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A Section

Features

Departments

‘PERSONALIZATION WITH A PURPOSE’

Knock ‘Em Dead

CRITICAL THINKING

News app, Kinzen, puts control back into the consumer’s hands . . . . . . . p. 8

With 2018 behind them, news leaders look to slay the competition in the new year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 32

After an altercation with President Trump, did Jim Acosta’s behavior play into Trump’s anti-press narrative? p. 15

Sharing Secrets

DATA PAGE

The rise of encrypted mobile messaging apps has helped journalists protect and guard sources and their information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 38

Global Impunity Index 2018, newsroom employees are less likely to be diverse, bias in the news media, digital vs. traditional media ad revenue . . . . . p. 18

Going Nameless and Faceless

PRODUCTION

DEFINING TRUST The 32 Percent Project wants to rebuild relationships between news organizations and readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 9

AUDIO JOURNALISM News Over Audio makes quality news more accessible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 12

CREATING AN OASIS Report for America plans to place reporters in California ‘news deserts’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 13

Do journalists deserve some blame for America’s mass shootings? . . . . . . p. 44

The benefits of gray bars in newspapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 26

NEWSPEOPLE New hires, promotions and relocations across the industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 51

‘THE STORY OF A LIFETIME’

SHOPTALK

Charlotte Observer launches multiplatform series, ‘Carruth’ . . . . . . . . p. 14

Trump and media feed off each other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 58

PHOTO OF THE MONTH Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times . . . p. 16

Columns INDUSTRY INSIGHT

BUSINESS OF NEWS

DIGITAL PUBLISHING

Niche publishers pursue an ‘everything about something’ approach to local news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 20

Seven resolutions for newspapers in 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 22

What newspapers can learn from ‘slow news’ start-ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 24

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editorial

Mic Goes Bust(le)

I

n 2013, I interviewed Mic co-founder Jake Horowitz for a story about the news website (then known as PolicyMic) he and his college friend Chris Altchek had created for millennials. Back then, the site offered mostly social commentaries written by unpaid contributors and boasted 7.5 million unique visitors a month with 60,000 registered users.

“We want to be the New York Times for our generation. A place where 18-to-35year-olds can read, write and discuss the news,” Horowitz told me.

Over the years, I kept my eye on Mic. Not only because it was my job, but because I was genuinely interested in seeing how Horowitz and Altchek would do in news publishing. At first, things looked great.

They raised millions of dollars from investors, and at one time, it was rumored to be worth $100 million. Their staff grew, and journalists from both the print and digital worlds eagerly joined the start-up and supported its mission. They won journalism awards, and managed to land an interview with President Barack Obama in 2015.

Then came the pivot—you know what I’m talking about. In 2017, dozens of publishers decided to “pivot to video” in order to chase after clicks, views and digital dollars.

That meant a lot of people lost their jobs. At Mic, 25 employees were let go as part of its restructure to focus on visual journalism.

It was a beginning and an end for the media company.

As Facebook started to put less emphasis on content from publishers, Mic’s traffic to its own site plunged to 5 million uniques from 17 million a year ago, Digiday reported.

Then, in September 2018, the first reports of Mic looking for a buyer started to surface. The Wall Street Journal reported the company was looking at an acquisition offer from another media company. The Columbia Journalism Review’s Mathew Ingram learned from sources there were emergency board meetings to discuss a possible shutdown (something that Altchek denied in a tweet).

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The truth finally came out in late November when Mic announced it was laying off more than 100 employees and selling the company to Bustle Digital Group for about $5 million. Bustle, a brand that caters to millennial women, plans to revive the company in mid-2019, according to a New York Times report, but the damage has been done.

Five years ago, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan also spoke with the young company.

“I remember how smart, engaged and hopeful the Mic staffers were as we talked…

Could this exciting venture—then only two or three years old—thrive long into the future? Could these young journalists build their lives and careers on it?” Sullivan wrote about her visit. “In 2013, that seemed possible, despite some flashing danger signs.”

But we all saw the warning signs. In 2013, creating content for the allusive millennial audience was on the top of every publisher’s list. And like Mic, many of them also pivoted to video, only to see themselves struggle and fail.

“The layoffs, sales and revenue misses of 2018 exposed the fact that ‘news for millennials’ was, for the most part, just a bit of marketing opportunism that didn’t work out,” Max Willens wrote in Digiday. “Without a firehose of cheap referral traffic or brands that engendered loyalty in audiences, the great changing of the news guard has yet to come.”

Despite its early successes, Mic didn’t have the solution many of us in the industry wanted to find. It isn’t the first news startup to lose money and shut down, and sadly, it won’t be the last.

When I heard about Mic’s closure, I looked up my interview with Horowitz from 2013 and thought about his goal of wanting to be the New York Times for his generation. Looking back now, I wonder if it was a naïve thing for him to say. After all, doesn’t the New York Times also want to be the New York Times for his generation?—NY

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12/18/18 2:26 PM

This year’s Mega-Conference will focus on two distinct programming tracks featuring innovative solutions to the issues facing our industry B2B: You’ll hear about the latest trends in digital sales efforts, learn the techniques some of the most successful sales leaders are using to push their organizations forward, and how to improve your culture to optimize sales results.

