News Group executive editor to choose from: news, culture, business and

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health. Though a standalone site, it’s also accessible through Digital First Media’s California news websites within navigation bars and Hot Topics sections.

One difficult question in the weeks leading up to election night was whether or not to still launch The Cannifornian if the proposition was rejected by voters.

“Since the medicinal market in California was already between a $3 to $4 billion market, we decided that we needed to do this no matter what happened on election day,” Chase said. “There’s a lot going on out there and we felt the need to provide the answers to all the questions people we’re going to have.”

According to Chase, the website also offers a significant market for advertisement. “One of the many reasons we did this was that there were a number of folks from our ad sales department telling us about the interest from potential advertisers. It’s a place where we feel we can build a very strong business moving forward.” –SS

> Did You Hear?

“It’s no mystery to me why Superman’s alter ego was a reporter, but now, more than ever, the United States needs Clark Kent to wear that red cape as himself. It’s tough to be a real journalist these days. And, it’s increasingly rare.”  Penny Weaver, editor, Journal Gazette (Mattoon, Ill.) and the Times-Courier (Charleston, Ill.)

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the A section

Planting Journalistic Seeds Taproot Edmonton draws story ideas from its online community

F

or many years, a regular topic of discussion between Mack Male, a longtime blogger, community organizer and software developer, and Karen Unland, a former journalist turned entrepreneur, would often revolve around the difficulties being faced by local media in Canada. But when cuts made by Postmedia in early 2016 resulted in 35 people being let go in Edmonton, the pair decided to do something more than just talk about the challenges.

Drawing from their own experience in community journalism, they decided to launch Taproot Edmonton (taprootedmonton.ca), a website that uses topics provided from its paying members as the sole source for story ideas.

“This is our attempt to figure out what the future of local journalism looks like from the ground up,” Male said.

Article topics for Taproot come from the website’s Story Garden, which allows paying members to plant story ideas by asking questions they’d like to see answered. When a particular question receives enough attention, Male and his partner assign the story to a freelancer. Once an article is finished, everyone who contributed to the idea from the very beginning is given credit.

“We’re thrilled with the participation of our members since the launch and continually impressed with the questions asked and the comments they share,” Male said. “There has been a good range of topics so far, from the herd of deer that lives in the south side of the city to why we treat homicides and pedestrian deaths differently.”

While everyone can view content on Taproot, members must pay either $100 per year or $10 a month to log into the Story Garden and offer ideas for future articles. The site currently has more than 80 members and a dozen or so freelancers. Every writer is a member first, and encouraged to actively participate in the Story Garden as well.

Male acknowledged that Taproot is ultimately looking for quality, not quantity, when it comes to the number of articles they decide to post. Through the end of 2016, the site averaged one story per month.

“Taproot isn’t likely going to be the place where dozens of new stories are posted each day,” Male said.

“We’re not chasing eyeballs and we don’t have space to fill. We’re focused on publishing  Taproot Edmonton draws story ideas from pay- informative, impactful ing members of its online community. stories about our city.”

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 Mack Male, Taproot Edmonton cofounder

 Karen Unland, Taproot Edmonton co-founder

“We’re not chasing eyeballs and we don’t have space to fill.

We’re focused on publishing informative, impactful stories about our city.”

For Male, the most important goal for the industry remains continuing to experiment with different ways of using journalism to serve the community and developing new business models to sustain it.

“There’s not likely to be any single advance that ‘saves’ journalism or dramatically turns things around for the journalists and media companies that are struggling right now. Although there have been some exciting journalistic advances made in recent years focused on global or national issues, there has been far less innovation when it comes to journalism concentrated on local communities,” Male said. “That’s where we’re putting our energy and where we think we can have the biggest impact.”–SS editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 3:08 PM

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the A section

Spreading the Word The News First widget lets readers access content from 15 Nebraskan newspapers

A

s a publisher of a small weekly newspaper in Hartington, Neb., Peggy Year knows firsthand the difficulties facing local print publications, particularly when it comes to maintaining an engaged advertising base. So when a conversation at last year’s state press association convention sparked an idea that intended to better serve both the readers and the advertisers, she figured it was well worth the risk of pursuing.

News First, an online widget that allows users to access content from a variety of Nebraskan newspapers in a centralized online location, was formally launched last November with a total of 15 publications

SAY WHAT?

on board. Links to content of participating newspapers can be found at newsfirstne. com, and Year expects more publications to join in the future.

“We were trying to broaden the scope for our own advertisers and hit that digital advertising realm that everyone seems to want but nobody knows how to monetize,” Year said, who co-publishes the Cedar County News alongside her husband Rob Dump.

“There’s lots of stuff that happens in small

 Kent Warneke, Norfolk (Neb.) Daily News editor

Tornoe’s Corner

New Vocabulary for the Modern Era

Locavore (noun): A person who makes an effort to eat food that is grown, raised, or produced locally, usually within 100 miles of home “The locavore movement pairs well with the center’s conservation efforts in that using resources on the land also protects birds on the property.”

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the A section ers can not only freely access stories, photographs and videos from their hometown newspaper, but also any one of the 14 other papers involved.

“The feedback we’ve received from our advertisers has been  Rob Dump, and his wife Peggy Year, serve as co-publishers of the Cedar County very good. The News in Hartington, Neb. page views the widget has drawn more than exceeded our towns but to be able to reach that audience expectations,” Year said. “Were hitting a can sometimes be difficult.” huge chunk of Northeast Nebraska and getParticipating newspapers now feature the ting readers from all over the state in this News First widget on their homepages and single location.” provide links to content from their respecThe process of getting more than a dozen tive publications on a regular basis. Read-

I-E&P-9x5.4375:Layout 1 3/14/16 10:56 AM Page 1

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newspapers on board with the plan, Year says, was surprisingly easy.

“We were amazed and thrilled at how quickly all the publishers jumped on with this. They were really excited about the whole idea,” Year said. “It gives us that digital presence we’ve all been looking for.”

Kent Warneke, editor of the Norfolk Daily News, the only daily paper involved in the project, said the News First widget was an “easy sell” for publishers and advertisers alike.

“It’s really been a very straightforward and an smooth process because the goal of the widget was to show collectively that newspapers in Northeast Nebraska— whether they are daily or weekly—are still the most accurate, reliable and thorough news source for our readers,” he said. “To be able to work together to spread that message is pretty special.”–SS

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the A section

 Sue Campbell, the Star Tribune’s assistant managing editor for features

 The new magazine will debut in April.

A Star in the Making Minneapolis Star Tribune is launching its own quarterly glossy magazine this spring

S

ue Campbell of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has a stack of magazines two feet high on her desk for good reason. As the paper’s assistant managing editor for features, Campbell will soon have another set of responsibilities added to her name.

This April, Star Tribune Media Co., Minnesota’s largest media company, is set to launch Star Tribune Magazine, a quarterly publication that will be delivered to more than 225,000 subscriber households.

“We believe they have an appetite for meaty cover stories and the other types of content we’ll offer, including a quarterly photo essay and interviews with local movers and shakers,” Campbell said. “From an editor’s standpoint, it’s exciting to have a chance to do a slightly different style of storytelling, and journalists from across all departments of our newsroom have been contributing ideas.”

Each issue of the 64-page magazine will feature original content with no overlap from the Star Tribune’s newspaper weekday or Sunday edition. Additionally, each issue intends to highlight a specific area of particular interest to readers and advertisers: home and garden (spring), health and wellness (summer), travel (fall) and fashion and style (winter). Two regular features, Throwback and State Secrets, will spotlight unexpected discoveries and destinations around Minnesota.

“Obviously the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are creating meaty, rich content on a weekly basis but we’ve also  State Secrets will spotlight various destinations around Minnesota. looked at magazines in other markets, from 14 |

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the Boston Globe’s weekly tab format to the Virginian-Pilot’s hefty quarterly book,” Campbell said. “From all that inspiration, editor Rene Sanchez, our assistant managing editor for visuals Derek Simmons, and I have come up with what we hope will be a winning formula that readers will love and come to see as essential.”

The Star Tribune remains bullish on print, Campbell said, having maintained daily delivery to subscribers unlike some papers in markets of similar size. Publisher Mike Klingensmith has also been on record for many years as a staunch supporter of the print product.

Steve Yaeger, chief marketing officer, said that while the magazine will be available only to home delivery subscribers and those who receive its eEdition, the company plans to explore newsstand sales in the future.

“We are always looking for new sources of consumer revenue and launching a magazine had been under consideration for a while,” Yaeger said. “It also gives us a solution for those advertisers that want the demographic and the ad environment a glossy magazine provides.” –SS editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 4:42 PM

the A section > Wise Advice

From the Archive

 Jed Williams

“What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?”

Be customer obsessed, not competitor obsessed. And yes, I said ‘obsessed,’ not just ‘focused.’ Ensuring and promoting customer success requires more than just ‘focus’—it demands complete dedication and buy-in. Ultimately, our organizations should only succeed as our customers succeed. And to do this, we have to actually solve real problems for them, whether that’s helping readers access timely, relevant information or driving meaningful business results for advertisers. This is the ‘jobs to be done’ approach. By developing continuous feedback loops with our customers, and showing real empathy, we can unlock more value than by chasing shiny objects simply because others are.

Jed Williams is the chief innovation officer at the Local Media Association, where he leads industry wide digital revenue and business transformation initiatives for newspapers, radio and TV broadcasters, digital publishers and R&D partners. editorandpublisher.com

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 Fifth graders at Irving Elementary School in Duncan, Okla. divide up the Duncan Banner and search for ways newspapers can be used to illustrate math problems. The Banner did several stories and picture spreads when an augmented Newspaper in Education program began in 66 new school systems in Oklahoma the previous year. This photo originally appeared in the Feb. 19, 1983 issue of E&P.

LEGAL BRIEFS Chicago Tribune Files Lawsuit Against Police Department Over Emails According to the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, alleging that it has yet to receive public records requested more than a year ago pertaining to the police shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald. The Tribune is seeking police employees’ emails connected to the death of McDonald, who was shot 16 times in October 2014. The lawsuit alleges that the police department said the initial request filed by a Tribune reporter was “unduly burdensome.” Although the newspaper scaled back its request and was informed on March 21 that it would receive 375 emails the next day, the lawsuit claims it never did. In addition to the email records, the newspaper is also asking for compensation of attorney fees.

News Media Alliance Appeals FCC Media Ownership Rules

The News Media Alliance has filed an appeal contesting the Federal Communications Commission’s recent confirmation of the cross-ownership ban. The case seeks to force the FCC to reconsider its decision to maintain the ban on newspaper publishers owning broadcast television properties. It also claims there is “substantial evidence” showing that the rule is “antiquated and no longer serves the public interest.” David Chavern, president and CEO of the Alliance, said the ban prevents the industry “from achieving the necessary scale to compete in media marketplace, while investment will continue to flow to internet distribution platforms that compete with news publishers for advertising revenue.” The FCC is legally required to review the ban every four years.

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photo of the month

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editorandpublisher.com

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Send us your photos! E&P welcomes reader submissions for our Photo of the Month. sean@editorandpublisher.com.

HEAT WAVE ď ˝â€… Katharine Lotze/Santa Clarita (Calif.) Valley Signal A firefighter is blown backward by a combination of wind and heat from a fire that broke out in a CalTrans storage yard near a freeway off ramp in Santa Clarita, Calif. According to officials on scene, hazardous materials were possibly burned during the blaze. editorandpublisher.com

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data page Top 10 Multi-Platform Properties (Desktop and Mobile) Total unique online visitors in the U.S. #

Property

Unique Visitors/Viewers (000)

1

Google Sites

246,359

2

Facebook

207,047

3

Yahoo Sites

206,617

4

Microsoft Sites

193,828

5

Amazon Sites

182,151

6

CBS Interactive

165,656

7

Comcast NBCUniversal

163,453

8

AOL, Inc.

158,780

9

Apple Inc.

150,074

10

Turner Digital

139,220

How Consumers Classify Native Ads Based on 300 respondents who came across four specific pieces of online native advertising: A native ad for Wendy’s from The New York Times, an ad for Ford on BuzzFeed, an ad for Kia on The Huffington Post and an ad for GE on Business Insider.

Advertising

Editorial Content

43%

Hybrid/ Unsure

23% 34%

Total Respondents

New York Times

Huffington Post

35% 24% 42%

16% 36% 39%

BuzzFeed

Business Insider

22% 36% 43%

19% 40% 41%

Source: comScore, October 2016

Social Media Platforms as a News Source for Executives Based on a survey of more than 175 global media and advertising executives

52%

42%

20%

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

3%

2%

Instagram

Snapchat

Source: “Global Executives Study,” Quartz, October 2016

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1% Other Source: “Fixing Native Ads: What Consumers Want From Publishers, Brands, Facebook and the FTC,” Contently

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Top 10 Brands for News Alerts Based on a survey of 679 U.S. smartphone users who receive news/sports alerts

Fox News

CNN

23%

Local TV News

22%

22%

Local or city newspaper

New York Times

13%

Yahoo News

16%

CBS

12%

NBC/MSNBC

14%

Huffington Post

12%

USA Today

12%

10%

Source: “News Alerts and the Battle for the Lockscreen” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, September-October 2016

Most Trusted News Sources Based on a survey of 1,605 U.S. adults Very Credible

Credible

Not Too Credible

Not At All Credible

24%

43%

14%

9%

24%

41%

14%

10%

24%

41%

13%

11%

26%

38%

12%

7%

27%

36%

12%

11%

26%

34%

15%

14%

ABC

CBS

NBC

Wall Street Journal

New York Times

CNN

Source: Morning Consult Poll, December 2016

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critical thinking

If you have a question you would like to see addressed, please send it to sean@editorandpublisher.com.

J-school students and industry vets tackle the tough questions

“Online media CEO Linda Wood recently testified to the Canadian parliamentary Heritage Committee that ‘in the same way that lawyers have to be certified, we could have those kinds of structures for journalism because right now, we’re in a pretty dangerous situation.’ Should journalists be required to earn a license in order to practice journalism?”

A:

After the 2016 presidential election, many questioned the role “fake news” had on the results, causing a general fear among the public that unreliable journalism is much more harmful than previously believed. So Linda Wood’s comments comes as no surprise, as it only voices the fear and Grace Carson, 20 concern that many others similarly sophomore, University of have. How can we make sure that Denver news is reliable and trustworthy?

Carson is a journalism and While wanting news to be reliable is political science double major. understandable, we must remember She currently serves as the opinions editor for the studentthat journalism isn’t made trustworrun newspaper, the Clarion. thy by making the career less accessible. There is plenty of good, honest journalism that comes from underground blogs and websites, and from people who have never taken proper journalism classes.

Likewise, there is plenty of faulty, deceptive journalistic work from those who have a degree in the subject.

