newsclips
AUGUST 2017
OWCA Newsletters Come Home During June’s International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors’ conference, OCNA board member Gordon Cameron was approached by Australian publisher Barry Wilson with two pieces of association history — a pair of Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association newsletters from December 1975 and January 1976. The OWNA Bulletins were sent to Australia as part of an initiative to build links with other newspaper associations from across the globe, and came from the personal archives of David Sommerlad. Cameron accepted the donation on the OCNA’s behalf, and passed the periodicals on to executive director Caroline Medwell to be added to the association’s archives. From the newsletters themselves we learned that the 1976 membership fees ranged from $100 for papers with a circulation under 1,000 and $380 for papers with a circulation over 5,000. The three-day convention was to be held in Ottawa at the Skyline Hotel and publishers were upset with Canada Post over a postal strike. Thanks to David for the donation and Barry for the transportation of these wonderful pieces of our past.
Headlines that Pop!
Thursday, September 21 Presenters Jean Hodges and Tim Schmitt, GateHouse Media
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Selling the Value of Digital Friday, September 29
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WHAT’S INSIDE:
CREATING AN ONLINE POLL
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SECOND IMPRESSION
EMPOWER STAFF & LET THEM MAKE MISTAKES
An introduction to Wufoo.
A salesperson only has one chance to make a second impression.
Employees must be afforded opportunities to think independently.
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August 2017MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF THE ONTARIO1 COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION www.ocna.org
ASSOCIATION NEWS
MARK YOUR CALENDARS! October 1: BNC Awards Go Live
The BNC Awards go live on October 1 and will accept entries until October 31. Watch your inbox for submission information.
October 4: Queen’s Park Day
Join us for Queen’s Park Day on Wednesday, October 4 and meet with politicians of all stripes to discuss issues currently affecting the community newspaper industry. The OCNA will arrange afternoon meetings between MPPs and publishers or editors. The association’s annual Publishers’ Reception will follow in the evening. Watch for your invitation.
NEWSCLIPS VOLUME 06, ISSUE 06 37 Front Street E, Ste 200 Toronto, ON M5E 1B3 P. 416-923-7724 w. www.ocna.org e. info@ocna.org
OCNA BOARD PRESIDENT
Ray Stanton
VICE PRESIDENT
Rick Shaver
SECRETARY/ TREASURER
John Willems
PAST PRESIDENT
Dave Adsett
DIRECTORS
Craig Barnard Gordon Cameron Abbas Homayed Alicia McCutcheon Darren Murphy Margaret Zwart
November 3 - 4: Independent Publishers’ Retreat
Independently owned community newspaper publishers are invited to join the OCNA for a two-day retreat filled with informative sessions, networking opportunities, food and fun! For more information contact: Karen Shardlow at k.shardlow@ocna.org or 416-923-7724 x 4432.
November 30: Junior Citizen Awards Nomination Deadline
Help promote this worthwhile awards program and collect nominations for deserving youth in your community.
IN THIS ISSUE... 04
...................................................CREATING AN ONLINE POLL
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...................HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SECOND IMPRESSION
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................EMPOWER STAFF & LET THEM MAKE MISTAKES
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..........................................TAKING A CLOSER LOOK: PART 1
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.................UPCOMING ONLINE MEDIA CAMPUS WEBINARS
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OCNA STAFF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Caroline Medwell
CONTROLLER
Corey Blosser
MEMBER SERVICES
Kelly Gorven Karen Shardlow
ACCOUNTING
Lucia Shepherd
AD*REACH
Erica Leyzac Pam Portt Carolyn Press
www.ocna.org
ASSOCIATION NEWS
A Message From OCNA’s Executive Director
OCNA MEMBER
Caroline Medwell
SNAP A CHAT WITH YOUR LOCAL MPP AND SEND THE PHOTO TO THE OCNA - DOUBLE YOUR CHANCES TO WIN!!