B2C: This track will focus on the evolution to digital and other formats, how to use consumer data to improve your content efforts, and how to build trust with readers in these challenging times.

Visit www.mega-conference.com for additional program details, registration and information about sponsorships and exhibit space.

FEBRUARY 25-27, 2019 | LAS VEGAS A PARTNERSHIP OF:

SOUTHERN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

comments ))) truly be a surprise when their readers don’t care?

PHILIP S. MOORE

Submitted on editorandpublisher.com

Take Offer a Step Further

Future of Journalism Depends on Newspapers The simple fact is that the future of journalism is the future of newspapers, and that will only happen if publishers can be convinced that they have a future and stop dismantling newspapers in the name of getting what they can while they can. (“Taking a Look Back,” November 2018) The jury is in and, as anyone could have predicted two decades ago, the future of the web is not in news but entertainment.

News—even news aggregation—is a sideshow with cat videos and memes outdoing news in the pursuit of eyeballs. Chasing the future of news on the web is the road to ruin. However, the business of printing…remains strong. Printed newspapers cost exactly the same as they did a century ago (not adjusted for inflation, exactly the same) with technology over the last half century driving down the cost of composition and capital investment at a rate far greater than the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, printed newspapers have a business model which extracts far greater value out of an economic region, such as a city, than 6 |

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electronic media. Admittedly, the loss of advertising to the web, especially classified advertising, was a body blow, but making money on classifieds only became possible in the last quarter century and its loss only takes away what was never really a durable value, to begin with. So, how do you save newspapers and journalism? Look to the past, and I mean a century ago or more.

First, focus on writing and not timelines…

Second, cut the cost to the reader. Nobody has ever wanted to pay a lot for the news, not in the 1830s, when the “penny paper” was born to serve the mass reader, and certainly not now….Third, bulk up. More pages and bigger pages give potential readers the sense they are getting something for their money….Fourth, serve the community. When was the last time you heard of a newspaper taking the lead on anything, let alone anything with tangible benefit to the readers? The last time newspaper reporters and editors jumped up was when the president gored their ox. I understand why they were upset with the president’s rhetoric, but as long as newspapers serve themselves and not their readers, will it

Congratulations to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (“Creating News Consumers,” November 2018). But why not take this a bit farther? Free e-edition subscriptions to all college students in the market? All college students from Grand Junction who are attending college elsewhere? Certain professors and teachers in the market who might incorporate the material into their curricula? It’s silly not to. The cost is negligible; the “opportunity cost” is near zero (“they wouldn’t have been buying it anyway”), and the value may be immeasurable (or may eventually be measurable in new sales and subscriptions).

PETER M. ZOLLMAN

Submitted on editorandpublisher.com

Getting the Crowd to Stick Around As long as a host pays for all food, drinks, and entertainment, there will always be a room filled with friends and customers. (“Creating News Consumers,” November 2018) However, when the party is over and it is time to charge all friends and customers, the once crowded room empties quickly.

JERRY KURBATOFF

Submitted on editorandpublisher.com

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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12/18/18 1:54 PM

10NewspapersFP2019.qxp_Layout 1 9/12/18 3:05 PM Page 1

Nominate your paper, submit your ideas Enter via email: (Subject line: E&P 10) editor@editorandpublisher.com

Enter online at: editorandpublisher.com/10newspapers Our March issue will profile what we have long labeled “10 Newspapers That Do It Right.” Never meant to be a “10 Best” list, instead it spotlights select newspapers that have earned a notable achievement in at least one particular area, carried out a successful innovation, implemented cost-savings procedures, or developed programs that have generated revenues or increased circulation.

The objective of the story is to bring ideas together and share the best and the brightest in one comprehensive feature. All ideas are welcome.

Deadline: January 14, 2019 Please include: • Your name / contact info • Name of nominated paper • Daily or weekly?

• Circulation • Notable innovation, achievement, story, procedure, etc.

• Your ideas to help newspapers succeed and grow

editorandpublisher.com

the A section VOLUME 152

FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY 2019

ISSUE 1

> Look Ahead

‘Personalization with a Purpose’ News app, Kinzen, puts control back into the consumer’s hands

By Evelyn Mateos

I

nformation overload is an issue that news consumers have long faced as they find themselves overwhelmed in the age of television, computers and smartphones. This is an issue that Paul Watson, Mark Little and Áine Kerr have teamed up to tackle. The trio first met when they worked together at Storyful, a social media news agency Little founded.

Their new endeavor is Kinzen, a news app that quickly identifies the topics and sources that are important to each individual news consumer and matches them with the right stories at the right moment.

After a trial run last year, the app officially launched this month.

Kinzen users are able to create, in a sense, a personalized news feed. The app offers different “channels” based on social or professional needs or location. The users are also prompted to offer feedback on every article they read, and in this manner, the app identifies what is important to that particular user.