Without citizen journalism, it is arguable that the coverage of protests like those in the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota would not be as valuable. In fact, the protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline relied heavily on citizen journalism to spread the word of the events happening on the reservation. Citizen journalism covers what major media cannot, and this would not be possible if every journalist needed to be licensed.

As a student journalist for the University of Denver’s student-run newspaper, the Clarion, I am not yet “certified” to be a journalist, as I have not yet earned my degree. Yet those who write for our paper play a vital role in reporting the news on campus, as well as voicing the opinion of the students. Without these reporters, there would be no one to lift student voice and highlight events on campus. Writing before we are qualified gives us experience, which in turn, makes us more qualified to be journalists once we receive our degrees.

Giving the government the power to decide who should or shouldn’t be able to provide news threatens freedom of press. All people should have the right to convey opinions and information in writing, whether anyone deems them qualified to do so or not. To censor who can and cannot convey information is to limit the access to information to the public. It is important that all voices are able to be heard, not just those the government chooses qualified.

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A:

Our profession didn’t exactly shine this past election cycle.

It was evident that subscriptions and clicks drove the agendas of TV networks and national newspapers. During the primary election cycle, for example, one network turned into (almost) Trump TV Steve Henson, 62 managing editor and 24/7 with carefully selected talking (screameditorial page editor, The ing) heads to endlessly regurgitate every Pueblo (Colo.) Chieftain statement, word and comma.

Henson has worked in Add to that the barrage of fake news the media industry for stories, of endless claims and vicious debates 43 years. He is a past on social media such as Twitter, and it’s not president and board chairman of the Colosurprising that Americans don’t know which rado Press Association. media outlets or individuals they can trust.

Nor is it surprising that some want journalists to be licensed.

However, that is a terrible idea that all media—from the local citizen writing a regular blog about the local school board to the finest New York Times reporter—must oppose.

The problem lies in who would do the licensing. Since there is no way that the press, broadcast and internet media could ever come together, set standards and form a licensing entity—we wouldn’t want to do that anyway—the licensing would be handled by the government.

And that’s the reason this is a bad idea.

The Founders passionately believed a separation needed to exist between the press and government. If the government licensed journalists, it also could deny licenses to those reporters or institutions it deemed unworthy.

Imagine if Richard Nixon would have had the power to take away the licenses of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It’s likely we never would have known about Watergate.

Imagine if someone on a licensing board were a devout Catholic and insisted on denying licenses to the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.

The Globe’s stories that exposed the church’s vast scheme to hide pedophiles and other religious who sexually assaulted their flock likely wouldn’t have been printed.

In the end, any “licensing” must be performed by readers and viewers, who have and will judge each media’s reports by the standards of fairness and accuracy. If we fail, we will lose those readers, viewers and followers.

Control the media, our Founders argued, and you lose your democracy. That should be the end of the argument regarding licensing journalists.  editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 3:17 PM

 Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, shared his local media forecast at last year’s Mega-Conference in Austin, Texas.

 The 2017 Mega-Conference will be at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Florida from Feb. 23-25.

2017 Mega-Conference Will Offer ‘Innovation and Insight’ More than 700 attendees are expected to attend this year’s show in Orlando

By Sean Stroh

T

he best and brightest minds in the media industry will converge Feb. 23-25 at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Florida as part of the 2017 Key Executive Mega-Conference. The theme of this year’s conference, which expects to draw more than 700 attendees, is “Innovation & Insight: The Business of Publishing News.” The annual conference is co-sponsored jointly by the Inland Press Association, Local Media Association and the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

“What distinguishes this conference from so many others is that many of the attendees have ultimate responsibility for the financial success of their companies as CEOs, owners, publishers or key executives,” said Carol Hudler, conference program coordinator. “They care deeply about the journalism, but know intrinsically that all journalistic efforts will be futile if they do not carve out a path for a successful and sustainable business. Innovation is needed to do that.”

The conference kicks off Thursday morning, Feb. 23, with a special bonus workshop on native advertising led by Matt Sanders of Deseret Digital Media, who will discuss the growing importance of the revenue source for publishers. Over the course of the three-day event, attendees can expect to hear from established figures in the industry forging new paths, as well as renegades carving out business models for themselves.

“There once was a time when everybody had the same strategy in this business, but that just no longer is the case,” Hudler said. “So we make sure we have a diversity of strategic approaches represented.”

At Thursday’s general session, Gannett CEO Bob Dickey and some of his senior managers will share the company’s outlook on the business and its business strategy moving forward. The following day, guests can choose to attend from several different breakout session options in the morning and afternoon.

Hudler recommends not to miss the afternoon’s “Pathway to Freedom” session, which will have a pair of CEOs of private newspaper editorandpublisher.com

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Vendors like ProImage America, Inc. will once again exhibit on the tradeshow floor. Pictured are Rick Shafranek, VP of sales and marketing (left) and Mike Monter, VP of operations, at last year’s show.

companies—Mike Gugliotto of Pioneer Media Group and John Rung of Shaw Media—reviewing the approaches to consider and metrics to watch when publishers are looking to reduce the print frequency of seven-day publications.

Hudler said she and her team decided for the Nancy Lane, Local Media Association president, first time to make the welcoming attendees at last year’s conference. focus of the conference’s final day about improving top-line revenue. On Feb. 25, Kim Ward, director of training and development for Learning Outsource Group, will share insights into the changing media sales landscape. As a perk, the first 100 attendees at Ward’s session will also receive a complimentary copy of his latest book, “The New Selling IQ-Cooperation Selling.”

“Kim and his team help companies improve their sales organization’s ‘win rates,’” Hudler said. “Media companies will be able to send their revenue leaders in greater numbers for some top-notch professional development to this day at a bargain rate, without having to obliterate their entire sales management team by making them miss the rest of the work week.”

Ultimately, Hudler hopes attendees walk away from this year’s conference with new ideas, connections and conversations.

“Any one of these could turn into something big and make a lasting impact on the future of their business. Seldom does a webinar or newsletter give you that same opportunity or impact,” she said.

“That’s why we have the Mega-Conference.”  FEBRUARY 2017 | E & P

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industry insight

Putting the Government on Notice Legal ad revenue will disappear soon unless newspapers innovate

By Matt DeRienzo

A

n important battle over open government and the public’s right to know, or a debate that exposes the newspaper industry’s hypocrisy and failure to innovate?

One could argue that a recent battle over paid newspaper legal notices in New Jersey was both, and it has huge ramifications for the rest of the country.

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legal notices in local newspapers.

Newspapers suggested it was Christie seeking retribution for unfavorable coverage, which is probably true.

They said that trusting municipalities to post legal notices on their own local government websites instead would lack right-toknow safeguards and reach fewer people.

No doubt, true.

But industry leaders also argued that the move would be a financial disaster for New Jersey newspapers, likely leading to the loss of further reporting jobs. This is also true, and very troubling to those who see a vibrant press as crucial to democracy. But it is also where their argument goes off the rails.

If it’s about the money, Christie argued, doesn’t this amount to a taxpayer subsidy of private business? Putting the legal notice matter aside, would publishers really stand up and say that the press in America should be funded by government?

And make no mistake, as much as the argument is framed in terms of right to know and government transparency, it really is about the money. In New Jersey alone, it’s $20 million a year, according to the industry, and $80 million, according to Christie.

When is the last time Gannett published a front page editorial in all of its New Jersey newspapers, as it did over the legal notice debate, to support a Freedom of Information Act or government transparency issue that didn’t also relate to a significant amount of advertising revenue?

And if it’s about the right to know, what are newspapers doing to make sure that these legal notices are seen by as many people as possible?

As legal notice revenue has been threatened by similar legislation in other states, newspapers have made a feeble push to make sure notices are online as well, but I’d challenge you to pick any random local newspaper and actually try to find them.

And over the years, even as print circulation and reach have shrunk dramatically, the newspaper industry has fought proposals to broaden the language for legal notice requirements to include online-only news organizations.

Arguing that legal notices must appear in a print publication is only about revenue for publishers (and not all publishers—only print publishers, and only the print publishers who have the legal notice business in a given community).

That being said, there are compelling and crucial-to-democracy arguments in favor of paid legal notices.

The average citizen doesn’t go to his or her town’s website to look for information they don’t know is even going to be there on any given day. The basic concept behind requiring that legal notices be published is that the public will, while thumbing through the sports section, see the notice that a fish-rendering plant has been proposed for their neighborhood, or that their editorandpublisher.com

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tax dollars might be spent on a new truck for the public works director.

Politicians’ argument that legal notices are an undue burden on taxpayers is a straw man. A more transparent government almost always equals better government, and taxpayers save exponentially more in the corruption and waste that are avoided when people are watching and holding public officials accountable.

In Connecticut, former Gov. John Rowland went to prison for accepting gifts in exchange for steering government work to certain contractors. Many believe that he pushed through major, unnecessary public infrastructure projects, including a new youth prison, to create taxpayer-funded contracts for these businesses. A properly published $200 legal ad, in some cases, can save tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money from being wasted or stolen.

If it was about government transparency

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and the right to know, newspapers would be using all of the technology available to them to increase the public’s exposure to legal notices.

One could argue that local governments and newspaper publishers have been complicit in avoiding this. Politicians don’t want the extra scrutiny or public participation that more effective legal notices would bring. Newspapers don’t want to lose print ad revenue by supporting a system that would utilize better technology.

When I was director of news for the old Journal Register Co., it operated a group of weeklies in southern New Jersey that included a title or two with print circulation of less than 1,000 that generated more than half of their revenue from legal notices. My theory at the time was that local officials chose those particular weeklies so that as few people as possible would see the ads.

The argument against changes like the one proposed in New Jersey becomes

increasingly difficult to make. That revenue is going to go away—if not this year, soon.

And the only way to save it is for the newspaper industry to be proactive, to disrupt its own print legal ad system, and come up with a smart, online model that improves government transparency instead of simply protecting its own revenue. 

Matt DeRienzo is a newsroom consultant and a former editor and publisher with Digital First Media. He teaches journalism at Quinnipiac University and the University of New Haven in Connecticut, and is interim executive director of LION Publishers, a trade organization that represents local independent online news publishers.

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business of news

Listen Up!

Are you paying attention to your community’s needs?

By Tim Gallagher

I

f the 2016 election taught the newspaper industry one thing, it’s that we don’t know what’s important to many people in our communities.

Yes, we publish letters to the editor and do “man on the street” reaction to major news stories. But we learned in the voting results of 2016 that there are a lot of issues crucial to the people in our communities that don’t make a typical news narrative.

To hold onto a badge of relevancy, we need to change this. We need to convene the community in conversation about what really matters, even when it is on no one’s council or school board agenda.

Our citizens hunger for solutions to the issues that dominate their lives—financial, upward mobility, race relations, faith. But there is a hopelessness that no one—par24 |

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ticularly the government—really cares. The newspaper’s traditional role has been to report the problem and leave the solutions to others. We are supposed to be disinterested, after all. This “hands off” method leaves the public seeing us as uninterested in our communities, especially after a decade of cutbacks that have us sending fewer reporters and photographers, and supporting fewer philanthropic efforts with free or low-cost ad space. People see their newspaper as no more engaged as any other national operation with a local franchise.

There’s time to change this. And people want us to change it. They’re talking, but there’s no one—particularly the government—listening.

There will be barriers to this: time;

doubters within your own organization; partisans. Charge ahead anyway. Here’s how.

Don’t think you have to invent this.

There likely is a well-respected alliance in your community who might have formed for another reason and has started the process. At the very least, they’ve got a good mailing list. Find the one with no aim other than forming civic alliances.

Choose a face to announce your forum. It could be your columnist, or a college president, or a retired military base commander. Someone with stature who is respected and has colleagues along the political spectrum lends gravitas to the effort.

Publicize and report. Invite your entire community using your print and digital fingers. And report on what is said. editorandpublisher.com

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Open the doors to “not the usual suspects.” The first to sign up will usually be those with a cause. That’s fine, but you seek those who don’t go to council or school board meetings regularly. You might invite some thoughtful letter writers, or ask local elected officials for some of their intelligent and involved constituents.

Choose the moderator carefully.

Local community colleges or colleges can provide trained moderators who can ensure a flowing conversation that includes everyone who attends. Consider a time clock because no one wants to show up to a community forum for all that is dominated by a few.

Talk about what’s important. My community has a severe problem with heroin addiction among young people. The local weekly reported the program and organized forums. They gave a very loud voice to the families of these young people.

What is serious where you live?

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Celebrate what’s good. These do not always have to be serious. Each spring invite top scholars from local high schools and community colleges to talk about what’s next for them. What they see as their goals and challenges.

Avoid partisan issues when possible. It might be impossible to ignore issues such as cuts to social benefits programs (and maybe that ought to be a topic), but endeavor to avoid topics that clearly split along red and blue lines.

Listen. Really listen. Your staff ought to gather in the days after these public forums to talk about what they heard. Resist the urge to categorize people or dismiss their concerns.

Do something. Report back to your community what you are doing to do differently as a result of listening to their concerns. It might be a series, a new beat, a change in policy or simply more pointed and accurate coverage with new sources.

But the community needs to know it’s been heard and action was taken.

Much of our industry was shocked to learn that millions of Americans voted for a political novice just because they thought the people they had been electing were not listening. Our industry should not be hard of hearing. 

Tim Gallagher is president of The 20/20 Network, a public relations and strategic communications firm. He is a former Pulitzer Prizewinning editor and publisher at The Albuquerque Tribune and the Ventura County Star newspapers. Reach him at tim@the2020network.com.

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digital publishing

Get Ready for the ‘Post-Truth’ Era Why fake news can be a good thing

By Rob Tornoe

I

n the wake of the election of Donald Trump as president, journalists have been stymied by an unrelenting and seemingly ubiquitous foe that threatens to undermine not only the integrity of journalism, but the truth itself.

Fake news has certainly left a mark this year, thanks in no small part to Facebook and its ability to promote networks of highly partisan media outlets to large audiences.

During the election, a made-up story about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump was shared by tens of millions of people. An outlet called the Denver Guardian saw stories about Hillary Clinton murdering people go viral. And don’t even get me started on #Pizzagate.

Before we go too deep down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, made-up news purveyors and Russian hackers, it’s important to note that fake news isn’t new.

Ben Franklin, who among other things was a newspaperman, once printed a fake Boston newspaper with a headline story about murderous Native Americans that were bringing scalps of soldiers and civilians to King George III. It didn’t take long for the widely-circulated fake news story to end 26 |

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up republished in more credible publications, which alarmed the public and led to widespread outrage against Native Americans.

In fact, looking at the history of fake news in the United States shows the rise of madeup stories and yellow journalism actually created an appetite for more objective news, and at the turn of the 20th century, modern journalism, with real reporters covering statehouses and beats, became a successful and powerful business model.