ONTARIO EDITOR SPEAKS AT INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM CONFERENCE
By now, you should have received an OCNA flash drive, loaded with an MPP briefing kit. Ontario government ad spending in Ontario print media has dropped dramatically over the past several years, while spending on foreign-owned digital sites has skyrocketed. The OCNA is working closely with advertising agency teams and the Advertising Review Board to address this issue. We ask that each OCNA member meet with their local MPP to advocate for more government advertising in community newspapers. The kit includes: • • • •
How to find and contact your MPP Government advertising trends Key messaging The power and value of Ontario community newspapers
Everyone who reports a meeting with their MPP before September 30th will be entered to win one of ten $50 gift cards! Double your chance to win by taking a photo with your local MPP and send it to us to be entered in the draw twice! Together, we can raise awareness - and revenues - for community newspapers.
In June, Hamilton Community News group managing editor and OCNA board director, Gordon Cameron gave an address to the attendees of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors’ conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. He spoke to the largely American audience about the state of the Canadian newspaper industry (and what publishers and associations are doing to try and fix it), how to run a successful community newspaper in a media-saturated urban market and shared the lessons he learned covering former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, which could be of use to our American cousins when it comes to covering President Donald Trump. The talk was well received and sparked a lively discussion among those in attendance. The event was recorded by the Newseum’s broadcast staff, but has yet to be posted to the Internet. Cameron was invited to speak at the event as the recipient of the 2017 Brian Mazza Memorial Scholarship, given each year to a Canadian community newspaper editor.
QUEEN’S PARK DAY: YOUR INVITATION TO JOIN US ON OCTOBER 4TH WILL BE ARRIVING SOON At our Queen’s Park Day last year, various ministers, MPPs and the Premier herself, came to our reception for discussion and photographs but, aside from your OCNA board, there were only two publishers present. It was uncomfortable to watch our invited guests from the government survey the room and realize that there were virtually no newspaper publishers present. The OCNA has close to 300 members, we should have at least 100 publishers present at our key Ontario government lobbying event. During our Independent Publishers Retreat last November, the OCNA proposed cancelling Queen’s Park Day, but the publishers at the session voted overwhelmingly NOT to cancel, and agreed that every member should try to attend. If at all possible, please plan to be at Queen’s Park in Toronto on Wednesday, October 4th. Individual meetings with MPPs will be scheduled throughout the day, followed by the annual MPP reception from 5PM to 7PM. We will appreciate your attendance, whenever you can be there. If you have any questions, please contact Karen Shardlow at k.shardlow@ocna.org or 416-923-7724 ext. 4432. August 2017
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Want to contribute to NewsClips? If you have news you would like to share about your paper, please send information to newsclips@ocna.org. Photos are always welcome!
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TECHNOLOGY
Creating An Online Poll By Kevin Slimp
While meeting with publishers oneon-one at conventions, the conversations run the gamut of running a newspaper or newspaper group. Over the weekend, while at a newspaper association convention in Oregon, publishers arrived at our scheduled meetings with questions about structuring groups, designing pages and increasing revenue, among other topics. I will be with my Tennessee Press Association friends in Franklin this week and I hear we have a list of publishers scheduled for oneon-one meetings. One publisher, Dale Gentry, was nice enough to e-mail and give me advance notice of our topic of discussion. He wrote, “We’re going to be doing ‘The Best of Jefferson County’ in the fall, and I wanted to get your input on the best way to tabulate votes. Our concern with an online survey is readers voting more than one time.” Fortunately, I’ll get the chance to meet with Dale before he sees this column, so I’m not giving away all my secrets in advance by answering his question here. I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of online polling. If you’ve filled out a questionnaire related to my newspaper research in the past, you’ve seen examples of these polls. In the past, I’ve used Survey Monkey for most of my polling. The paid version gives the user a lot flexibility concerning data collection. In my research, it’s important that no one ‘stuffs the ballot box’ by sending in multiple responses to the same questionnaire. Survey Monkey makes it easy to create a setting to keep that from happening. Earlier this year, my form creation needs increased, so I took a look at other options besides Survey Monkey and came up with an application that has become my favorite: Wufoo (wufoo.com). Wufoo is an online form builder that provides the tools to easily design and build these forms intuitively, using your own colors, logos and other elements. Two features sold me on Wufoo, its ability to easily integrate online payments with forms and its ease in copy-and-paste code snippets, which allow me to place the form directly on the page of a website, rather than creating a link to an external page. An additional benefit of Wufoo is its ability to quickly create simple forms for various uses. For instance, a few days ago I was looking for the best way to create an ‘unsubscribe’ button for my email blog. It dawned on me that I could create a simple form in Wufoo to allow the user to click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of the blog and send the necessary data to ‘form database’. I’ve also found Wufoo valuable when creating a simple online August 2017
marketplace. For instance, I was receiving a number of e-mails asking how to order an autographed copy of a book that was recently published. Wufoo works with most payment software. A little research led me to move my online customer payments from PayPal to Stripe, simply because Stripe integrates directly with Wufoo. What this means to my customers is they can go to my website, complete a form right there without having to go to an external link, and make a payment without being transferred to PayPal or some other site. It all happens right on the original web page.