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web and mobile properties.” In other words, this can aid publishers that don’t necessarily have the wide range of content or technical resources to deliver a personalized experience.

The team has also been exploring the idea of } Pictured from Kinzen are (from left) Paul Watson, co-founder and CTO (on screen); Shane Creevy, community editor; Mark Little, co-founder and CEO; and bundling the app Áine Kerr, co-founder and COO. with publishers’ existing subscriptions and testing Kinzen’s potential However, there is still the issue of misinto generate higher conversion rates for formation. publishers.

“Kinzen will work with technology partBut what makes Kinzen stand apart ners to exclude proven sources of misinforfrom other apps that say they can successmation from the directory of sources availfully aggregate the news? able to users of its app,” said Little. “But “At Kinzen, we think about ‘personalizain addition to technology partnerships, we tion with a purpose,’” Little said. “We can believe healthy news communities need only earn the trust of the user if we listen human curation. At Kinzen, we will reward to their intentions rather than just tracking curators who add value by discovering, their instincts.” verifying and sharing quality information Unlike most aggregators, Kinzen focuswith Kinzen members.” es on the user’s conscious feedback instead Little said that the app will not only of snooping through their browsing history benefit readers, but will also help publishor featuring stories that are simply trenders because it will allow readers to “curate ing. With this app, it’s a two way street; their own personal news experience within the users tell Kinzen how they processed their favorite publisher’s branded environan article, and the app offers productive ment. As well as offer publisher content feedback. within the Kinzen app, we can deliver the For more information, visit kinzen.com.

Kinzen user experience within a partner’s editorandpublisher.com

12/18/18 2:02 PM

the A section

Defining Trust

The 32 Percent Project wants to rebuild relationships between news organizations and readers

} Todd Milbourn (left) and Lisa Heyamoto (Photo by Bryan Rodriguez)

} Participants gather at a 32 Percent Project workshop in a public library in Oxford, Miss. to discuss trust in the media. (Photo provided)

T

rust in the media has been declining for some time now, and in the current media climate, the issue has become a full-blown crisis for the industry.

It was shortly after the 2016 election when Gallup released a poll illustrating that only 32 percent of Americans said they had a measure of trust in the news media. That figure prompted Todd Milbourn and Lisa Heyamoto, journalists and educators at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, to travel to several different communities across the country to hear it from the people themselves. Their findings became the basis for their report, “The 32 Percent Project,” which can be found at medium.com/the-32-percent-project.

Over the course of a year, Milbourn and Heyamoto visited four cities: Pico Rivera, Calif., Boston, Mass., Vienna, Ill. and Oxford, Miss. The cities were carefully selected based on geographic, economic, racial, political and rural divides to reflect the diversity of American communities.

By posting on neighborhood event calendars, sending out fliers via local libraries and spreading the word at schools, churches and other community connectors, Milbourn and Heyamoto were able to recruit participants to attend workshops.

“We wanted to take the conversations outside of the realm of ‘Do you trust the media?’ frame,” Milbourn said. “So we asked questions like, ‘Think of a person or an organization that you trust, not a news organization or a source of information, just a person in your life or organization, and what makes them trustworthy?'”

From these conversations, Milbourn and Heyamoto identified six key themes: authenticity, transparency, consistency, positivity, diversity and shared mission. These are considered the “conditions of trust,” and the report concluded that those themes are critical factors that must be present for citizens to trust news organizations.

Heyamoto mentioned that one of the more surprising findings their project discovered was how little people know about the journalism process.

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} Two participants of the 32 Percent Project converse at a workshop in Pico Rivera, Calif.

(Photo provided)

“As journalists, it makes a lot sense to us what we do. It seems obvious, but it really isn’t, and people have a thin understanding of how it works,” she said.

“Overall, the journalist’s process is very opaque and people don’t trust the outcome if they don’t know the process.”

Milbourn added that journalism is currently being handled in a very transactional way, in which reporters just focus on simply getting the story, but people are hungry for news organizations that are rooted in communities. The path to repairing trust between journalism and consumer may be found in nurturing that relationship.

Since the report came out last summer, Milbourn and Heyamoto have traveled to media conferences, sharing their work with journalists who have excitedly promised to take the information back to their newsrooms. Their hope is that news organizations take their findings and apply them to what they do in a way that helps their communities. –EM

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the A section From the Archive OF THE MONTH News consumers today face an overwhelming amount of journalism.

Computers, smartphones, television and podcasts all play a part in making journalism ubiquitous.

This dilemma led the Washington Post Magazine to call on several artists, including singersongwriter Ben Folds, to create an alternative storytelling issue.

Released in September 2018, the issue was available in print and also online at wapo.st/2oWV2XP. In a press release, Washington Post Magazine editor Richard Just called the issue “an experiment in telling journalistic stories through unusual mediums.”

“At a time when the sheer number of stories that readers consume every day can feel overwhelming, we hope that presenting stories in unconventional forms will create a sense of surprise for readers,” he said.