The internet is the first real challenge to the notion of objective news in the past 100 years. Not only has the shifting media landscape cost newspapers their former prestige and reporting power, algorithms on social media platforms like Facebook have no interest in the truth or facts—they just coldly serve the content readers have indicated they want to see. And people are taking notice.

According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center, 64 percent of U.S. adults say made-up news is having an impact, creating confusion about basic facts and current issues. Even worse, despite an overall confidence in their ability to spot fake news,

nearly a quarter of Americans (23 percent) admit they have shared a fake political news stories online.

It’s not just Facebook that’s the problem.

If you head over to Google and search, “Did the Holocaust happen? or “Is the Holocaust real?” the top results for both are fringe, anti-Semitic websites that deny the Holocaust’s existence.

Google is aware of the problem. They just refuse to do anything about it.

“We do not remove content from our search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content, malware and violations of our webmaster guidelines,” a Google spokesperson told Forbes, noting that the search platform doesn’t endorse those views.

But there could be a silver lining for publishers.

“Fake news might trigger a good thing,” Almar Latour, publisher and executive vice president for Dow Jones Media Group, shared recently with Nieman Journalism Lab. “A reminder of the extraordinary value of truth and perhaps a realization that, after much agonizing over the viability of the news business, there is a raison d’être beyond the accumulation of digital eyeballs.”

Unfortunately, other than ramping up fact-checking efforts during the presidential campaign and writing an op-ed or two decrying our “post-truth” era, newspapers and online publishers have done little to combat the rise in fake news.

But there are opportunities for publishers, both large and small, to combat the problem of misinformation in their own communities and rebuild the trust readers once had in their products, a trust that frankly many news organization have taken for granted.

One way is to continue (or if you haven’t done so yet, start) fact-checking efforts throughout the next four years. It’s basic branding—if people are overwhelmed by the onslaught of fake news, present yourself as the alternative. Pick and choose which fake news stories are gaining steam in your coverage area and pounce. No single outlet can debunk every fake news story, so be strategic about where you deploy your newsroom resources. Soon, fact-checking will not only become part of your daily journalism mix, readers will come to expect it and soon be editorandpublisher.com

1/20/17 10:26 AM

acting like the fact checkers themselves on social media by sharing your links.

Another is to stop avoiding your comments section. I know, they can be a cesspool of hate and anger at times, but it does no good for media companies to simply dismiss a component of its readership, no matter how ugly. Instead, editors and reporters should be promoting full transparency with their readers by interacting, seeking input and correcting lies and falsehoods in their comment sections.

“Journalists must seek to elevate the community, serving as a true platform of ideas rather than a command-and-control distribution force for facts we deem interesting,” said Rebekah Monson, co-founder and vice president of product of WhereBy.Us. Another way is to be objective to the truth, not to partisanship. I’ve heard complaints from many editors that during the election there was the perception among their readers and commenters that their

coverage slanted anti-Trump, so at times their organization overemphasized stories negative to Clinton in an attempt to seem fair and balanced (New York Times columnist Paul Krugman referred to it as “whitewashing Trump”).

It didn’t do much to change readers’ perceptions. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 32 percent of Americans have trust in news organizations. Among conservatives, that number plummets to 14 percent.

In some cases, there’s not much you can do to convince some readers that your publication is unbiased, especially with a Republican president criticizing the press nearly every chance he gets. The only real option is to stop any false equivalency and allow the editorial instincts of your staff to dictate what stories matter and why. Be objective to the truth—that’s where any news organization’s real value lies.

It’s that value proposition of access to meaningful and truthful information that

newspapers and media companies should be selling. So, get rid of all the ads that bog down your mobile pages, stop pumping out pages and pages of duplicative content focused on volume and ever-declining CPMs, and focus on offering objectivity and transparency to your readers.

Just make sure to continue to give all your stories a good headline. This is 2017, after all. 

Rob Tornoe is a cartoonist and columnist for Editor and Publisher, where he writes about trends in digital media. He is also a digital editor for Philly.com. Reach him at robtornoe@gmail.com.

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production

BY GRETCHEN A. PECK

THE SEAMLESS WORKFLOW OF THE FUTURE Publishers get a few steps closer to the ‘publish-once, output-many’ model

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F

lash back to the 1990s. The internet was a gleaming new tool.

ISPs like AOL and Netscape were making mainstream access to it possible, though they were charged exorbitant hourly rates to do so.

At print and publishing conferences around the United States, publishers of all genres gathered in big halls and listened to panels of tech experts about what the internet could mean for their future business models. And while there was a certain amount of fear that digital would one day destroy the print model, the vibe was mostly upbeat and excited. It was a dynamic time, rife with opportunity to publish in new ways and reach new audiences.

The challenges to multi-channel publishing were quickly realized, however.

The most formidable one was how to manage content that was purely digital but intended for different output media and specifications. Take, for example, images.

How would a single photo file be parsed to print in high-resolution format while also being down-sampled on the fly to a lower-resolution version for publishing on the web? Today, that’s even more of a challenge as publishers level mobile and social media, too.

Steady Progress Two decades ago, publishers hoped for help from developers who would create centralized, output-platform independent and highly automated solutions that would help them do just that.

Catalogers took the lead. That industry quickly realized that customers would soon expect to browse inventory online and initiate their transactions electronically, so they went to work creating behemoth content management systems that would act as a “living” repository of images, product information, and pricing. A single change to content made to the repository would immediately be reflected online and in a future print output. But the systems they built were expensive and required a lot of tailoring and engineering to make them do what they needed them to do.

As newspapers began to really struggle with their business model during that decade, hiring an SAP consultant to build a custom workflow of this kind was simply out of their budgetary reach.

There have been many developers in the years since that have afforded newspapers the technology to publish digitally. They not only push content to the web or mobile apps but they are adept at measuring the reach and popularity of that content as well.

When social media flourished in the past five years, again, developers stepped up and created low-cost applications that allowed publishers to “publish once, output many.”

But there remains a disconnect between the print and digital workflows at many newspapers across the nation—so much so that it has impacted the organizational structure. There are print teams and digital teams, working side-by-side yet redundantly in many cases. This can mean two teams for newsrooms, two teams for production, even two teams for sales, all dependent on the output medium. And while there is an argument to be made that content should be optimized for output medium—perhaps long-form reporting is better suited to print, for example—this two-pronged approach seems inefficient at a time when newspaper organizations need efficiency more than ever.

Patrick O’Lone is the director of software development for TownNews.com, one of the developers that have been diligently working to create that seamless, platform-independent workflow that publishers need.

“Newspapers’ attitudes towards multi-channel content has been a work-in-

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Looking for a Software Partner? Here are a Few Companies Currently Working with Newspapers.

Arc Publishing Created by engineers at The Washington Post, this suite of content management tools enables print and digital newsrooms to publish across channels and platforms.

Clients include: Alaska Dispatch News, The Globe and Mail, Willamette Week

Atex Atex’s dm.polopoly is a modular web-based CMS for multi-channel publishing from a single browser-based user interface.

Clients include: Newsday, Bell Media, The Irish Times

Miles 33 Miles 33 has a portfololio of content management tools, including its GN4 Editorial Content Management system, the TARK4 Media Asset Management System, and its VIRTUALCMS, a cloud-based web CMS for newspapers, magazines and radio.

Clients include: Alpha Newspaper Group, La Sicilia, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, Newspapers of New England Group

NEWSCYCLE Solutions The company is known for Newscycle Content, which enables publisher to plan, manage, produce, and share news content in a streamlined, collaborative environment. It promises a single, central repository for all media assets, and publishes to both print and digital platforms.

Clients include: Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, GateHouse Media, The Dallas Morning News

TownNews.com TownNews.com has developed the BLOX CMS, a suite of layout, editing, search and digital publishing tools.

Clients include: Richmond Times-Dispatch, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Omaha World-Herald

Matt Leclercq, Fayetteville Observer managing editor and head of audience strategies

progress for years, but is now starting to ramp up,” O’Lone said. “I am seeing more and more newspapers starting to adopt an online-first workflow where content is first posted online and then pulled into the print product as the deadline approaches.”

Still, there are the perpetual challenges of standardized output files, which are perpetually changing in the digital space, particularly with digital images and now video.

“The technology mostly exists to make print and digital co-exist in a seamless workflow,” O’Lone said. “For a lot of newspapers, as revenue continues to decline, keeping up with modern equipment, web browsers, software, and tools is becoming challenging.

“A lot of tools are provided by companies like TownNews.com, which can help newspapers better push content to multi-channel (output)— print, web, and mobile—consolidate page design and layout workflow, and provide automation of updates to content.”

With investment in not only the technology but also skilled IT staff, publishers may finally leap the hurdle and move one step closer to that Utopian workflow imagined all those years ago.

O’Lone added, “In the long run, I think that web and newsroom teams will be consolidated for most organizations.”

A Workflow in Transition “We’re in the middle of a content management transition,” said Matt Leclercq, managing editor and head of audience strat-

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Deputy editor for news Lorry Williams edits a story in the Fayetteville Observer’s front-end system before exporting it to the web. (Photo by Shane Dunlap/Fayetteville Observer)

egies at The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer. The formerly family-owned publication was acquired by GateHouse Media last fall and currently is in the process of adopting the parent company’s workflow: a new front-end system for print and a new web content management system developed by NEWSCYCLE Solutions. Prior to the acquisition, the publisher had two systems—one for web, one for print—and

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Leclercq noted that it was imperfect but workable.

“Our front-end system is fairly antiquated and not used by anyone else in North America anymore, I believe,” he said. “We originate most articles in this system, and then export them to our web CMS. Most articles are exported multiple times as the stories develop.

Once the articles import into the CMS, usually within five minutes, we have web producers who layer on digital content, including photos, related stories, slideshows, embedded tweets or videos, etcetera, and give the article appropriate play on the homepage.

“The system has been imperfect because we have had to operate in these two different systems—a web team that focuses their time in the CMS, and much of the rest of the room that is operating in the front-end system,” he said.

Their current solution also served as the newspaper’s mobile platform, but post-transition, Leclercq predicts that the new mobile strategy may include a native application.

One of the most significant ways in which the content management structure impacted the news organization in Fayetteville was in staff and training. Prior to 2013, the web team worked exclusively in the web CMS. That was deemed inefficient, too, and more of a crossfunctional approach was adopted. Increasingly, staff outside of the web team were trained to use the web CMS, so that they could also manage content, blog and create photo galleries, for example.

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3 QUESTIONS WITH… Jim Thompson, production director, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle What has been your greatest challenge and how did you overcome it?

Probably the toughest challenge that we currently are facing is the need to continue to put out quality products on time while reducing expenses. For print, there is the drive to produce a more diverse package of products, which are designed to enhance the experience of our readers and increase revenue. Our challenge is to do that without major increases in production costs. The second part of that is trying to find time to schedule diverse products into the available time slots. This industry can no longer afford the luxury of running only one size or type of stock for every product.

We have to integrate different stocks and formats, many of them requiring post-press bindery services. The most critical component to overcoming these challenges is the total participation and commitment of a total team concept.

Where do you see the future of print production?

I honestly believe that this industry is in transition. I feel that for digital will be a major source of hard breaking news. With there being a 24-hour news cycle, it only makes sense to have an outlet that allows for the timely release of updated information.

That being said, I see a continued presence for print products.

However, I would think that rather than being the main source, we will see print production moving to being more of niche product. Not quite sure what that looks like, but features, enterprise and investigative stories, as well as lifestyle products could gain quite a bit of traction with targeted print products. Those products would probably be better able to receive premium pricing for advertising, and possibility distribution.

What printing technologies are you most excited about?

I’m most excited about the move to digital printing presses.

There has been a lot of movement toward ink-jet printing presses which would allow to better target audiences by being able to orient more of the product to specific interests and needs. There is also the reduction in not only costs associated with legacy technologies (plates, ink, chemicals), but also the reduced environmental signature that would be associated with that.

Jim Thompson has served as the production director of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle since 2000. Prior to that, he was a production manager for Lehman Communications.

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Beth Hutson, the digital and print production team leader at the Fayetteville Observer, working in the paper’s web CMS. (Photo by Shane Dunlap/Fayetteville Observer)

“Today, almost everyone has exposure to the CMS, and at least understands how it works and can speak the language,” Leclercq said. “We work much more as a team, in terms of a shared sense of urgency in reporting the news online and our awareness of how content should play on the web and on social (media).”

The transition to the new content management workflow designed

by GateHouse Media carries on, but the ripples of the changes can

always be sensed.

“In terms of managing content for different channels, I would say that we’ve largely streamlined it to one main flow,” Leclercq said.

“Most content originates in the front-end system, and our newsroom editors promptly read it and export it to the web. The editors ensure the stories remain updated for the web throughout the day, and do the final edit for print before moving the files to the print copy desk.

“Our morning editor meetings are focused almost entirely on digital—what we have on the site now, what our competitors have, and what’s coming in during day and how it will be played. That’s much different from, say, four years ago when most of the room focused on the print channel, except for that web team that would passively take the content online when it was ready.”

While the Fayetteville Observer is quite literally in the midst of transforming its editorial content workflow, that sense of transformation is likely felt at thousands of other newspapers across the nation, too, as the multi-platform workflow of the future is, at last, within reach.  Gretchen A. Peck is an independent journalist who has reported on publishing and printing for more than two decades. She has contributed to Editor and Publisher since 2010 and can be reached at gretchenapeck@ gmail.com.

Sold:

Three Iowa Daily Newspapers: • The Washington Journal, Washington, Iowa • The Fairfield Ledger, Fairfield, Iowa • Mount Pleasant News, Mount Pleasant, Iowa Cribb, Greene & Cope is pleased to have represented the Murray family in their sale to Cedar Rapids Media Co.

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John Cribb

Gary Greene

Randy Cope

JCribb@Cribb.com 406.579.2925

GGreene@Cribb.com 434.227.0952

RCope@Cribb.com 214.356.3227

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HOOK, LINE, and SINKER Media disruptors that will influence the industry in 2017

illustration by tony o. champagne

By Taylor Hill

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I

n 2016, disruptors of the newspaper-publishing model—from digital distribution, mobile platforms, and social media networks—contributed to what has culminated in the most disruptive year in American mainstream media in some time. And while the rise of “fake news” captured headlines, it’s not a 21st Century phenomenon. The proliferation of untruthful-on-purpose stories has persisted since the invention of the printing press (before that, they were just called “rumors”).

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HOOK, LINE, and SINKER But what has changed is how the stories, once relegated to the Weekly World News on grocery store magazine racks (who could forget Bat Boy?), are now disseminated. The internet and the digital revolution have paved the way for anyone with an idea—no longer beholden to publishers— access to audience. Social media is their bullhorn, and their distribution platform.