That’s more information than Dale needs to prepare for his upcoming reader’s poll, but once he begins using Wufoo, I’ve got a feeling he’ll use it in ways he never previously imagined. Check the wufoo.com website for various plans. I’ve found Wufoo is definitely worth the small monthly fee I pay.
KEVIN SLIMP serves as director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology. He is a faculty member of the University of Tennessee College of Communication and Information. 4
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TECHNOLOGY
Upcoming newspaperacademy.com Webinars
00 OVERLS2!!! PANE
r o r r Mi e g a m ICOMIC STRIP
Attached is a list of upcoming webinars at newspaperacademy.com. After receiving a number of requests for ‘basic’ training in sales, writing, editing and design, they are offering a ‘Basics’ series in September. Using the links below, OCNA members will receive a $20 discount off the normal price of the 90-minute webinars (longer, to accommodate the information necessary for basic classes). With this discount, members may attend a 90-minute webinar for $49. The number of individuals who have attended one or more of our webinars is nearing 1,000 since December 2016. •
Tim Smith: The Basics of Selling Newspaper Ads: What you NEED to know to sell an ad- September 6, 2017 (http://newspaperacademy.com/webinar/adbasics/)
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Ed Henninger: The Basics of Newspaper Design: Starting from scratch - September 14, 2017 (http://newspaperacademy.com/webinar/henscratch/)
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Kevin Slimp: The Most Important Basics of Newspaper Production - September 20, 2017 (http://newspaperacademy.com/webinar/basicproduction/)
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John Hatcher: The Basics of Reporting: What you really need to know - September 21, 2017 (http://newspaperacademy.com/webinar/hatbasics/)
L PANEACTERS E L G N • SI NG CHAR IENCE PEATI WIDE AUD E R O ED • N EALS TO MIND P T P E A G • • BUD
Contact: stephen.lay@sympatico.ca for media kit
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ADVERTISING
How To Make A Good Second Impression By John Foust Raleigh, NC
Don, who manages a newspaper sales department, is always looking for ways to strengthen customer relations. “We understand the importance of first impressions,” he told me. “Know something about the prospect’s business before calling. Show up for the first appointment with a big smile and a firm handshake. Ask questions to learn about their overall situation and their marketing goals. “All of that is important,” he said. “But what about second impressions? I’ve been hearing a lot about that lately. We all know from personal experience what it’s like for a salesperson to treat us like royalty during an initial meeting, then act like they barely know us after that – especially if we don’t buy something right away. That’s why the things we do in that second contact can make a big difference in the salesperson-customer relationship.”
you can do a little online research, find some relevant ads that worked well for a similar business in another market. Or maybe you can find a couple of famous ads for national brands, which your prospect could find interesting. Make sure they illustrate advertising principles that can help his or her business.” 4. Send non-business information. If you learned that he is a golfer, e-mail a link to an interesting video about golf. If she mentioned that her family is planning a vacation to Europe, send a related link or clipping from your paper’s archives. 5. Ask for more details about the things you discussed. For example, if you’re working on a marketing proposal, do you need more information about prospective target audiences? Would you like to have more statistics on sales of their seasonal products? Would it help to have a list of loyal customers who could be willing to provide testimonial quotes?
Here are some ideas: 1. Express appreciation immediately. “A good old-fashioned ‘thank you’ is a must,” Don said. “Simply thank them for taking the time to meet with you. An e-mail is faster, but a handwritten note is more memorable.”
“It’s smart to ask questions at this point,” Don said. “It helps you learn more and it keeps the client engaged in the development process.