Among the unconventional forms found in the magazine was an original song by Folds titled “Mister Peepers” about deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein; a board game in which readers could play as U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos; a three-act play based upon an evening spent with prom chaperones; a graphic novel treatment of Date Lab; and a create-your-own-speech version of a recent address by President Trump.—EM

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 A University of Cincinnati student gives a free sample of the Cincinnati Post’s new Mid-Day edition to a passerby. Four UC cheerleaders took part in the one-day sampling campaign throughout downtown Cincinnati dressed in bright red Mid-Day T-shirts with the words “Don’t eat lunch alone” and “Lunch with The Post’s Mid-Day edition.” This photo originally appeared in the May 22, 1976 issue of E&P.

> Wise Advice “How can publishers best define accountability journalism, and what kind of tools and resources should they use to win the people’s trust?”

 Susan Benkelman

The key is in the audience, both in choosing the topics and in winning trust. In deciding which issues to tackle, newsroom leaders can look at metrics that tell them how deeply their audience is engaged on certain topics, use community feedback and tap their reporters’ news instincts. But transparency is also key: letting readers know why they chose this particular topic. Investigative stories will often reveal how many interviews were done or how much data was crunched. I like it when editors go further—with an editor’s note about what led to the investigation or what problem they saw that needed to be solved in their community.

Susan Benkelman joined the American Press Institute in October 2018 as director of accountability journalism. She was previously a news editor at the Wall Street Journal and before that editorial director at CQ Roll Call in Washington D.C. As a reporter, she worked for Newsday and the Detroit News. editorandpublisher.com

12/18/18 2:02 PM

the A section Tornoe’s Corner

The Oxford Dictionary defined its 2018 Word of the Year as “poisonous,” and reported it had a 45 percent increase in the number of times the word was looked up on oxforddictionaries.com. “Toxic” became an excellent descriptor for the year’s most talked about topics. As a result, the wide scope of its application made the word stand out and win the title as Word of the Year.

LEGAL BRIEFS District Court of Wyoming Rules Data Trespass Laws Are Unconstitutional

WyoFile recently reported that the District Court of Wyoming concluded that the data trespass laws passed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2015 and amended in 2016 violated the First Amendment. These laws, believed to be written in defense of private property owners, made illegal the collection of data from private and public land if private land was crossed in the process. Various groups, including the

Western Watersheds Project, National Press Photographers Association and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, came together to challenge Wyoming on these matters.

Judge Scott Skavdahl wrote that those laws infringed on the protection of accidental trespass and data collection is a form of free speech, and ruled that the Wyoming government is prohibited from enforcing data trespass laws.

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooter Records Released to Public

According to the Hartford Courant, the state Supreme County recently ruled that documents and journals belonging to Sandy Hook Elementary shooter Adam Lanza could be released to the public. For the Courant, it was a five-year battle as it sought access to Lanza’s journals, a spreadsheet he kept of mass shooters and several other items removed from his home under the state’s Freedom of Information Act but police declined to release them. The attorney general’s editorandpublisher.com

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office presented the Connecticut Supreme Court with several arguments including that the items were property of the judicial department and not considered public records because they were never used as evidence in a criminal case. However, the Courant aimed to use these documents as a means of understanding the thoughts of a mass killer and argued that release of the records could help the public understand the ruthless attack on the elementary school.

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the A section

Audio Journalism News Over Audio makes quality news more accessible

} News Over Audio records content from media partners and delivers it online through an app.

A

s major audiobook listeners, Gareth Hickey and Shane Ennis found themselves in early 2014 questioning whether or not there were similar offerings available in the news publishing space. That mission led them to create News Over Audio (NOA). For the next two years, Hickey and Ennis worked on constructing their app, and in May 2017, NOA was released. With headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, NOA currently employs more than 20 people in editorial and narration, sales and marketing, and product and technology.

NOA takes the best content from its media partner, records it and then delivers the audio to the world via iPhone, Android, web, smart speaker or an in-car application. NOA also employs a team of editors to aggregate content into playlists on a topic-specific basis.

“Our aim with playlists is to optimize for the learning outcome,” said Hickey. “We want our consumers to be able to pick a topic of interest—say the U.S midterms—and be able to listen to a finite selection of the very best stories and walk away knowing more.”

An important aspect for NOA is that the consumer feels a sense of finishing a topic. According to Hickey, news lacks “finishability” because it’s never-ending.

“Our aim with playlists is to optimize for the learning outcome.”

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} Pictured from News Over Audio are (from left) Shane Ennis, co-founder; Gareth Hickey, co-founder and CEO; Sean Anglim, CTO; and David O’Donovan, finance director.

“With our playlists, we provide our listeners with completion scores so that they can easily see where they are in a particular story,” he explained.

NOA has already partnered with publishers, such as the New York Times, Financial Times, and the Independent in the U.K. Currently, NOA offers a metered-access subscription model, and free users are shown ads, while premium users are not.

Will Gore, deputy editor for the Independent, said, “The Independent has been glad to partner with News Over Audio, enabling a wide audience to access our quality content in a different format.