Now, when you scroll through Facebook or Twitter, a real story with real sources looks identical to a fake story; same size, same font, different link. “Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby” is alongside “Hillary Clinton Email Scandal” is next to “Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Senior Strategist Practices Occult Rituals” and so on.

In a year when live streaming video feeds from social media users pushed stories of racially charged police violence into the national spotlight, and trending technologies such as expiring content (a la Snapchat and Instagram Stories) and immersive technologies including VR were promised to upend how we consume news, the climax of the year came in Nov. 8, when Donald J. Trump won the presidency. Technology’s power to perpetuate disinformation across modern media platforms had been exposed—potentially influencing the American electorate in the process. Now, the challenge for the newspaper industry will be how to respond to an age-old media problem in a new media world.

Here are a few media disruptors the industry should be bracing for in 2017.

Fake News In the 2016 political season, no one was safe from false information scrolling across social media feeds—even Donald Trump Jr. retweeted an obviously fake email supposedly from Hillary Clinton showing she secretly paid off pollsters to fudge poll results. Stories meant to intentionally mislead became the story in 2016—to the chagrin of journalism, which 36 |

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relies on facts, truth, and reality.

For newspapers, the problem is that online and on social media platforms such as Facebook’s newsfeed, misinformation and purposefully deceitful content can run alongside a Washington Post or New York Times story—garnering just as many clicks, if not more. The shift has put individuals such as Mike Cernovich, a champion of the alt-right, Clinton conspiracy theorist, and Twitter star in the same echelon as institutional media giants.

“The media still thinks of itself as speaking truth to power,” Cernovich told the New Yorker in October. “What they don’t realize is that someone like me is perceived as the new Fourth Estate.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri and longtime critic of fake news, told the New York Times in November that “journalism is partly to blame” for the pro-

liferation of fake news. Traditional media outlets’ inability to adjust as the internet upended established business models, and social media flooded users with alternative news sources allowed “fake news to get way out ahead of them,” she said.

In 2017, the work to stop the flow of disinformation is just beginning. Facebook, which has long avoided being held accountable for the quality of “news” sites posting to the newsfeed, began experimenting in December on ways to limit misinformation posted on its site.

Some of the tests include making it easier for Facebook’s 1.8 billion users to report fake news, and figuring out ways to limit advertising dollars that go to individuals or groups on Facebook who regularly post fake news and profit from it. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the site will also be teaming up with third-party fact

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checkers such as ABC News, The Associated Press, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and Snopes, a website dedicated to determining “true” and “false” statement on the internet since 1995.

“The initiative is aimed at confronting the increasing volume of misinformation online by enhancing users’ ability to report questionable posts and providing a mechanism by which their accuracy can be evaluated by third-party fact checkers and flagged where appropriate as ‘disputed,’ so that social media users can learn more and make informed choices before sharing them,” Snopes wrote in a blog post.

In some countries, waiting for social media sites to figure out how to stop the flow of misinformation isn’t enough. In an interview with the Financial Times, Italy’s antitrust chief, Giovanni Pitruzzella, said EU countries should set up independent bodies which would be instructed to quickly label fake news, work to remove those from circulation, and impose fines if necessary.

“Post-truth in politics is one of the drivers of populism and it is one of the threats to our democracies,” Pitruzzella said. “We have reached a fork in the road: we have to choose whether to leave the internet like it is, the Wild West, or whether it needs rules that appreciate the way communication has changed.”

For newspapers to survive, Michael Rosenblum, founder of Current TV, said publishers need to produce content in a new way—the all-inclusive, open style of the internet.

Instead of having New York Times, Washington Post or NBC employees curate the content you read or see, the news could come from anyone, at any time—but with a “seal of approval” from said publication.

While thousands of individuals are writing and uploading video on a daily basis—most of which is “utterly rubbish,” Rosenblum wrote in a Huffington Post blog post, “The free press also gave us J.K. Rowling, who gave us Harry Potter. She editorandpublisher.com

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was what we might call a ‘citizen writer.’

Just a woman with an idea and a pencil. A blogger, before there were blogs.”

The smart move, according to Rosenblum, is for newspapers and media companies to go “from being sole creators of their own content to being publishers of the best of all content. Let them apply their same standards of excellence not just to their own stuff but also to the world of thousands of other people around the world who now, unleashed, are also creating content.”

Real-Time Fact Checking In the midst of the 2016 presidential race, National Public Radio decided to try something new: Take a near real-time annotation of a transcript from the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and have a team of 30 newsroom staffers fact-check the candidates’ comments, and post them on their website.

The massive effort worked, with more than 7 million people visiting the site in just one day—a record audience for the public nonprofit media organization. Some called the fact-checking bias, as NPR staffers ended up fact-checking more of Trump’s statements than Clinton’s.

“It’s not possible to fact-check every candidate statement,” NPR ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen wrote in a blog post. “Some additional statements could have been checked but, overall, I think NPR’s team offered a valuable service that met the goal of providing citizens with information they need to make their November decisions.”

In 2017, that type of real-time fact checking will be infiltrating more of your news sources and social media feeds. At the Washington Post, the politics team introduced a new plug-in extension for Google Chrome and Firefox internet search engines that will automatically supply

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HOOK, LINE, and SINKER additional context and fact-checking of Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

One example shows a Trump tweet where he explains “in addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions who voted illegally.”

When the extension is downloaded, a gray box will appear below Trump tweets, and in the case of the illegal voting tweet, The Washington Post wrote: “Trump didn’t win in a landslide in any sense, but more importantly there is absolutely no evidence that there were a significant number of votes cast illegally, much less ‘millions’ of them.”

While billed as straight fact checking, David Z. Morris at Fortune Magazine questions the intent of the Post’s targeting of Trump’s Twitter account. He pointed to one Tweet where the Washington Post’s commentary bordered on partisan apologetics—clarifying that DNC chairperson Donna Brazile’s actions of emailing questions that were to be asked in a Democratic primary town hall event to Hillary Clinton’s campaign were not illegal.

“We’re now in a political climate where even studiously objective fact-checkers like Snopes and Politifact get branded as ‘far-left’ when they comment on dubious right-wing news,” Morris wrote.

“

We’re the ones consuming all this news. Our clicks feed ads and show media companies what sorts of stories go viral— which can lead to more of those types of stories.”

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“If the Post truly wants to encourage more measured dialogue— rather than just flattering those who have done things that are ‘in no way illegal’—they may want to reassess their approach.”

Media Bias Goes Ballistic Criticism around the increasing political bias in the media reached epic proportions in 2016; with television interviews regularly turning into shouting matches on air and many newspapers straight out calling the new president a liar. All the while, the ratings for many television news networks are soaring ever higher, cable networks are drawing in record audiences, and even newspapers are reaching online readership highs.

Unfortunately, the cost of all that one-sidedness in news stories has in part led to Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” to drop to an all-time low. According to a 2016 Gallup poll, 32 percent of respondents said they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media—down eight percentage points from last year—and the lowest mark since the question was first asked in 1972.

At the same time, print subscriptions are continuing to decline, exacerbated by a print advertising plunge that was “much more precipitous, to be honest with you, than anybody expected a year or so ago,” The Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker told Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times.

That spells trouble, as nearly half of newspaper readers surveyed in a 2016 Pew Research poll consumed newspaper only in the printed form, and newspaper business models rely on the printed product for more than three-quarters of their advertising revenue.

Since 2000, the number of journalists in newsrooms across America has been cut nearly in half—down to 32,900 full-time journalists at nearly 1,400 U.S. dailies, according to the American Society of News Editors 2015 annual census.

That decline leaves the remaining news members less equipped to publish accurate, timely news without just aggregating and rewriting possibly error-laden stories—leaving media outlets vulnerable to fake news bait. Additionally, click-based advertising pushes editors and writers to publish evermore-sensational, potentially inaccurate headlines online, allowing fake news sites to survive amongst the hyperbole.

The movement has also spurred popularity in alt-right publications such as Breitbart News and Occupy Democrats to the far left. Those types of news organizations, which regularly post and promote misinformation, can perpetuate biases through the social media channels we use on a daily basis to get our news.

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doesn’t help when it comes to news, where it may just strengthen existing bias.”

But the final firewall against perpetuating media bias is ourselves.

“We’re the ones consuming all this news. Our clicks feed ads and show media companies what sorts of stories go viral—which can lead to more of those types of stories,” Borel said. “Each time you like a Facebook post, your connections become a new audience.

And it has your implicit signature of approval. We can think before we click: Who is providing this news? Do they have incentives to lie? And if we see our connections spreading lies, how might we confront them?”

Democratization of News—Gatekeepers Gone Social media blew the gates off news distribution and broadcasting platforms some at the beginning of this decade,

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pushing a disruptive new voice loud and clear through multiple media channels.

Suddenly, social media and public publishing platforms were empowering the voiceless in closed-media countries, and onceisolated groups could communicate and gather in real-time. The shift has been seen as partly responsible for triggering the toppling of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and jump-starting the Arab Spring across the Middle East. But the consequences of crowdsourcing news aren’t always so honorable.

In the aftermath and confusion of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, users of Reddit—a 70-million-plus-member online community—wrongfully accused a missing 22-year-old, Sunil Tripathi, of being behind the bombings, posting his photo on Facebook and Twitter as one of the bombing suspects. Tripathi’s family received threats for their son’s involvement, even though he had nothing to do with the bombing. Tragically, Tripathi was already dead, his body found later in Rhode Island’s Providence River.

In a post for Nieman Journalism Lab, media consultant Erin Pettigrew explained it like this: “Where our culture of broadcast

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HOOK, LINE, and SINKER media once catered to the center and traded on trust, the age of social media thrives on contagious, memetic ideas replicating via network effects,” she wrote. “In oppressed countries, this opportunistic channel enables needed protest to rise from the everyman. In established democracies, it can be rapidly gamed toward destabilization.”

In 2017, the flow toward individual, or citizen journalism will continue, as social media sites such as Facebook, Snapchat, Youtube, and Instagram push live broadcasting, where users post live video footage to their home pages. News sites are using the social media’s “live” features to reach new online audiences, and now it appears marketers could be hopping on the bandwagon to further blur the lines of journalistic integrity.

“If we are able to harness the incredible data users are offering us through live video and exploit the right technologies, 2017 should be the year we see true moment-based, real-time advertising come to life,” Jon Elvekrog, managing director of advertising company 140 Proof, wrote for MediaPost. “Marketers have been obsessed with real-time interactions for years and have gotten more and more creative with their campaigning, incorporating environmental, social and political factors into strategies.”

“

Across dozens of studies, a pattern emerges in that VR tends to be a more effective tool than other media and roleplaying techniques.”

The Power of Immersive Video When Google Glass came out in 2014—and quickly went away eight months later—the idea of augmented reality or virtual reality devices becoming mainstream took a hit. But Snapchat’s selfie lenses, the wild success of Pokémon Go, and the increasing options available for virtual reality headsets are paving the way for 2017 to be the year of AR/VR. Augmented reality provides a digital overlay onto the real world (think of the popular dog tongue and dog ears Snapchat filter). It may just seem like child’s play now, but Shane Scranton, CEO and co-founder of IrisVR, thinks AR headgear—such as Snapchat’s Spectacles—could pave the way and eventually support the more immersive and realistic capabilities available for pricey VR products like Oculus Rift and Playstation VR. “We believe that, in the future, AR will drive the widespread adoption of immersive technology, and VR will be available on the same devices as AR,” Scranton said, “and this enables massive opportunities for gaming, social networking, and collaborative enterprise.”

For journalists and publishers, AR/VR could be an opportunity to grab readers’ attention on a whole new level and make a story more powerful than ever before. Studies have shown that virtual reality experiences can impact thoughts and behaviors in the real world. The immersive technology can place individuals in others’ shoes in an entirely novel way.

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In one example, one group of participants were shown timelapse video footage of a coral reef dying, while another group was given VR headgear, and a similar video that depicted the individual as a piece of coral reef. Over the time-lapse, viewers would watch as their coral limbs were corroded by ocean acidification.

The researchers found that those who experienced the VR simulation perceived acidification to be a more imminent environmental problem than the participants who just watched the video on a screen.

“Across dozens of studies, a pattern emerges in that VR tends to be a more effective tool than other media and role-playing techniques,” Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, told NBC News.

Media outlets are beginning to adopt the technology, but are still working on figuring out best storytelling practices in an immersive experience that requires text, audio, video footage, graphics and “navigation cues” that signal where the viewer should be looking, and when.

“There is no question that VR has the power to break down barriers and deeply move people,” The World Editors Forum stated in its 2016 Trends in Newsrooms annual report. But too much visual stimulation could overwhelm or offend viewers, too. “There is concern that the high level of immersion may be so intense that it could be psychologically damaging. Correct labeling is critical,” the report said.  editorandpublisher.com

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25Under352017.qxp_Layout 1 11/17/16 10:57 AM Page 1

25 35 Under

We’re Looking for the Future Generation of Newspaper Leaders Editor & Publisher wants to recognize the next generation of newspaper publishing leaders, and we need your help. We’re talking about people who are young, bright, and capable of tackling whatever the changing newspaper climate throws at them. People with business acumen to lead through trying times and vision to implement bold, new strategies to move their newspapers forward.

Please help us by nominating a newspaper up-andcomer (or yourself) for our “Publishing Leaders — 25 Under 35” feature article that will appear in E&P’s April issue.

Nominations are open to men and women age 35 years and younger. Candidates may be publishers, editors, advertising executives, circulation managers or other newspaper leaders. Nominees must own or work for a print or online newspaper.

Deadline: Feb. 13, 2017 Nominate online: editorandpublisher.com/25under35

editorandpublisher.com

GAME ON! Six digital strategies newspapers should apply this year

By Sean Stroh

F

or newspaper publishers across the country, striking gold in the digital realm in 2017 means so much more than just a slick new website or improved page views. Today’s online readers want engagement, personalization and specialized content that can’t be found anywhere else. While the task of developing new and effective digital plans of action may seem like a daunting task, E&P has compiled six digital strategies for newspapers to consider employing this year.

1

Personalize Email Newsletters

Personalizing email newsletters doesn’t mean simply attaching the reader’s name at the top of an email. Users not only want a customized experience, but they would prefer it to have it delivered to them with little to no work on their end. Think of it this way—why hand over one item to every single person when not every one of them want the same product?

This question was the focus of recent Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow Tracy Clark’s research and pilot project with the Austin American-Statesman in Texas.

Over the course of a six-month period, Clark compared the results of a personalized newsletter and the paper’s standard editor-selected newsletter to its readers. The data left little ambiguity over what people wanted.

According to Clark, the personalized newsletter had twice the open rate and three times the click rate of the standard newsletter. The customized newsletters were delivered on Clark’s Reportory platform, an a-la-carte customized news platform that publishers can use to provide personalized news to their readers.