2. E-mail a summary of your meeting. “This can save a lot of headaches down the road,” Don explained. “The more you discussed in your first conversation, the greater the need for a summary. For example, here’s a short version of what you could say: ‘Thank you for taking some time to meet with me to discuss marketing ideas. We discussed: Point 1, Point 2 and Point 3. The next step is for me to provide you with a detailed proposal by the end of next week. Looking forward to our next conversation.”
Don’s ideas make a lot of sense. A salesperson has only one chance to make a second impression.
(c) Copyright 2017 by John Foust. All rights reserved. John Foust has conducted training programs for thousands of newspaper advertising professionals. Many ad departments are using his training videos to save time and get quick results from in-house training. E-mail for information: john@johnfoust.com
3. Send business-related information. “Obviously, this can be related to your conversation,” he said. “For example, if you talked about zoned coverage or click rates, send more details. If
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August 2017
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HUMAN RESOURCES
Energize & Empower Your Staff By Letting Go...And Let Them Make Mistakes! A TwoGreySuits Article By Ron Guest, Senior Partner Managers who have a need for very tight control of staff may never come to know that this style almost never leads to better performance. In fact the opposite is true. Micro managing will actually create poor performance because it stifles development of the team. The old adage of managers that hire people ‘to do things for them or to treat them as tools of production’ will in fact never see/experience the true potential in people. But letting go involves some risk and also a lot of trust. How can you learn to trust employees to do the right things if they are never given the opportunity or are always assigned task-like work where they are not required to come up with their own ideas or better ways of doing things? If employees are not afforded opportunities to think independently and take initiative, they will soon leave and the manager will be a burn out candidate because they will end up trying to do everything themselves (I have personally seen this many times). Of course, a sole entrepreneur will need to control everything. But once you decide to add just one new employee your main job is not control but getting others to do what needs to be done. Micro managing is near the top reason employees will decide to leave a company, as it reeks of mistrust and results in low commitment and buy-in to the company goals. Micro managing will actually demotivate your team and guarantee that you will do everything yourself because no one does it as well as you do. This happens quite often with newly appointed/inexperienced managers. Seasoned managers of people know that they have to let go in order to grow. Coaching is all about finding out/understanding people’s thought processes and helping them when they make poor assumptions or take too long or too little time in doing certain things or when they don’t think they have authority to act in certain cases. Even in labour intensive jobs, it is still required to let go, let people figure out how best to get work done (within guidelines of course) and more importantly allow them to work in an environment where they can ask a lot of questions without being chastised or seen as stupid by others. This is how we as humans learn. In my experience as a coach to various levels of managers, I am always concerned when I see a manager who is afraid to let go because of ‘potential’ mistakes. Come on, how are people going to learn if you are smothering them and not letting them utilize their brains? In client companies when I see non-obvious people in August 2017
jobs of significant authority, it is always linked back to a manager in their career who was able to significantly let go in order for people to develop. Whenever I quit a job in my career, I always had my replacement selected and developed internally. This is because I was willing to let go and see who would rise to the occasion and then work to develop them. Very good people-managers engage their employees from the very first day. They explain, train, encourage, and ask for input. Once they are certain that the employee understands they strongly encourage them to make decisions on the job. In short, encourage and value employee input and monitor. But gradually let go. Learn to look at key measurements that indicate the employee is on track and understands their job and the value they can add to the company. In summary, get out of the way! Get out of the details. Let go, let them drive and make their own decisions and watch your stress level decrease and your business grow!
TwoGreySuits is a leading edge provider of on-line human resource management information, processes, tools and forms servicing the North American market. They have linked the HR practices associated with the key drivers of Employee Engagement in the form of an online training application for managers utilizing the vast amount of well-organized information on the website. The HR Power Centre and HR Hot Line is simple and free for OCNA members. Visit https://ocna.twogreysuits.com/sign-up/ to sign up today.
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DESIGN
Taking A Closer Look: Part 1 By Ed Henninger Henninger Consulting
When was the last time you gathered your staff and took a close look at your newspaper’s design? Is it working for your readers? Is it easy to produce on deadline? Is it contemporary? Is it compelling? Is it true to your design style? I suggest a design critique every quarter…at least every six months. Go longer than that and you risk an erosion of your design style. Inconsistencies (see illustration) begin to creep in and, before long, your “design” is no longer a design. It’s just something that happens every issue. When you do your critique, here are key items worth reviewing:
VISUALS Is there a dominant visual on Page 1 and other open pages? Are your photos/graphics large enough on the page? Are lead visuals placed over the optical center on open pages? Are they good quality? Are they properly (read that ‘tightly’) cropped? How’s your print/reproduction quality? All of these standing heads are from the same newspaper. Every one is different. A study in inconsistency.