NOA’s narrators are excellent and we have been pleased with the high production values of the recordings. The selection of articles by NOA is admirably varied too.”

According to Hickey and Ennis, publishers are excited about audio journalism because it is driving engagement. As the industry moves toward metered subscription models, Hickey said engagement time is emerging as the main metric of success. The average duration of an NOA article is five minutes and two seconds, compared to the average digital article dwell time of 45 seconds.

NOA hopes to not only make quality news more accessible to mass market audiences but to also make it more convenient for users to discover great stories.

At the end of the day, NOA wants to help newspapers live beyond the printed page. “Journalists are storytellers first and foremost, and allowing users to bring those stories with them in the car, at the gym, or while they walk greatly expands the average consumer’s engagement window,” Hickey said.

For more information, visit newsoveraudio.com. —EM

editorandpublisher.com

12/18/18 4:01 PM

the A section

Creating an Oasis Report for America plans to place reporters in California ‘news deserts’

F

ollowing the success of placing 13 reporters in newsrooms across the country in 2018, Report for America is now focusing on the rapid increase of news deserts in California, which the program notes, has lost 73 newspapers since 2004. Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms across the country, including newspapers, radio stations and television stations.

There are currently reporters in Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia.

In a press release, Steven Waldman, president of Report for America, said, “In

this time of declining trust in journalism, it’s important that we remember: trust is a crop that is locally grown. More reporters

on the ground will help repair the rupture between local media and the residents they serve.”

Report for America plans to place 10 reporters in California in 2019 and 20 the following year. The Annenberg Foundation and McClatchy Foundation are supporting the program in its latest mission, and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism will be collaborating with and training the reporters.

Although newsroom applications closed in November 2018, applications to become a corps member are due Feb. 1. Applications can be found at reportforamerica. org. The reporters will begin their work in June.—EM

Daily Newspaper 6ROG Observer-Reporter Washington, PA Cribb, Greene & Cope is pleased to KDYH UHSUHVHQWHG WKH Northrop family in their sale to Ogden Newspapers.

John Cribb

ribb@Cribb.com 406.579.2925ȱ

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Gary Greene

reene@Cribb.com 434.227.0952ȱ

Randy Copeȱ

ope@Cribb.comȱ 214.356.3227

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the A section

‘The Story of a Lifetime’ Charlotte Observer launches multi-platform series, ‘Carruth’

} The series took 11 months to complete, and includes print, a podcast, and video.

} Pictured (from left) Jeff Siner, video producer; Saundra Adams, Cherica Adams’ mother; Chancellor Lee Adams, Cherica Adams’ son; and Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer reporter, during a visit to Cherica Adams’ gravesite, where they recorded an interview for the podcast and documentary.

I

n 1999, Rae Carruth, a young football player playing for the Carolina Panthers, was accused of conspiring to murder his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams. For Charlotte Observer reporter Scott Fowler, it was “the story of a lifetime.”

Carruth’s trial begun in late 2000, and on Jan. 16, 2001, a jury found Carruth guilty of three out of four counts (he was found not guilty of first-degree murder).

“It felt like very high stakes almost all the time,” said Fowler, who as a young sports columnist at the time, tried to get into the courtroom as often as he could.

After spending nearly 19 years in prison, Carruth was released on Oct. 22, 2018. To coincide with his release date, the Observer and McClatchy Studios launched “Carruth,” a seven-part multi-platform series on Oct. 16. The series was based on Fowler’s reporting, and includes a serialized podcast, videos, and news stories, which all took about 11 months to complete. The full package can be found at charlotteobserver.com/carruth.

The series follows the relationship between Carruth and Adams, her pregnancy, and Carruth’s plot to murder Adams and their unborn son. But it’s also a story of hope. Even though Adams was killed, her son, Chancellor Lee, survived. He was born prematurely and raised by his maternal grandmother, Saundra Adams.

Fowler said it was Saundra that inspired him to turn the story into a multi-platform series: “Every time I interviewed Saundra,

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I was struck by what a remarkable speaker she was…

She was talking about forgiving the man who was convicted of plotting the murder of her daughter, for God’s sake. And I would hear it and think to myself: ‘Other people would want to hear this. Not just read it. Hear it.’”

Fowler collaborated with his longtime editor, Mike Persinger, on the print story; video producer Jeff Siner and visual editor Matt Walsh for the documentary; and Davin Coburn, McClatchy’s senior podcast producer, and Rachel Wise, McClatchy’s regional video editor in the Carolinas, for the audio part of the series. The project also called for teams of illustrators, web designers and more.

The series received tremendous positive feedback and helped raise visibility to domestic violence since it was released during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The team also worked with nonprofits and welcomed their guidance throughout the process.

In addition, the project highlighted the importance of local reporting. Fowler said a few of those who worked on the series have been at the Observer for nearly 30 years, so they knew the history behind the story, and they had access to the right sources.

“This couldn’t have been done by a national magazine writer parachuting in for a week,” Fowler said. “It was the sort of rich, indepth story that local newspapers are made to do.”–EM

The series received tremendous positive feedback and helped raise visibility to domestic violence...