“What if you can just have one platform

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where the people curate their own news and the newsletter was based on that?” Clark said. “My hope is that Reportory can be white labeled by some of the major newspaper groups who can then offer it to their readers.”

However, Clark wasn’t the only one in the industry who recognized the potential of news personalization. Last April, Crain Communications announced that its new city brands would feature “smart email newsletters that customize business news based on location, reader preferences and engagement.” Meanwhile, The Washington Post experimented with “pop-up newsletters” as a way to showcase enterprise projects. The emails were targeted at users who, based on their reading history, were likely to have a strong curiosity in the topic.

“It is a valuable tactic because relevant content is one way to get reader’s to open publisher emails and click through to your content as well as relevant advertiser messages,” said Penny Merian, chief marketing officer of HubCiti, a developer of mobile apps. “It has been proven to significantly boost open rates and click through rates.”

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2

Shift the Mentality from Advertiser First to User First

It may seem like a counterintuitive approach toward building a digital presence, but newspapers should look to shift their mentality from an advertiser first to a user first strategy.

“It’s been our observation that an ‘advertiser-centric’ digital business model tends to debase the value of the newspaper’s content,” said Matthew Larson, vice president of sales and marketing for Our Hometown, Inc., a digital publishing platform and newspaper CMS. “Publishers end up giving away a large percentage or all of their digital content in order to boost page views and maximize ad revenue. The problem is they are then competing with the other free digital news and information services out there for advertising dollars, which is a battle they cannot win.”

Larson says newspapers can use Our Hometown to provide seamless access to paying subscribers on all devices and offer digital-only features, such as photo galleries and business directories.

“The bottom line is newspapers can still foster healthy digital traffic for advertisers by acting

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as a communication hub in their community, without giving away their editorial content and cannibalizing the print edition,” Larson said.

It’s a mindset that Lisa Strattan, senior vice president/executive editor and publisher of Wicked Local, said was kept in mind during the revamp of Wicked Local’s websites. The network of 160 hyperlocal sites covers the entire Eastern Massachusetts region for GateHouse Media New England.

“We believe that an excellent user experience creates an environment that provides higher value to advertisers with fewer but more meaningful and more effective ad units,” Strattan said, who also serves as executive editor of the Patriot Ledger and The Enterprise in Massachusetts.

“By turning down the ‘noise’ on our sites, we’ve achieved greater impact for our advertisers.”

Thad Swiderski, president of eType Services, a digital solutions company for community newspapers, said that publishers who are able to make their users the priority will have an improved chance of converting at least a portion into paying subscribers.

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3

Develop Your Own Specialized Websites

Prior to the internet, newspapers were unquestionably the experts on their local communities. Why can’t that still be the case in 2017?

Last year, the Arizona Republic launched Street Scout (streetscout.com), a stand-alone real estate valuation site with local information and community guides created by their newsroom.

Keira Nothaft, the Republic’s director of digital innovation, said she and her team recognized a specific need for a reliable local real estate authority. Street Scout was profitable almost immediately after launching and has since received more than 3,500 emails and calls from homeowners, renters, real estate agents and others using the site. Plans for Street Scout in 2017 include a new real estate news page, a personalized dashboard that includes a graphic of your home valuation over time, plus community news feeds and the ability for neighborhood discussions and interaction.

“Real estate is Arizona’s biggest industry and

4

Work With—Not Against—Facebook, Amazon and Google

Facebook, Amazon and Google are commonly seen as the enemy by newspaper publishers for good reason. But what if instead of fighting the big three, you embrace them? Finding a way to partner with companies and apply new technology as part of your digital strategy is a concept newspapers should certainly at least consider.

Two major newspaper groups, Hearst Newspapers and GateHouse Media, are already both using Amazon Echo. In addition to adjusting your lights, checking the weather and playing music, the Echo device can now read aloud the top headlines and a summary of the stories from participating newspapers.

“In each market, our current subscribers as well as non-subscribers will have access to top stories from their local paper delivered by Alexa as part of their daily briefing,” said Alain Begun, vice president of marketing for GateHouse Media. “It will also allow consumers outside of

44 |

buying a home is one of life’s biggest decisions,” Nothaft said. “While there are well-funded, high-traffic national competitors in this space, we knew we could do better and that we needed to do better.”

In some cases, publishers should look to recent changes in local or national laws that may have a direct impact on its readership. Following California’s legalization of recreational marijuana last November, Digital First Media launched The Cannifornian (thecannifornian.com) as a resource to explain the societal, economic, political and cultural impacts of cannabis.

The Boston Globe’s STAT (statnews.com), which launched toward the end of 2015 as a website devoted solely to covering medicine and health news, recently introduced a $299-a-year premium plan for professionals working in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Ultimately, if high-quality premium content is continuously produced by a newspaper, readers will be willing to pay for it.

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a given market access to the top stories from any of the 400-plus GateHouse markets. So, for example, snowbirds home for the summer, can still keep up-to-date with what’s happening in their Florida second-home town.”

Another featured introduced by Google in 2016 was its “local source” tag to promote local coverage of major stories. In its announcement on the Google News blog, the company said the tagging aspect is automated based on “looking at where a publisher has written about in the past and comparing that to the story location.”

When it comes to Facebook Live, the success of papers like the New York Times, which surpassed 100 million views last year in 2016, should further emphasize its importance to publishers. The social media site’s latest technology offering, Facebook Live Audio, can also be used by newspapers to post exclusive online interviews as well as live recaps and podcasts following a sporting or prominent event.

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5

Make Digital Fact Checking an Even Bigger Priority

While the importance of factchecking is a given for traditional newspapers, it saw an even greater resurgence during the last presidential election. Though several months have since passed, its value shouldn’t be overlooked.

Last September, First Draft (firstdraftnews.com) launched a global Partner Network consisting of newsrooms, fact-checkers, human rights organizations and technology platforms in an effort to improve how information is reported and verified.

Participating newspapers include the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian. First Draft’s Claire Wardle said the ultimate goal of the partner network is to raise knowledge and standards of verifying information, put them into practice and share what they learn.

“With local newsrooms struggling financially, the biggest concern is who or what will be able to keep local politicians and institutions accountable,” Wardle said. “So

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if a local newsroom can resource a fact-checking column or segment, it sends an important message to politicians that they are being watched and to audiences that there is a space where claims and statistics will be investigated and explained clearly.”

Several newspapers and organizations have already gotten to work on this issue. A few weeks after the election, the Washington Post released a Chrome plug-in intended to fact check posts from Donald Trump’s Twitter account. The “RealDonaldContext” plug-in adds a grey box to every Trump tweet and clarifies or adds important context to misleading posts made by Trump.

Meanwhile, French newspaper Le Monde is currently working on tackling fake news by having its 13-person factchecking division within the newspaper develop a “hoax busting” database. The paper already maintains a search engine for its readers to check statements made by politicians.

Game On! continues on page 48

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Digital Data You Need to Know Mobile App Use in the U.S. Percentage of mobile app time spent by category

Top Mobile Apps By Category in the U.S. Concentration of time spent in top apps by category

Portals 2% News/Information 2%

Search/Navigation 2% Photos 3%

Social Networking

Retail 4%

Time Spent

77%

Facebook

Instant Messenger 4% Other 27% Multimedia 8%

Games 11%

Snapchat Pinterest

11% 3%

Multimedia

75%

YouTube Social Networking 21%

15%

Netflix

Music 16%

Hulu

3%

Retail

Total U.S. Smartphone Mobile Media Users Reach of the U.S. adult mobile app audience (iOS and Android platforms)

1

Shopkick eBay

App

Reach

Facebook

78.9%

32%

Amazon

7% 5%

Newspapers

2 Facebook Messenger

72.4%

New York Times

3 YouTube

70.0%

Washington Post

4 Google Search

61.4%

Daily Mail

5 Google Maps

55.7%

6 Google Play

52.8%

7 Gmail

46.9%

8 Instagram

43.9%

9 Pandora Radio

40.6%

10 Snapchat

39.3%

50% 47% 12%

Source: comScore Mobile Metrix, U.S., November 2016

Source: comScore, November 2016

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U.S. Digital Advertising Growth from 2015 to 2016 Total online advertising dollars spent in billions across mobile and desktop platforms 2016

$11.00

$17.6

$16.9

$15.9 $14.3

$13.2

Total digital video ad spending across all platforms in billions $10.65 $8.66

$17.4

$15

Total (in Billions)

2015

U.S. Programming Digital Video Ad Spending 2014-2018

$6.18

$3.00 $0.63 Q1

Q2

TBD Q4

Q3

$0.00

Source: IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Reports

2014

2015

2016 Year

2017

2018

Source: eMarketer, September 2016

Print and Digital Newspapers By Generation Percentage of print and digital newspaper readers by generation

Gen Z (18-20)

Millennials (21-34)

Gen X (35-49)

Boomers (50-69)

Greatest Generation (70+)

Print Newspaper Readers

5%

20%

21%

37%

17%

Digital Newspaper Readers

6%

32%

28%

28%

5%

Source: Nielsen Scarborough

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6

Explore the Capabilities of Chatbots

Game On! continued from page 45

To say that chatbots and robot journalism have yet to fully take shape wouldn’t be an inaccurate statement. However, to simply disregard their potential capabilities would be foolish. Last summer, the Washington Post released a chatbot for the Facebook Messenger platform as a way to feature top news stories, election alerts and Olympic coverage. Users were able to engage the bot which then responded with command options. During the Rio Summer Olympics, the chatbot provided information such as medal counts, alerts and the television schedule.

A few months later, the Globe and

Mail launched a similar experiment using its “GloBot” Facebook Messenger chatbot built around providing information on the U.S. election. The bot was designed to send readers who signed up one message a day related to the paper’s coverage of the election. Occasionally, GloBot even offered up a quiz question for readers The Knight Foundation has also taken notice, announcing a $240,000 grant in support for the Quartz Bot Studio to advance understanding of “bots, AI and related technologies for journalism on new platforms.” The studio ultimately plans to share what they learn to the public. 

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editorandpublisher.com

1/20/17 10:40 AM

Vision Data simplifies digital FOR ADVERTISERS: Media Companies need to use every available opportunity to reach their customers - print, digital, mobile, job fairs and many other creative avenues. With Vision Data’s Total Advertising, sales reps can now create a single package order containing multiple revenue types with a single insertion. Total Advertising handles the billing and accrued revenue to provide a seamless monthly bill solution for advertisers. The order can be placed in house or via tablet by the rep in the field providing real time communication with ad designers, accounting and the advertiser.

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Wallit | The subscription management solution

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Wallit, is the most flexible subscription management solution for publishers of all sizes looking to sell their content through a variety of unique subscription purchase options. Built with the user experience and marketer in mind, Wallit allows you to seamlessly and easily segment/change niche content for one-time paid user access, metered sampling, day passes, or engage a full-on site subscription paywall –all without having to engage your IT.

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ProImage develops workflow, ink optimization, press registration, and mobile software solutions that help publishers and printers reduce their costs.

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Rick Shafranek, Vice President Sales & Marketing New ProImage America, Inc. 919-466-9348, Email: Rick.Shafranek@new-proimage.com Web: www.new-proimage.com 50 |

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Cost-Effective Digital Solutions for Newspapers of All Sizes

Essential archive management for newspapers

eType Services (www.etypeservices.com) is a leading provider of e-Edition, websites, mobile apps other digital products and services for community newspapers across the United States.

SmallTownPapers announced the latest release of its flagship service platform ArchiveInABox now allows newspapers to consolidate all archive content in one place. Publishers are given a dedicated web page and management interface to archive all their articles, whether published in print or on their website, and can now upload their weekly PDF print editions. All uploaded content is indexed for search within the platform and external public search engines.

Free online access to the complete archive engages readers and generates revenue for the newspaper through its own local advertising posted on the archive web page.

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eType Services works with over 500 newspapers in 40 states. We supply community newspapers with technology and act as the digital team for papers who do not have a digital team. eType Services goes beyond just providing technology, we consult with newspapers and develop a digital strategy. eType Services’ easy-to-use, affordable solutions help eliminate the barriers to entry for small and medium-sized newspapers seeking to reach more readers – and increase revenue – by uniting their digital and print strategies.

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Friends2Follow drives new social media revenue Recent surveys by Borrell Associates of newspaper advertisers turned up some scary statistics for news organizations: • 79 percent are switching investments in print to digital and; • Advertisers are already spending an average of $1,500 a year on Facebook alone.

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This “social media megaphone” is a great service to advertisers that also improves reader engagement and drives significant new revenue.

More than 250 clients in six countries use the turnkey, white-label widgets that are easy to install and use. Many use them to create social media-driven banner ads or “breaking news” content blocks to steam reporters’ social media. The widgets are mobile ready and have responsive design.

And the best part is that Friends2Follow doesn’t make money unless its clients make money.

Contact: Reinig Morris reinig@friends2follow.com or (801) 403-7966 editorandpublisher.com

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Paul Jeffko paulj@smalltownpapers.com www.ArchiveInABox.com

360-427-6300

Newzware E-Pass provides Digital Readership Management and Account Authorization Offer your customers options for how they purchase your online content. Or restrict them to one dynamic—your choice. The following Newzware E-Pass attributes are available within Newzware Circulation to market your digital media content.

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ICANON Newzware Contact : Gary Markle – Marketing Director Office: 800 544-4450 Cell: 484 919-2928 sales@icanon.com www.newzware.com FEBRUARY 2017 | E & P

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Making Social Media More Personal Publishers find new audiences through messaging apps

By Tim Sohn

S

ocial media platforms like Facebook and Twitter let publishers reach the masses. However, there is a yearning by some (especially youths) to connect with media outlets in a more personal way. Enter messaging—or chat—apps.

Messaging apps allow the user to send and receive messages and notifications on-on-one with other users. Examples of messaging apps include Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Viber, Line (which went public in July), WhatsApp

and WeChat.

In 2015, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, released a “Guide to Chat Apps,” which looks at the opportunities and challenges of using messaging apps for journalism purposes. The executive summary partially reads: “Drawing upon our interviews and case studies, we identify a number of opportunities and challenges for organizations using—or hoping to use—messaging apps for news. We argue that to devise a successful messaging app strategy, publishers must understand regional strongholds, user demographics, and popular features of each app.

Advantages to the chat ecosystem include huge, untapped audiences; high engagement through push notifications; unique products like stickers and ‘chatbots;’ and the opportunity to build community through chat rooms and crowdsourced storytelling. Meanwhile, challenges include limited analytics tools and a fragmented social landscape boasting roughly a dozen messaging apps, each with over 50 million registered users.”

With so many advantages, why shouldn’t news organizations give messaging apps a try? E&P recently caught up with a few media companies who are using them to discuss how and why they are using the apps, the challenges, and what opportunities they found.

