Official Publication of the Arizona Newspapers Association for distribution to all employees of ANA-member newspapers
A N Ag r a m s A community newspaper for community newspaper people.
June 2007
Briefs Better Newspapers Contest The Arizona Newspapers Association’s Better Newspapers Contest entry deadline is June 8, 2007. No late entries will be accepted, so turn those tearsheets in TODAY! Lumberjack wins six awards Northern Arizona University’s student-run newspaper, The Lumberjack, recently took home six awards for advertising excellence in the College Newspaper Business & Advertising Managers Competition, including Ad Manager of the Year for senior Nicole Heinicke. For more information, surf to www.cnbam.org. ASU students win 35 SPJ awards The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication swept the Society of Professional Journalists regional awards for the ninth time in 10 years. The awards recognize the best collegiate journalism work in Arizona, California and Nevada. Honorees were awarded certificates May 5 during a luncheon held as a part of the National Writer’s Workshop at California State University, Fullerton. More than 90 awards were presented to journalism students from 18 colleges and universities. The complete winners list is available at cronkite.asu.edu. Hispanic ad spending up 14% Advertising spending across Spanish-language media continues to outpace general market media, increasing 14.4 percent last year to nearly $5.6 billion, according to a Nielsen Monitor-Plus analysis of spending across six media segments. Newspapers had the most modest growth, up 4.3 percent to $110.4 million. MySpace to offer news, video Social networking site MySpace. com announced May 15 that they will begin launching video channels that will feature news and lifestyle video from partners including The New York Times and National Geographic. Facebook launching free classified ads Facebook, the popular social networking site, plans to challenge newspapers by launching a free classified site. Twenty-two million people use Facebook and most of them are young adults in high school and college. According to ComScore, Facebook is the nation’s sixth most visited Web site. Users can create classified listings in four categories, housing, jobs, for sale, and other. For now, Facebook plans to keep the classified listings free.
U.S. Army says journalists are a security threat Page 3
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Arizona supreme court orders in camera review to determine public access to e-mail records BY DAVID BODNEY
Last month the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously concluded that government officials cannot simply pronounce their email communications “personal” and therefore beyond the reach of the Arizona Public Records Law. In Griffis v. Pinal County, (April 25, 2007), Arizona’s highest court ruled that a judge must be allowed to inspect such records in camera to determine whether they constitute “public records.” The supreme court placed the burden of proving that the e-mail messages are “purely private” on the public official who wanted them withheld. The case involved 90 e-mail messages sent and received on the government’s computer system by Stanley Griffis, the former Pinal County Manager. The Arizona Republic had requested access to all e-mail messages generated or received by Griffis on the County’s computer system from Oct. 1 to Dec. 2, 2005. Though the County
produced over 700 e-mails, it withheld 120 that Griffis characterized as “personal.” At the time of The Republic’s request, Griffis was under investigation by Pinal County for purchasing $21,000 in sniper rifles and ammunition with County funds. The County Sheriff had questioned Griffis’ purchases, and Sheriff’s deputies seized most of the rifles from a vehicle at Griffis’ residence. The Pinal County Board of Supervisors promptly initiated the investigation, and Griffis left office a few months later. Shortly after leaving office, Griffis went on an African hunting safari. The County notified Griffis of its intention to release the 120 “personal” e-mail records to The Republic, but gave Griffis an opportunity to take legal steps to protect the records from disclosure. Without first notifying The Republic, Griffis obtained a preliminary injunction to block release of the 120 e-mails that he considered
personal. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., which publishes The Arizona Republic, moved to intervene and dissolve the injunction, and the County joined PNI’s efforts. After redacting a privilege log created by the County, Griffis voluntarily disclosed 30 of the 120 e-mail records at issue. The trial court concluded that the 90 remaining e-mail records were subject to inspection under A.R.S. § 39-121 et. seq. (The “Arizona Public Records Law”), but that personallyidentifying information – such as social security, bank account and credit card numbers – should be redacted. Griffis opposed in camera review, arguing that the remaining 90 e-mails fell entirely outside of the ambit of the Arizona Public Records Law. The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment, rejected the lower court’s conclusion that the records were “presumpCONTINUED ON PAGE 11
Reynolds Center releases study on newspaper blogs Three-fourths of the nation’s largest newspapers now offer blogs on business-related topics, according to a study released by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University. These popular online Web journals written by reporters get breaking news to readers more quickly, according to 60 percent of the business bloggers who responded to the study. However, more than half of respondents also said this takes away from their regular reporting time. “Newspapers, reporters and businesses are grappling with the pros and cons of blogging,” said Andrew Leckey, director of the Reynolds Center, which funded the study. “Our practical research was designed to see how widespread blogging on business topics actually is, what’s propelling it and how it affects the overall news process.” The two-part study consisted of a content analysis of 100 randomly selected newspapers and a survey that received 44 responses from active business bloggers. Their blogs represent topics ranging from individual industries to investments and corporate governance. The research was conducted by Stephen Doig, the Knight Chair at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of
Journalism and Mass Communication, working in conjunction with the Reynolds Center staff. Other content findings: • Business blogs haven’t caught on at smaller papers. While 38 of the largest 50 newspapers have a business-related blog and 24 of them have two or more, fewer than one in 10 papers overall has one. • Some business bloggers post frequently, particularly at larger papers, but the median number of postings overall is just three per week. • The median number of reader comments to business blogs over a two-week period was nine, but many received no responses. The survey of bloggers also found that: • Half of the responding business bloggers said they receive one ANAgrams Arizona Newspapers Association 1001 N. Central Avenue, Suite 670 Phoenix, AZ 85004 - 1947
to five reader comments for each posting, while one-third received no responses. • Half the respondents said it was their own idea to start the blog. • Only two respondents said they get paid extra for their postings. “Newspapers clearly need to be experimenting with blogs as another way of reaching readers beyond the printed page,” Doig said. “But it’s less clear at this point that blogs give an immediate payoff in increased readership for most news sites.” The center is funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. “PRSRT STD” U.S. POSTAGE PAID PHOENIX ARIZONA PERMIT NO. 3429
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