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critical thinking

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

J-school students and industry vets tackle the tough questions

“During a recent White House press conference, CNN’s Jim Acosta got into a heated exchange with President Trump and an ‘altercation’ with an intern. Did Acosta’s behavior play into Trump’s anti-press narrative?”

A:

I don’t believe CNN’s Jim Acosta was playing into President Trump’s anti-press narrative when the pair got into a heated exchange during a post-midterm elections press conference.

As I watched the events of the press conference unfurl, I was Maya Goldman, 20 reminded of something I was told junior, University of Michigan, by an editor at the Michigan Daily Ann Arbor, Mich. when I first started out as a news Goldman is studying anthroreporter. She told me that my role pology and writing, and is wasn’t just to smile and nod at currently the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the people in positions of power—it was Michigan Daily. to challenge their comments and get to the bottom of why they had said the things they’d said.

This is exactly what Acosta did throughout his exchange with Trump. Acosta wasn’t doing anything wrong or even anything out of the ordinary for a professional journalist. He was pushing back on Trump’s answers, sure, but that’s what journalists do.

It’s necessary to push against whomever they’re interviewing. It’s important to ask hard questions and figure out the truth in the situation.

In fact, I’d even say this kind of truth-seeking that Acosta exhibited actively goes against the anti-press narrative. By continuing to pursue accurate information (and pressing Trump to disseminate accurate information himself), Acosta showed a commitment to combating fake news. Acosta’s actions at this press conference showed that journalists aren’t backing down in their pursuit for answers.

Trump has stated again and again that he thinks the press are the “enemy of the people.” But Acosta was simply doing his job at this press conference by seeking out the truth and refusing to back down—and journalists shouldn’t have to stop doing their jobs simply because it makes the president uncomfortable.

It’s important to ask hard questions and figure out the truth in the situation.

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A:

CNN’s Jim Acosta did no journalist and no news consumer any favors by arguing with the president. As the Acosta incident took over the news cycle, the questions he asked were forgotten. How does that better inform our public?

Acosta’s actions also benefited no reporters. When a journalist becomes the subject of a news story, readers question if we’re doing our Christopher Fox work for ourselves or for our public.

Graham, 39 managing editor, Larson NewsJournalists shouldn’t report on argupapers, Sedona, Ariz. ments we have with politicians, we should just report what they say.

Graham first worked for Larson Newspapers as a copy The repetition of falsehoods damageditor from 2004 to 2008. es our republic and harms democrat- He returned to the paper in ic institutions, but if politicians are 2009 and was promoted to managing editor in 2013. committed to repeating falsehoods, Larson Newspapers is a picking a verbal fight during a press family-owned newspaper conference will not convince them chain that publishes the Sedona Red Rock News, they’re wrong. Such self-reflective Cottonwood Journal Extra epiphanies only happen in movies. and the Camp Verde Journal Newspaper readers and television in Arizona’s Verde Valley. news watchers wait for subsequent summarizations of press conferences by journalists about what was said and whether it is verifiably true or false. Those news stories are the place and time to point out the falsehoods of political figures that ignore or disregard facts or dispute the truth.

Journalists can and should ask tough questions or challenge political figures in one-on-one interviews when the politician has no means to weasel out of a direct response, but leave the discussion about how a politician answers or chooses words to an editors’ commentary or in-depth think pieces.

Journalists must be adversaries of political figures, always. Our duty is to fact-check what they say, how they say it and point out to our audiences whether what is true, false or nuanced—not prove who can win a shouting match. Even if we win it, we lose.

Politicians—before this president and long after he leaves office—will attack the press for doing our job. We should not feed them. 

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photo of the month

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

FIERY BEACH ď ˝ Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times Llamas are tied to a lifeguard stand on the beach in Malibu, Calif. during the Woolsey Fire that broke out in November 2018 in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

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data page Global Impunity Index 2018 The Impunity Index, published annually by CPJ to record the crimes against journalists, calculates the number of unsolved murders based on a 10-year period as a percentage of each country’s population. This edition includes murders that occurred in every nation between Sept.1, 2008 and Aug. 31, 2018.

5

2

Syria

4

Unsolved Cases 18 Population 18.3M Years on Index 5

Mexico Unsolved Cases 26 Population 129.2M Years on Index 11

12

Iraq

3

South Sudan

Unsolved Cases 8 Population 144.5M Years on Index 11

Somalia

Nigeria Unsolved Cases 5 Population 190.9M Years on Index 6

13

Russia

Unsolved Cases 25 Population 14.7M Years on Index 11

Unsolved Cases 5 Population 12.6M Years on Index 5 14

10

Unsolved Cases 25 Population 38.3M Years on Index 11

9

Afghanistan Unsolved Cases 11 Population 35.5M Years on Index 10

Colombia

1

Unsolved Cases 5 Population 49.1M Years on Index 8

Philippines Unsolved Cases 40 Population 104.9M Years on Index 11

6

Pakistan Unsolved Cases 18 Population 197M Years on Index 11

8

Brazil Unsolved Cases 17 Population 209.3M Years on Index 9

7

India

11

Unsolved Cases 18 Population 1339.2M Years on Index 11

Bangladesh Unsolved Cases 7 Population 164.7M Years on Index 8

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists

Bias and Perceived Accuracy in the News Media Between Feb. 5 and March 11, 2018, Gallup/Knight Foundation surveyed 1,440 Gallup Panel members to assess how U.S. adults perceive bias in news reporting and whether they can distinguish bias from inaccuracy.