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Making Social Media More Personal

The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal began experimenting with messaging apps in November 2014 with Line, a mobile app that lets users send free messages, voice and video calls. The Journal wanted to reach an audience in Asia, according to Carla Zanoni, the paper’s executive emerging media editor.

“Messaging apps started growing in leaps and bounds, and we were curious to see what kind of audience reach we could access and learn different storytelling methods,” Zanoni said.

She explained that it was interesting to see what kinds of content people engage with on Line, especially with longer videos.

Last year, the Journal began experimenting with WhatsApp when it launched its ex-pats section. “We thought maybe it would be interesting to take a small yet very engaged audience and build an ex-pats community,” said Zanoni. She said that the community likes to receive one to two curated articles per week, which it learned by asking for feedback in a Facebook Group.

According to Zanoni, WhatsApp was not created with publishers in mind.

When the Journal looks at implementing messaging apps, it comes down to reaching niche audiences. Line is largely based on geography. For example, the Journal has a Japanese- language Line account, and it reaches more than 84,000 people in Japan. With Snapchat, the Journal is focused on reaching millennials, and with WhatsApp, it’s focused on ex-pats.

“It allows us to really focus on a curation of our journalism and build much more intimate relationships with that audience,” said Zanoni, whereas with

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Twitter, the Journal is promoting many types of stories.

The Journal always sets goals when it launches on a new messaging app—for example, building relationships, driving engagement and raising brand awareness. Whereas, with more legacy-type platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, it focuses on driving people to WSJ.com.

Zanoni said the Journal is able to keep track of some metrics when it comes to messaging apps. Specifically, she tracks referral traffic using vanity URLs on Bitly for Snapchat and WhatsApp. The Journal’s goal of using Snapchat is not just to drive traffic back to the site, but to see an incremental amount of traffic.

For Snapchat Discover, the Journal uses the analytics system that’s built into Snapchat Discover, which it is still learning how to compare. Snapchat Discover is a section of the app that includes curated stories from publishers.

“I would like to explore usage of WhatsApp in Europe and Latin America,” Zanoni said, adding that she expects more growth with Facebook Messenger.

The Journal launched a Facebook Messenger bot in April.

Zanoni provided some advice for other publishers who are just now considering on launching messaging apps.

“There are so many messaging apps.

It feels like you should be on all of them.

Have a deep understanding of who your audience is and what their needs are.

Make sure you’re in the space where your audience is already active. Spend some time listening to your audience to hear what it is they need. You want to provide some utility and service on those apps,” she said, adding to at the onset set clear goals and metrics to measure.

 Carla Zanoni, Wall Street Journal executive emerging media editor

 Trushar Barot, BBC World Service mobile editor

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BBC World Service BBC World Service started experimenting with chat apps in October 2014.

According to mobile editor Trushar Barot, the media company noticed a large increase in the number of users of WhatsApp. Going back to 2011, Barot said, in London, many young people were using Blackberry Messenger to share photos and videos. That also sparked interest by the BBC. “I originally started looking at it (WhatsApp) as a potential use for news gathering and audience contribution,” he said, adding that the BBC first used WhatsApp and WeChat for coverage during the India elections in 2014. “We knew that the election would be a very big story for lots of people in the country, particularly on social, and particularly on WhatsApp. So, what we ended up doing was for a six-week period we ran a BBC News election account in WhatsApp where we pushed out news alerts of content that we were producing. We did that two or three times a day, and then on the actual results day, we posted news, breaking news and results. We ended up pushing about 40 alerts during the day.”

The BBC received positive feedback.

Users liked that messaging apps provided a more personal connection with the brand, that they were able to instantly receive pop-up push alerts, and they were easily accessible and easy to share. In addition, users could communicate with the BBC privately through the messaging apps.

According to Barot, the BBC also used WeChat during the election and used Blackberry Messenger in Nigeria and MixIt in South Africa, which has since shut down.

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Over the last two years, the BBC has also launched on Japanese messaging app Line, which is popular in East Asia.

Barot said that when the BBC launched WhatsApp, it was the first time it started using emojis in social media posts. The BBC asked its audience to respond to news posts using emojis. Now, the BBC uses emojis more freely on other social media platforms such as Facebook.

In addition, Barot explained that the BBC has become more knowledgeable about its global audience and how they prefer to use messaging apps.

“We’ve learned that Western audiences are much more sensitive to getting push alerts. In India, people are very relaxed about getting lots of push alerts or notifications from their phone, and that’s almost a default way of operating on their phones because they don’t actually want to visit websites because it starts eating up their data, so they much rather prefer push notifications, which they can just see on their lock screen,” he said.

When thinking strategically, the BBC targets audiences by demographics as well as geography. According to Barot, when it started to use WhatsApp, there was a much younger demographic, but now many ages are using it, comparable with Facebook, he said. However, Line has a much younger, more affluent demographic that the BBC is trying to target in East Asia, primarily in Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia.

Another app that the BBC started using less than a year ago is Telegram. It’s using Telegram to reach people in Iran.

Telegram has high levels of encryption that allows for anonymity and personal privacy. The BBC now has 500,000 sub-

scribers to Telegram.

Another location the BBC wanted to reach was Burma. So, it launched a BBC Burmese channel inside the public chat section of Viber. It now has 100,000 subscribers.

“These aren’t replacement strategies for what we’re doing on legacy platforms like Twitter or Facebook, but they are supplementary or in addition,” said Barot, explaining that some metrics are trickier to track on some messaging apps more than others.

WhatsApp is difficult because it is encrypted, explained Barot. “They just don’t know what’s being shared inside its platform other than what type of content is being shared,” Barot said it is doing a few things to track metrics and promote its messaging apps: It placed WhatsApp share buttons across its websites, and it is adding BBC branding to all its graphics, so when people share the graphics, that increases brand awareness of the media company.

In addition, Telegram is the only chat platform that provides a reach metric for each messaging app post.

“We know that some of our items are reaching as many as 800,000 or 900,000 unique people. That’s a really useful measurement for us,” said Barot, adding that the BBC uses a link tracker to measure incoming traffic to the BBC website from messaging apps.

Barot explained that there are some differences in terms of content management systems for each messaging app.

For example, Line, as part of its CMS, lets users push out different templates for push alerts based around how many images are used.

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Making Social Media More Personal

Who’s Who Among Messaging Apps Kik Audience: 80 million estimated monthly, active users Top Markets: North America Key Demographics: 82 percent of users are aged 13–24 Key Features: Chatbots, web browser, texting, stickers and emojis, games.

LINE Audience: 211 million monthly, active users Top Markets: Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Spain Demographics: Majority aged 16–34 years Key Features: Free to use; multimedia filesharing capability; works across all major mobile phone platforms and PCs; timeline news feed; official brand accounts with CMS and one daily push alert limit; stickers, coupons and games for free and paid.

Snapchat Audience: 100 million daily, active users globally Top Markets: North America, Europe Key Demographics: 13–34-year-olds Key Features: Disappearing messages, Discover, crowdsourced Live Story montages, My Story daily montages, QR codes, location-based geofilters, Snapcash peerto-peer payments.

Telegram Audience: 62 million monthly, active users Top Markets: Iran, India, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Spain Demographics: Users with high privacy concerns, often in countries where government monitoring and security is a concern Key Features: Channels allowing broadcasts access to an unlimited number

of users; open source code and bot API; seamless syncing across mobiles, tablets, and PCs; ability to send multiple file types, including docs, MP3s, video, images, and compressed files of up to 1.5 gigabytes.

Viber Audience: 250 million monthly, active users Top Markets: Russia, India, Iran, Australia, Middle East Demographics: Majority of users aged 25–35 Key Features: Public chats, texting, phone and video calls, stickers, games, service messages.

 Nate Ravitz, ESPN vice president of audience development

WeChat Audience: 600 million monthly, active users Top Markets: China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan Demographics: Majority of users aged 16–34 years Key Features: Connect to friends via nearby “radar;” “shake” phone and connect with whomever else is shaking at that moment; enter walkie-talkie mode; official brand platform with CMS; free and paid stickers and coupons; share multimedia files; works on all major mobile platforms and PC/Macs.

WhatsApp Audience: 900 million monthly, active users Top Markets: India, South Africa, Malaysia, Spain, Mexico Demographics: Broad age range, not limited to those aged 16–34 Key Features: Free messaging for the first year, then an annual subscription of $1; free WhatsApp calls; WhatsApp web interface; voice memos, as well as audio, image, and video files; groups and broadcast lists.

Source: “Guide to Chat Apps,” Tow Center for Digital Journalism, 2015

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editorandpublisher.com

1/20/17 10:46 AM

ESPN ESPN is another publisher that provides curated content through Snapchat Discover.

It doesn’t think of Snapchat as a messaging app, according to Nate Ravitz, vice president of audience development at ESPN. “It’s a platform with tremendous scale and has multiple opportunities, one of which is a unique canvas for content creation and distribution. Our goal is to create and deliver the authority and personality of ESPN in a way that is distinct to the platform, and certainly engage a demographic that skews young,” he said, adding that the media company is only active on Snapchat Discover (not any of the other messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger).

From a content perspective, ESPN is publishing a daily edition of the best of the sports world, with news, highlights, snackable content and viral moments on Snapchat Discover.

“For Discover, it’s mostly the same things that work every-

where else—content that informs, surprises, inspires and mostly, compels a fan to want to discuss or share with a friend,” Ravitz said, adding that it’s trying to reach a younger, more female audience on Discover.

ESPN defines success on Discover by looking at growth of audience and engagement patterns, how often they come back and how much time they’re spending.

“The best measure of whether a fan enjoyed your content is if they come back the next day,” said Ravitz.

He emphasized the importance of having a dedicated team that focuses on curation and packaging of content that is native to Snapchat.

“The mobile-only, vertical-only, visual-driven format is unique, and you want a group of people to build up expertise in working in that environment to create the best experience for fans,” he said. 

DV &M

CIVITAS MEDIA HAS SOLD

LAGRANGE (GA) DAILY NEWS 3,400 daily circulation

TO AN AFFILIATE OF

BOONE NEWSPAPERS We are pleased to have represented Civitas Media in this transaction.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray Santa Fe, NM

editorandpublisher.com

+E+P Feature_Messaging_Apps.indd 57

t: 505.820.2700 www.dirksvanessen.com

FEBRUARY 2017 | E & P

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1/20/17 10:46 AM

NEWSPEOPLE Kyle Ocker has been named managing editor of the Knoxville (Iowa) Journal Express. He previously served as associate editor of the Daily Iowegian in Centerville, which is a sister publication to the Journal Express. Ocker originally joined the Iowegian as a sports editor.

Jamey Honeycutt has been named publisher of The Morning Sun in Pittsburg, Kan. He currently oversees a nine-newspaper region as senior group publisher of GateHouse Media. Prior to that, Honeycutt worked for BH Media, where he managed their weekly group of newspapers in Oklahoma.

Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. has appointed two regional editors to work with the media group’s newsrooms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia and Florida.

Dennis Lyons will expand his responsibilities to oversee CNHI Pennsylvania newspapers in Meadville, New Castle and Sharon, and Ashtabula, Ohio. Lyons currently serves as editor of the Sunbury Daily Item and Danville News in Pennsylvania. Editor Jim Zachary of the Valdosta (Ga.) Daily Times will oversee CNHI papers in the Georgia communities of Dalton, Milledgeville, Moultrie, Thomasville and Tifton, and the Florida towns of Live Oak, Jasper and Mayo.

David Compton has been named publisher of the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung in Texas. He previously served as publisher of the Del Rio (Texas) News-Herald. Prior to that, Compton was central Texas regional publisher for GateHouse Media. Sandra Castillo will take over as general manager of the News-Herald. She spent the last four years as head of marketing for the newspaper.

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By Sean Stroh sean@editorandpublisher.com

Amy Gilligan has been promoted to executive editor of the Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa. She has spent the last eight years as managing editor of the paper. Gilligan originally joined the Herald in 1990 as a copy editor before holding several newsroom leadership positions, including six years as a city editor. She will become the first women to serve as the paper’s editor.

Nathan Grimm has been named managing editor of The Telegraph in Alton, Ill. He originally joined the paper in 2014 as a reporter covering a number of beats such as schools, government and business. Grimm began his career as a reporter for the weekly Highland (Ill.) News Leader.

Michael Sacks has been named senior vice president of operations for Hearst Newspapers. He will continue to be responsible for operations at the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. Since 2012, Sacks has served as vice president of Hearst Newspapers, where he leads facilities management, operations leadership, real estate strategy and process improvement at Hearst’s Texas papers. Prior to joining Hearst, he held various roles at the Tribune Co. Alan English has been named publisher of New England Newspapers Inc. The company publishes The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass. and the Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer and Manchester Journal in Vermont. English most recently served as president and publisher of The Shreveport (La.) Times, following a stint as its general manager and executive editor.

Penny Fisher has been named news director of the Naples (Fla.) Daily News. In her new role, she will also oversee the Daily News’ sister community publications and its brand new seasonal upscale lifestyle

magazine. Fisher had served as interim executive editor since August. Prior to joining the newspaper a decade ago, she worked as a copy editor and designer at the Anderson (Ind.) Herald Bulletin.

Mike Harris has been named editor of The Mountain News in Lake Arrowhead, Calif. Most recently, he was associate editor of the paper. Harris began his career in journalism in 1971 as a reporter for the Burbank (Calif.) Daily Review.

Scot Gillespie has been named to the newly created position of vice president and chief technology officer at The Washington Post.

He previously served as vice president of engineering with W.W Grainger.

Vincent Laboy has been named publisher and advertising director of The Columbus Telegram, David City Banner-Press and Schuyler Sun in Nebraska. He previously served as publisher and advertising director for the Fremont (Neb.) Tribune. Prior to that, he led the Montrose Daily Press in Colorado as publisher and advertising director for two years.

Niko Dugan has been named online editor at The News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill..

Dugan has served as the paper’s copy editor for more than a decade. In his new role, Dugan will be responsible for posting articles, photos and videos to the paper’s website and social media outlets. editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 4:55 PM

NEWSPEOPLE

NEWSPEOPLE

ACQUISITIONS New Media Investment Group Inc. has acquired the assets of Harris Enterprises Inc. Harris is comprised of six newspapers and multiple weekly and niche print products in Central Kansas and Eastern Iowa. In addition to the print publications, the acquisition also includes Harris’ press facilities and all related websites and other digital operations.

Argent Arkansas News Media has purchased the Forrest City (Ark.) Times-Herald and the Marianna (Ark.) Courier-Index from Weston and Kevin Lewey. The Times-Herald and Courier-Index are the only newspapers currently owned by Argent.