TYPOGRAPHY Are you using a strong, legible type face for text? Are word spacing and letter spacing too tight? Too loose? Are your columns too narrow for easy reading? Too wide? Is text aligned to the baseline grid? Are you watching for—and fixing—widows? Are you careful to avoid excessive word spacing and letter spacing when you wrap text around an item? Are your captions set large enough? Are your captions set too wide? Are your headline type faces consistent? Do you avoid the use of funky fonts? Do you practice good headline hierarchy? Do you have a consistent text style for lists, such as police and fire runs, calendars and other similar items? Do you have a consistent text style for infoboxes, and by-thenumbers boxes? Do you have a consistent style for pullouts? Do you have a consistent style for drop caps? Are your typographic styles set up in your software style sheets? August 2017
OTHER Is placement of content consistent from issue to issue? Is placement of ads consistent from page to page? Does the design/typography of your nameplate need tweaking? Do your teasers do the job, or do they need updating? Are your design elements simple? Consistent? Do you use color carefully and with a purpose? That’s my list. I’m assuming you have other items you’d want on your list, but those I’ve mentioned here will give you a good start. NEXT MONTH: Now that you know what you’re looking at, who does the looking, how does it work…and who’s in charge? I’ll cover this in my next column. ED HENNINGER is an independent newspaper consultant and the Director of Henninger Consulting, offering comprehensive newspaper design services at: www.henningerconsulting.com. WANT A FREE evaluation of your newspaper’s design? Just contact Ed at edh@henningerconsulting.com | 803-327-3322 8
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TRAINING
ONLINE MEDIA CAMPUS WEBINARS: OCNA has teamed with the Online Media Campus to help the association fulfill its mission of providing affordable and relevant training to members. ▄▄
Thursday, September 21 - Headlines That Pop!
Engaging, creative, yet informative headlines don’t just happen. Jean Hodges walks through best practices, creative planning processes and tips for reporters, editors and designers. Headlines have never been more important for attracting readers online and in print. Learn the art and science of writing winning headlines. ▄▄
Friday, September 29 - How to Sell the Value of Digital Without Overselling Your Client
Everyone sells digital. Everyone has similar portfolios. In order to differentiate, you’ll need to provide value beyond CTRs, CPMs and the like. In this webinar we’ll discuss how to: • Simplify digital sales for the customer and your sales team • Build a client-focused digital recommendation • Measure the results of digital advertising in a way that matters to your client • Retain and up-sell current campaigns
CLASSIFIED AD
*Registrations submitted after deadline are subject to $10 late fee. Registrations accepted until the day of the webinar. Log in instructions will be sent 48 hours ahead of scheduled program. If you are interested in participating but are unable to attend the live webinar, we encourage you to sign up anyway. As part of your webinar package, you will receive free access to the archive of this webinar by registering for the live session.
For more information and to register, visit: www.onlinemediacampus.com.
Make Money With Network Classifieds OCNA’s Network Classified Advertising is an easy way for you to earn additional revenue. Upsell your retail and classified advertisers and receive a 35% commission. LOGO ADS: OCNA recently introduced logo ads as an option. An All Ontario 25-word ad WITH LOGO and enhanced text is $975. You already know that advertisers in community newspapers get results. Help your advertisers extend their reach into a region of the province, across Ontario, or right across the country. They Win - You Win.
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The Possibilities are endless: > Online Revenue - any retailer with a web site. Let the Networks drive traffic to their site for increased sales > Real Estate - any agent with vacation properties, commercial properties and luxury homes. Buyers from outside your newspaper distribution area need to know > Events - Fairs, Markets, Shows, Theatre, Concerts or Sports. Spread the word to draw more people > Help wanted - Trades and other positions that individuals would relocate or commute to
August 2017
Contact OCNA Network Classified Coordinator Lucia Shepherd for full details at l.shepherd@ocna.org or 416-923-7724 ext 4423.
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WWW.OCNA.ORG
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