62%

44% believe news reporting is inaccurate

80% believe the news found on social media is biased

64% believe news on social media is inaccurate

believe the news they see on television, read in newspapers and hear on the radio is biased

Source: Knight Foundation

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Newsroom Employees Are Less Likely to be Diverse Based on population ages 18 and older employed in the civilian labor force Newsroom employees Newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than all U.S. workers % of U.S. employed adults who are…

All U.S. workers Younger newsroom employees have equal gender diversity as workers overall; still more likely to be white % of U.S. employed adults in each age group who are…

Non-Hispanic white

77% 65%

Non-Hispanic white

61% 53%

Male

Non-Hispanic white and male

48% 34%

18-29

74% 59%

30-49

74% 61%

Younger newsroom employees are less likely than their older colleagues to be white men % of U.S. employed adults in each age group who are…

Male 18-29

51% 51%

30-49

65% 53%

50+

66% 52%

Non-Hispanic white and male 18-29

30-49

50+

85% 74%

50+

38% 30% 48% 33% 56% 39%

Source: Pew Research Center, analysis of U.S. Census Bureau, 2012-2016 American Community Survey five-year Public Use Microdata Sample file

Half-Year 2018 Ad Revenue: Digital vs. Traditional Media In billions; based on U.S. digital advertising revenues for the first six months of 2018

$49.5 Digital

$26.6

Broadcast TV

$14.6

Cable TV

$5.2

Magazines

$3.6

Newspaper

$2.7 Radio

Source: IAB Internet Ad Revenue Report/The Nielsen Co. editorandpublisher.com

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industry insight

Passion Projects Niche publishers pursue an ‘everything about something’ approach to local news

By Matt DeRienzo

I

n the search for people willing to pay for online news, legacy news organizations and new media entrepreneurs alike are seeing promise in niche publishing with a local layer.

Deep coverage of one particular topic or category in a defined geographic area can be an antidote to dissatisfaction with the shallowness of coverage provided by legacy newsrooms still trying to do “everything” with depleted staffs.

It’s an “everything about something” model being embraced by startups such as The Athletic, which is hiring away veteran newspaper beat writers and launching subscription-based sites serving the fans of pro sports teams in particular cities such as Buffalo, Detroit and Philadelphia.

Newspapers are taking notice, launching a la carte digital subscription plans around

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niche coverage and (hopefully) taking steps to bolster that coverage.

The Boston Globe, which previously launched and spun off news sites devoted to the Catholic faith and biosciences, has a new vertical focused on the recently-legalized marijuana industry.

Meanwhile, local independent online niche sites are springing up around the country, from Sioux Falls Business, to Eco Rhode Island, North Carolina Health News, and Spokane Faith and Values.

Technical.ly Philly and its sister publications in Brooklyn, Delaware and elsewhere covering the local tech industry. Chalkbeat covers education in a growing number of cities and states across the country, and was part of a program the Shorenstein Center at Harvard launched to incubate single-issue nonprofit news organizations.

Shorenstein’s work with single-issue sites in part showed the audience development potential of working in a category with passionate followers. There are advantages for search engine optimization, reach on Facebook, capturing emails and growing newsletter lists.

The formula for success goes beyond providing a lot of coverage about a particular topic.

The most successful niche publishers build and join existing communities around these topics. They partner with their audience. Their coverage and conversation around the topic is strong because readers are engaged and collectively, experts on the subject matter with a lot to contribute.

They put readers first, and guide them to relevant information about the topic whether it’s their own content and page editorandpublisher.com

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views or someone else’s.

And they’ve found that email newsletters, podcasting, and engagement through Facebook groups and events are a natural fit in serving a group of readers passionate about a particular topic.

This approach sets the table for a paid membership model, or a digital subscription model that uses some of the engagement and loyalty best practices of membership programs.

Doing niche on a local level creates opportunities for in-person events that could either generate revenue on their own or move readers along the membership or subscription funnel.

And if you can build an authentic community around a particular category, it provides the kind of targeting that advertisers seek. And if a publisher can figure out how to invite advertisers into that community in ways that feel helpful instead of intrusive, how effective could that be?

There are pitfalls. You can’t promise to be “everything about something” and then do it halfway. And if you truly want to build a community, you’ve got to listen and cede some control. You have to understand best practices around audience development, reader engagement and curation.

Especially for legacy publishers attempting to build out a niche site within a much bigger structure, you need to be entrepreneurial and have some dedicated business side and revenue resources assigned to it.