Gazette Communications has acquired three southeast Iowa newspapers from Inland Industries. The three papers involved in the deal are: The Fairfield Ledger, Mount Pleasant News and Washington Evening Journal. Each newspaper will maintain their names and local content.

The Washington Post has sold El Tiempo Latino to El Planeta Media, a multimedia Spanish-language news and entertainment outlet, which includes the largest-circulating Spanish-language newspaper in Massachusetts. The Post had owned El Tiempo Latino since 2004.

Elizabeth Ailes has sold the Putnam County Courier and the Putnam County News & Recorder in New York to Douglas Cunningham. Ailes was owner and publisher of the weekly papers.

Mid-America Publishing has acquired the Aurelia Star in Iowa from Marci Brown. As part of the ownership change, the newspaper’s billing and circulation departments will be consolidated to Mid-America Publishing’s facility in Hampton, Iowa. The paper will retain its current mailing address.

The McClatchy Co. has acquired the Herald-Sun of Durham, N.C. from Paxton Media Group. The acquisition is the first newspaper purchase made by the company in a decade. The price was not disclosed. McClatchy currently owns the News & Observer in nearby Raleigh as well as half a dozen other papers in South Carolina.

Frank Denton has stepped down as editor of the Florida Times-Union.

He will assume the role of editor at large and remain responsible for the editorial page. Denton also will continue as vice president for journalism for Morris Publishing Group, parent company of the TimesUnion. Mary Kelli Palka will become the new editor of the paper. She has served its managing editor since 2015.

Goss International has added two senior executives to its management team. Stanley Blakney has been named chief operating officer and Durham, N.H. site leader. Most recently, he was vice president of global operations at VAG Global. Sven Doerge editorandpublisher.com

+E+P Newspeople.indd 59

has been hired as chief financial officer. He previously served as chief financial officer at Festo Americas.

Chris Coates has been named editor of the Herald & Review in Decatur, Ill. He previously was watchdog content coach at The News Journal in Wilm-

ington, Del., overseeing investigative reporting, political and government coverage statewide. Prior to that, he worked at the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, where he rose to the position of executive editor, managing newspaper and digital content.

Bob Hendrickson has retired from his position as editor and publisher of The Ledger Independent in Maysville, Ky. He was named editor in 1985 and has served as publisher since 1993. Hendrickson began his career in journalism as a general assignment reporter for the paper in 1978.

Mardi Taylor has been named executive editor of the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith, Ark. She originally joined the newspaper in 2005 as a copy desk manager.

Taylor began her journalism career with The Herald-Press in Palestine, Texas.

Charles Hurt has been named opinion editor of The Washington Times. He began his career as a beat reporter for the Detroit News and Washington correspondent for the Charlotte Observer. He later served as White House correspondent and D.C. bureau Chief for the New York Post.

Tammie McIntosh has been named publisher of the Herald-Star in Steubenville, Ohio and the Weirton (W. Va.) Daily Times. She has spent three decades in the newspaper industry, including the last 17 years as publisher of

Sharon Pian Chan has been named vice president of innovation, product and development for The Seattle Times. She originally joined the newspaper as an intern before becoming a reporter covering various beats. Chan most recently served as the paper’s director of journalism initiatives. In her newly created position, Chan will continue to lead content funding and development as well as oversee the Times’ product team.

FEBRUARY 2017 | E & P

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1/19/17 4:20 PM

NEWSPEOPLE Andrea Rothchild has been named senior vice president, advertising sales, of Newsday Media Group. Most recently, she served as the digital account director at LittleThings. Prior to that, Rothchild spent two decades at Newsday where she held senior sales and management positions working across a wide range of departments such as retail advertising and marketing.

The Review in East Liverpool, Ohio.

Jared Bean has been promoted to president of the York Daily Record, The Public Opinion, the Lebanon Daily News and the Hanover Evening Sun in Pennsylvania. He will also oversee the business operations of MediaOnePA and the York Newspaper Co. Most recently, Bean served as interim president of the Daily Record and vice president of multimedia sales for MediaOnePA. Adam Neal has been named news director of Treasure Coast Newspapers and the TCPalm website. In his new role, he will oversee day-today news operations as well as lead efforts to grow the organization’s audience and revenue. Neal has held various positions over the past 12 years with Treasure Coast Newspapers, including breaking news editor, metro editor and, most recently, managing editor.

Jamie Wachter has been named editor of the Suwannee Democrat, Jasper News and Mayo Free Press in Florida. He previously was sports editor of the Valdosta (Ga.) Daily Times. Wachter also served as sports editor of the Thomasville (Ga.) Times-Enterprise and the Meridian (Miss.) Star. He began his journalism career at the Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau.

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Sue McFarland has been appointed executive editor of the TribuneReview in Pennsylvania.

In her new role, she will oversee the company’s two western Pennsylvania daily newspapers, 14 weeklies and its onlineonly Pittsburgh edition.

Jim Borden will succeed McFarland as managing editor of the Greensburg edition. He has held various leadership positions at newspapers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon and Colorado during his 30-year career.

Shawn Byrne has been named editor of the Daily Miner in Kingsman, Ariz. He first joined the Miner in 2007, serving as a sports writer for four years. Byrne rejoined the paper in 2013.

Jamal Brown has been named editor of the Siftings Herald in Arkadelphia, Ark. and Gurdon (Ark.) Times. He began his career in journalism as a general assignment reporter for the Banner News in Magnolia, Ark. Brown then joined the Herald as a reporter and online editor in 2014. He replaces James Leigh, who resigned to take a position with the Hot Springs (Ark.) Sentinel Record.

Mike O’Brien has retired as publisher of the Capital Press in Salem, Ore. He originally joined the weekly paper as general manager in 1997 before being promoted to publisher 10 years later. O’Brien began his newspaper career as a district manager at the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Tampa Bay Times has promoted several members of its editorial staff. Graham Brink has been appointed assistant managing editor for metro, state and business news. Boyzell Hosey will become assistant managing editor for photography and multimedia.

Stephanie Hayes, who has served as arts and entertainment editor since April 2015, was promoted to features editor. Chris Tish has been named audience editor, a new position intended to expand the Times’ online presence.

Graham Brink Boyzell Hosey Stephanie Hayes Chris Tish

Ben Tinsley has been named managing editor and senior staff writer of the Burleson Star in Texas. Tinsley most recently worked as a staff writer for the Texas Jewish Post in Dallas, and as managing editor of the Glen Rose (Texas) Reporter. He has been a reporter for a number of different newspapers over the course of his career, including the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram and the Sheridan (Wyo.) Press.  editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 4:20 PM

Business Directory

Companies that provide publishing leaders products and services that help save time, generate new revenue models and strengthen existing ones.

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For over 40 years, Vision Data has been dedicated to hiring and retaining the best people and fostering an atmosphere of industry-leading innovation, while building our solid history of growth, without the need for merger or acquisition.

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The result of our unified approach to development, backed by the industry’s best service and user support, mean huge benefits for today’s progressive publisher; a complete “Soup-to-Nuts” menu of coordinated sales, customer service, business and production applications:

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Large Customer Base: We have a large base of over 2,000 publications made up of a good mix of privately owned newspapers and newspaper groups. We have continually grown our base at a manageable rate , aided by our reputation for outstanding customer service and attention to customer needs. We take great pride in our history of customer retention.

“Soup-to-Nuts” Ongoing Support Pricing: By investing in Vision Data’s “Soup-toNuts” systems, you can also lower your ongoing support costs by replacing multiple vendor support charges with a singled “Packaged” support charge. Publishers investing in the total Vision Data “Soup-to-Nuts” package can save over fifty percent from the cost of multiple support packages.

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For outstanding overall performance, simplicity of operation, vendor reputation, ongoing relations & support, innovation, and the cost of implementation, you should definitely consider Vision Data as your next system.

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subscription models. Management dashboard instantly displays and compares data, CASS certification, postal reporting, remote access for account or route management, EZ Pay, user-friendly CSR, full accounting and reporting.

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• User-friendly Classified Pagination/Publication Layout for Quark or InDesign.

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+Biz Directory.indd 61

Contact us today . . .

sales@vdata.com

518-434-2193

www.vdata.com

1/19/17 4:28 PM

Business Directory

Contact: Sales \ Ph: 1-800-544-4450 E-mail: sales@icanon.com \Website: newzware.com Who we are and what we do ICANON is a privately held company centrally located in the Northeast Business Corridor near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Regardless of application, data management is a core competency with ICANON since its formation in 1990.

Benefits to you as a Media Company The new media publishing industry is a marvel of evolution and we face disruptive changes that challenge traditional publishing methods. Your customers are getting their information in new ways, how will you compete?

Newzware is an established legacy of circulation, advertising, production, financial, editorial software and professional service solutions for the publishing industry. Newspaper and media professionals rely on timely and reliable processes to efficiently manage the production and financial workflow, leaving valuable time for creativity and thoughtful management of new industry challenges. Newzware, as a division of ICANON Associates, provides the software solutions to manage the former and the customer support to assist with the latter. Newzware users obtain and share information, manage their resources, generate revenue and remain productive all within the protective framework of Newzware Software Solutions. Most importantly, our Newzware users develop a real comfort in the knowledge that we are there when they need us. Newzware support is unmatched in the industry.

Newzware is a cost-effective evolutionary platform that will help you produce, assemble, deliver and profit from your efforts in the modern publishing age. ICANON believes that you need only invest in these software tools one time. The software vendor should be stable and responsible for keeping their product current with technology advances and meeting the demands of its customer base.

That is why all Newzware Customers under Maintenance Contract continue to receive all Newzware license upgrades at no additional cost.

Innovations such as web portals for customer interaction, digital paid content management, integrated & optimized mapping, demographic import and export facilities and expansive reporting are all internal features. Call us today to discuss your future— 800-544-4450

Classified Executive Training & Consulting LLC

Archive In A Box Phone: 360-427-6300 Website: www.ArchiveInABox.com Who We Are: We specialize in making digital copies (scans) of your printed newspapers and bound volume archives which you can store online and access from any device.

• Our service includes everything — shipping & logistics, high resolution scanning, digital copies, hard drives, and online hosting.

• We work on your schedule and budget with no contract commitment — scan in batches, and pay-as-you-go.

• You exclusively own and control the original scans and all copies. No partnership is required.

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As the steward of your community’s published history, you know the value of your printed newspaper archive. Don’t wait — begin your digitization before you suffer a loss!

• Digital copies preserve your archive, and effectively nullify physical loss.

• Your bound volume, loose, and microfilm materials can be digitized.

• Fully searchable.

• Integrate with your existing PDF archive.

Case studies and testimonials Please visit our website for complete details: www.ArchiveInABox.com

+Biz Directory.indd 62

There are millions of dollars hiding in your Classifieds!

Let me show you how to easily win back that lost revenue.

Janet DeGeorge, Consultant, Sales Trainer, Designer WHAT DO WE DO: We modernize your employment, auto & real estate in print, online and social media with branded design formats that advertisers want to buy. It is the easiest revenue you will ever sell.

BENEFITS: Classified ads are high profit advertising that was lost from years of recession. Getting back this revenue is essential to reaching your goals month after month.

WHY CHOOSE US? PROVEN RESULTS over and over again that any newspaper at any size can achieve. We train the management, the staff, the artists and the paginators all in precise webinar format that saves thousands in travel costs.

CUSTOM: All programs are customized with a 12 month program built for your market, your sales staff and your production capabilities. This is why it works, the program is based on your reality. An hour a day over 2 weeks and you are ready to sell.

FREE WEBINAR: Call or write to see a review of how this program can bring back your top classified revenue.

Call: 602-717-7473 My personal email: janetdegeorge@aol.com www.ClassifiedExecutiveTraining.com

1/19/17 4:28 PM

Gannett Imaging and Ad Design Center (GIADC) 400 Locust St., Suite 440 Des Moines, IA 50309 giadcinfo@gannett.com

Who We Are Gannett Imaging and Ad Design Center is a full-service design group, specializing in pre-media services ranging from high-end revenue generating advertising campaigns to imaging and ad production services. With over 400 creative employees, we are able to partner with you unlike any other player on the field. Our customers represent hundreds of publications nationwide that demand the highest standards of quality.

GIADC is currently one of the largest ad production in-sourcing/outsourcing operations, producing on average 35,000 print and digital ads per week, 60,000 images and 44,500 pages to print per week. The GIADC is doing work for 114 Gannett newspapers including USA Today and 57 NonGannett sites.

Benefits to a Newspaper

Connie McGarrah Business Development Manager Direct: 515-284-8189 Email: cmcgarrah@gannett.com

Outsourcing production work to GIADC requires minimal or no capital investment. Insourcing is difficult and can be costly. We’ve already laid that groundwork and gone through the growing pains. Now you have the opportunity to benefit from our experience and investment! GIADC is a partner that understands your business. We can contribute more than just building ads by becoming a true extension of your team. Quality and offerings can be improved in most locations, helping you generate revenue. Best of all, you free up your resources to focus on what you do best—SELL.

Why Companies Choose Us We are very, very good at what we do. We are based 100% in the US, with locations in Des Moines, IA and Indianapolis, IN. All of our work is produced in-house at these two locations. Our management group is fiercely committed to the success of both our own teams and yours. We don’t just think outside the box. We burned the box, and our customers win big as a result.

How We Are Different The biggest advantage that we have over our competition is that we live and breathe this business daily just like you do. The GIADC interacts with thousands of sales teams, customers and publishers on a daily basis, so we understand your business. We are a media company first. We understand what it takes to meet deadlines and keep customers happy. Our goal is to allow you to focus on your business and not on production.

Testimonial/Current Clients/Success Stories The World Company "When I did my research on GIADC, the overriding comment came back that the Gannett team was top flight and the ease of implementation was well orchestrated. After our team went through the transition, the process and communication was better than I imagined. The GIADC folks were total pros, pleasant to work with and had all the answers. We look for partners, not vendors and the GIADC folks quickly became part of our family."

—Mark Cohen, Publisher, Beacon Journal Media

+Biz Directory.indd 63

1/20/17 9:19 AM

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Phone: 800-887-1615

Appraisers / Brokers

E-mail: classifieds@editorandpublisher.com

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Help Wanted

Help Wanted AD DIRECTOR

Do you still love the print newspaper business? Sill believe in the power of print to drive results for local advertisers? Can’t wait to work for a newspaper company with a culture that believes we can still win? An expectation to continue a tradition of annual year over year growth in local territory revenue is just your kind of challenge?

If you have a gift of coaching and teaching sales people and sales managers. If you still have the skip in your step when you get out of the car to talk to an advertiser with a rookie salesperson in tow. If you get fired up when someone tells you it can’t be done. Then we are the newspaper company for you.

Send your confidential resume to: flnewspaperpublisher@gmail.com

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E & P | FEBRUARY 2017

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Help Wanted ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: The Ocala Star Banner is seeking a proven Advertising Director to lead our advertising sales team. We are looking for an energetic leader that is dedicated to achieving and surpassing sales goals, as well as focused on delivering value to our customers.

Competitive candidates will be: • Able to develop and execute advertising sales plans to achieve print and digital revenue goals. This will include the ability to analyze market conditions and competitive business situations, identify new business opportunities and to implement creative sales strategies.

• A digital leader, who is knowledgeable about digital technologies and has a proven track-record of being able to drive digital sales performance.

• Collaborative, working with other department heads and the publisher to develop and execute short- and long-term strategies that bring revenue opportunities and innovative approaches to our market.

Hands-on, having a talent for coaching sales professionals and sales management to maximize their potential and build long-term client relationships.

Other qualifications include: A bachelor’s degree in advertising, marketing, business administration or other relevant area. Appropriate experience may be considered in lieu of degree.

A minimum of seven years advertising sales leadership experience and previous success as a print and online sales performer. Candidates with relevant newspaper industry experience are preferred.

• P&L experience, with knowledge of forecasting and modeling tools.

• Outstanding oral and written communication skills.

• The ability to learn and use a variety of software programs, including a CRM system.

Compensation includes a base salary commensurate with experience and a performance-based bonus opportunity. Owned by GateHouse Media, we offer excellent benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, STD, LTD, 401K and more. The Ocala Star Banner is an equal opportunity employer that recognizes the value of diversity in our workforce.

The Ocala Star Banner is a multimedia news & advertising organization, with a daily circulation of 21,000; Sunday, 28,000. Our online presence can be seen at www.ocala.com.

Ocala, Fla. is located in north-central Florida, has pastoral horse farms, scenic outdoor recreation venues, oak-strewn streets, and is within short driving distance from both Florida coasts and Orlando-area attractions. If you are interested in joining an award winning newspaper, please submit a cover letter and resume to HR@starbanner.com.

Fax: 866-605-2323

Help Wanted DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING: New Braunfels is the second-fastest growing city in the United States. That’s no accident. Nestled between Austin and San Antonio on Interstate 35, the community benefits from its proximity to both while maintaining a unique identity all its own. Go boot scootin’ across the dance floor of fabled Gruene Hall, float lazily down the city’s two rivers or spend a day at Schlitterbahn, the world’s best water park. Restaurants and retail are booming and opportunity awaits. Our goal is to evolve our family of products at the same pace as one of the most truly dynamic markets in the nation. This includes having digital, mobile, social media and print as components to deliver our award-winning coverage.

However, our specialty is delivering worldclass coverage through the printed newspaper.

Our next Director of Advertising will: • Execute a sales strategy that is in harmony with the vision and focus of the publisher • Believe in best practices in key areas like sales activity and customer service • Take great pride in having an uncommon focus on goals • Lead our revenue-generating efforts by setting the pace in the department • Be goal-driven, organized and detailminded • Believe in newspaper and print advertising • Enjoy training and making four legged calls with sales reps This position will ultimately be accountable for a sales team that drives a successful result.

The chosen candidate will have very strong interpersonal skills, be a team player, and demonstrate strong leadership qualities that will inspire and motivate our sales team.

Qualified candidates will have: • 5+ years in sales (2+ years in a sales management) is required • Intimate knowledge of the industry is highly valued • Bachelor degree in marketing, communications, advertising or related field is a plus • The ability to work in a fast-paced environment and handle multiple projects at one time is a must • Proficiency in dealing with media advertising would be helpful Besides the opportunity to work in a dynamic team environment, the position offers a competitive total compensation package including base, pay for performance and a full array of benefits. Please send resume and cover letter detailing why you are the lion we need on our team to David W. Compton at david.compton@herald-zeitung.com.

You can place your ad by calling 800-887-1615 or emailing classifieds@editorandpublisher.com or place your web only Help Wanted ad online at www.editorandpublisher.com.

editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 4:35 PM

Help Wanted

Help Wanted

NEWSPAPER DISTRIBUTION BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY The Denver Post is seeking entrepreneurial, business-oriented individuals who want to run their own business and/or diversify their current business.

We are looking for independent contractors to handle distribution of multiple publications including The Denver Post. Circulation volumes may vary but could be as many as 25,000 Sunday newspapers.

Must have distribution experience, valid driver's license, commercial general liability insurance, reliable transportation, and a personal computer/printer.

Minimal start-up expense, bi-weekly reimbursement.

For more information contact Brian Trujillo at 303-954-5391 or email btrujillo@denverpost.com.

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR: Oahu Publications, Inc. (OPI) is seeking a proven Circulation Director to lead our circulation, distribution and transportation efforts on the Island of Hawaii (Big Island). We are looking for an experienced and energetic circulator who is committed to achieving audience and revenue goals, providing over-the-top delivery and subscriber services, and has the ability to motivate and coach a team of dedicated employees who are ready and willing to take on any challenges presented to them. We are looking for an entrepreneurial thinker who isn’t afraid to innovate in an era of transformational change in our industry.

This position has circulation and distribution operations oversight for two daily newspapers on the Big Island: the West Hawaii Today, a 10,000 circulation daily in Kailua Kona; and the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, a 16,000 circulation daily based in Hilo. Oversight also includes distribution of the 57,000 copy Big Island TMC product.

Qualified candidates will: • Strategically plan, allocate, and optimize circulation and distribution resources for efficient, cost-effective operations.

• Build and maintain an organization with strong, effective systems and procedures that ensure customer satisfaction at all levels • Develop and execute programs to achieve volume and revenue objectives while maintaining budgeted expenses.

• Possess excellent written and verbal communication, interpersonal and negotiation skills • Exercise a high level of motivation, accountability and independent judgment and initiative under moderate supervision • Be knowledgeable of current industry issues/trends, regulatory and compliance requirements and practices Other qualifications include: • A bachelor’s degree in management, marketing, business administration or other relevant area. Appropriate experience may be considered in lieu of degree.

• A minimum of 8 years experience working in an executive capacity in a print and digital media environment.

• P&L experience • Outstanding communication skills along with the ability to effectively present information to company leaders.

• Adept in regards to time management, process improvement, prioritization, and meeting deadlines.

Come work and play in the most exciting and dynamic market in the United States.

Interested candidates should send their resume and a cover letter to: akotarek@staradvertiser.com

“I’m extremely pleased with the fantastic results we receive from advertising in E&P.” - Kevin B. Kamen, Kamen & Co. Group Services editorandpublisher.com

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Help Wanted CIRCULATION MANAGER: Beeville Publishing Company is looking for a Circulation Manager for its eight-newspaper group in South Texas. The incumbent in that position is retiring in mid-March and leaving a solid foundation upon which her successor can build.

Our ideal candidate is someone who can both keep the trains running smoothly and on time, and maximize paid circulation. A high percentage of our circulation comes from single-copy sales and we see growth potential there. We also see opportunities to strengthen our subscriber stop-saver program.

Beeville Publishing, owned by the Latcham family for more than 120 years, publishes a semiweekly newspaper in Beeville and seven weeklies in five surrounding counties. This position is based in Beeville, also the location of the company’s printing plant and distribution facilities.

The Circulation Manager position is wideranging. It requires strong organizational skills (remember, there are eight newspapers and nine deadlines a week); maintaining positive professional relationships with multiple postmasters; ability to communicate clearly and work well with several departments; skills to work comfortably and accurately with a variety of postal, circulation and revenue spreadsheets; and ability to manage activities designed to grow circulation.

But you don’t have to do it all by yourself!

There is an assistant whom the Circulation Manager shares with another department manager, as well as several other employees in Beeville and at some of the weeklies who handle deliveries The circulation software is CirculationPro with Newscycle Solutions. We also use NEXXUS’s nexxhub, USPS Business Customer Gateway, authorize.net (credit card authorizations) and have an e-sub provider through BLOX, which is finalizing our updated website.

The Circulation Manager will receive a base pay plus a moving allowance. Beeville Publishing also offers a full benefits package.

Beeville is an hour from the beaches of Corpus Christi, 90 minutes from the famous San Antonio Riverwalk and 2 1/2 hours from downtown Austin, the “Live Music Capital of the World.” There are also numerous opportunities nearby for a variety of outdoor recreational activities.

Please send a resume, cover letter and professional references to beeville@endeavorsky.com.

Help Wanted EDITOR: Want to put your journalism experience to use for a family-owned weekly newspaper in a stunningly beautiful Oregon community? This is your opportunity. The Wallowa County Chieftain is seeking an Editor who believes in the value of community journalism. Topics include outdoor recreation, forest health, water supply and wildlife habitat, in addition to coverage of small-town life.

The Chieftain is located in Enterprise, Oregon, just an hour away from La Grande and three hours from Boise. The community has deep agricultural roots and a growing arts community. The location offers year-round recreational opportunities, including backpacking, camping, fishing, hunting, snowmobiling and horseback riding. We seek an energetic, creative, outgoing and hard-working Editor.

This is your opportunity to join a company that believes in community journalism. The Chieftain is a weekly newspaper in Eastern Oregon and is part of EO Media Group, an award-winning and innovative news organization with active family of owners.

We seek a journalist who is passionate about local news, excited about the opportunity to publish in print, on line and with social media. You’ll manage and mentor two newsroom employees and work with a professional page design team. Your journalistic integrity is a must. Leadership, budgeting, multi-media and mentoring experience are a plus. This is a hands-on position that edits and writes stories; takes photos; posts daily to our web site; and uses social media to engage readers. Along with the Chieftain’s Publisher, you will need to be involved in the community.

EO Media Group owns 11 newspapers and 17 websites that provide accurate, fair and timely reporting about the people and issues impacting the communities we serve in the Pacific Northwest, reflecting the responsibility and spirit of a free press. Competitive pay plus paid time off, 401(k) /401(k) Roth retirement plan and insurances.

Candidates with an education in journalism or a related field, plus leadership experience should send resume and letter of interest to EO Media Group, PO Box 2048, Salem, OR 97308-2048, by fax to 503-371-2935 or e-mail hr@eomediagroup.com

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Advertise directly to those most likely to fill your position!

For info, call: 800-887-1615

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1-800-887-1615 FEBRUARY 2017 | E & P

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shoptalk /commentary Media Companies May No Longer Control Distribution, But They Do Control Trust

By Charis Palmer

F

acebook has media executives running scared. It’s understandable. More than 40 percent of adult Americans now get news from Facebook. Globally, around one in ten people say social media is their main source of news.

Media companies no longer control the distribution of their content, fewer people are visiting their home pages, ad blockers are destroying their business model, and clickbait is eroding trust in their brands.

All of this has created a culture of “us and them” between traditional publishers and social media platform providers.

But there’s one thing some media companies have that the social media platforms do not: trust.

Kevin Kelly, whose “Better than free” post was published in 2008, still offers the most valuable guide to companies facing ongoing disruption from the internet led information age. Kelly first reminded us that the internet was the world’s largest copy machine.

So the challenge for media executives is to work out what can’t be copied. Trust can’t be copied.

It’s easy for journalists to criticize social media platforms for everything from driving group think to misguided censorship. But this approach overlooks the colossal shift in the media landscape that they, however unwittingly, are part of.

That the platforms have found a way to turn user and publisher-generated content into revenue far beyond what traditional publishers could imagine is genius. But for media companies it’s a business model problem, not a problem of journalism.

The decline in trust in media and the “post-fact” world it now feeds is a product of media companies trying to compete with social media companies at a content level,

not a business model level. The voracious appetite for content from social media platforms has influenced editors in the same way that the drive for ever more clicks did.

As Columbia Journalism School visiting scholar Ricardo Gandour says, journalism is a method, not a product to be packaged into a format. Too often this format often includes raw information mixed with nonfact based opinions.

How many Facebook users like the autoplay videos they’re now being force-fed because it suits the revenue-starved media companies being lured in and paid to provide video by Facebook? How long did the decision makers at media companies think before they sold out their audience for a new revenue opportunity?

Media executives railing at Facebook’s power must realize they’re now part of an ecosystem, one they’re not likely to escape anytime soon. Attempting to fight this by complaining social media companies don’t care about journalism is like trying to ban ad blockers because they hurt your advertising business.

Continuing to produce content solely supported by online advertising is not a sustainable business model for media companies. It’s a subsidy for the platforms.

Operating in this ecosystem calls for a rethink of what it is of value that media companies produce. The value of breaking news has been bid to zero. And as Rasmus Kleis Nielsen of the Reuters Institute says, “Editors now compete with algorithms for the right to select news.” More than half (51 percent of people) don’t recognize brand when reading news in social media.

If you’re part of an ecosystem where you no longer control distribution, what is it of value that you can sell? At The Conversa-

tion, it’s our access to the mainstream media, our editing and fact checking skills and our ability to magnify the insight academics and researchers hold. We’ve built a way to pay for traditional journalistic skills without advertisers.

And our license to operate in this ecosystem is trust. We never let contributors write on a subject where they are not an expert. We make all contributors complete a disclosure statement so the audience knows where their interests lie, and where their funding comes from. We ignore 99 percent of PR-driven “news,” and when we make mistakes and need to run corrections we do it publicly front and centre on our home page, not buried in the back pages. We don’t run clickbait and we engage actively with the audience, rather than refusing to let them comment on articles.

By building trust we’ve grown our audience and with that our contributor base.

We let anyone republish our content under creative commons for free and this means those who write for us get the maximum amount of impact for their ideas. All of this helps us make the case to universities to keep renewing the subscriptions that pay our bills.

Thinking of your organization as part of an ecosystem allows you to then hack the business model. It also enables you to work out who has the power within it. If the audience is no longer your paying market, who might be? 

Charis Palmer is deputy editor and head of digital strategy with The Conversation Australia. This article originally appeared on MediaShift at bit.ly/2fLLsni.

Printed in the USA. Vol. 150, No 2, EDITOR & PUBLISHER (ISSN: 0013-094X, USPS: 168-120) is published 12 times a year. Regular issues are published monthly by Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc., 18475 Bandilier Circle, Fountain Valley, CA, 92708-7000; Editorial and Advertising (949) 660-6150.

Periodicals postage paid at Fountain Valley, CA 92708, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Please send address changes to: EDITOR & PUBLISHER. P.O. Box 25859, Santa Ana, CA 92799-5859. Copyright 2017, Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Subscription Price: U.S. and its possessions, $99.00 per year, additional postage for Canada & foreign countries $20.00 per year. Single copy price $8.95 in the U.S. only; Back issues, $12.95 (in the U.S. only) includes postage and handling. Canada Post: Publication Mail Agreement No. 40612608. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 682.

Subscriber Services (888) 732-7323; Customer Service Email: circulation@editorandpublisher.com.

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E & P | FEBRUARY 2017

editorandpublisher.com

1/19/17 4:22 PM

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