If you can’t go that far, there are still many lessons for publishers in the approach of niche sites. The biggest is realizing that there are segments to your audience bound by common interests and problems.

For example, a newspaper in Sweden last year launched a Facebook group for commuters where people commiserate about broken toilets and delays and share advice about alternate routes. There’s likely

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no better authority on transportation and commuting issues in that community than the local newspaper. It’s a great starting point to really talk about how it can own the topic, go further in filling information gaps about it, and bring the people most affected and passionate about it together. 

Matt DeRienzo is vice president of news and digital content for Hearst’s newspapers and websites in Connecticut.

He has worked in journalism as a reporter, editor, publisher, corporate director of news for 25 years, including serving as the first full-time executive director of LION Publishers, a national nonprofit that supports the publishers of local independent online news organizations.

WAYNE PRINTING CO. HAS SOLD

GOLDSBORO (NC) NEWS-ARGUS 9,500 daily circulation and related publications and websites

TO

PAXTON MEDIA GROUP We are pleased to have represented Wayne Printing Co. in this transaction.

Dirks, Van Essen, Murray & April

Santa Fe, NM t: 505.820.2700 www.dirksvanessen.com

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business of news

Checklist for Success Seven resolutions for newspapers in 2019

By Tim Gallagher

T

hroughout the years, my New Year’s resolutions have helped me lose 30 pounds (and gain 50 back with no help from resolutions).

I’ve never given up on the idea that the new year is a great time to pause, evaluate and make changes I need to make. Here are seven resolutions newspapers ought to make in 2019.

your newsroom diverB Improve sity. Let’s go with the no-brainer first, but it needs saying. The country is split—along economic, ethnic and gender lines. We are in the midst of an historic “Me Too” movement and still women are under-represented on the big stories. According to a 2017 report by women in the U.S. media, “Female journalists continue to report less of the news than do male journal22 |

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ists” in the top 20 news outlets— and the difference was “especially glaring in TV news.” When it comes to ethnic minorities, only around one newsroom in eight is even responding to an annual survey. If you assume that those who responded did so because they weren’t ashamed of their ethnic minority hiring, then the 22 percent figure terrible. The number of ethnic minorities in newsroom is still far below what America looks like. Resolve to make at least some progress in this important area in 2019. a wider gulf between C Create yourself and Facebook. This is a data collection company that uses the news we pay for to build their businesses. The new Congress is anti-high tech and the executive of media companies

are fighting for permission that would allow them to bend anti-trust rules and band together to negotiate new terms with Facebook. Most of us normally favor free market solutions to business problems, but Facebook is reasonably close to running our government and we need to keep them from using our content to build their business. out your podcast strategy D Figure or enhance your podcast strategy. Reuters has done some intriguing research on how people access news on smart speakers (think Echo and Alexa) and the results will not surprise you.

While these are not quite podcasts, the research transcends: People want more news—updated more frequently—in quicker bites. They want to make it easier to skip around past the dull editorandpublisher.com

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Frankly, I don’t expect much in the way of breaking news from a printed product that is 12 hours old by the time I get it. What I do expect is stories I can’t read anywhere else. We have huge wildfires in Southern California where I live, and TV keeps me constantly updated. My favorite story in my local newspaper during the recent fires explained to me what life is like in the firefighters’ encampment when they are getting a break.

parts. I’ve written previously about this important avenue to reach audiences that continue to grow. a real effort to find local E Make experts to cover the fields you used to cover when you had more reporters, i.e., philanthropy, faith, business. I am on the other side of the fence now, as a community member who reads my local newspaper and who misses coverage of certain beats it used to provide. So find local experts in these fields and train them to write newsy columns on the most important beats you are not covering because your staff is smaller. it comes to breaking news, F When figure out your game and play it. Smaller staffs and earlier deadlines mean less and less breaking news in tomorrow morning’s print edition.

G

Try to figure out how to reach millennials. They are going to vote in 2020. They are going to get information somewhere. They do not love your traditional models of website news and ads so you have to figure out another way to get them. There are some innovative websites and plans out there having success with young people.

Out-think

Business as usual doesn’t cut it in today’s continuously changing media industry. Outsmart the future, be more innovative, challenge yourself and dare to be different.

Subscribe to the publishing industry magazine for out-thinkers. E&P digs deep and delivers stories that stimulate ideas, strategies that make you money and hard-hitting opinion that moves you to action.

D V M & A

and associate with people H Meet who do not work in government or in journalism. We need to know more people outside the newsroom and the local government agencies. We will relate more closely to them when we find out what their lives are like. 

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.

T.B. BUTLER PUBLISHING CO. HAS SOLD

TYLER (TX) TELEGRAPH 11,000 daily circulation and related publications and websites

Subscribe to success editorandpublisher.com/subscribe

TO

M. ROBERTS MEDIA We are pleased to have represented T.B. Butler Publishing Co. in this transaction.

Dirks, Van Essen, Murray & April

Santa Fe, NM t: 505.820.2700 www.dirksvanessen.com

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digital publishing

Working with Readers What newspapers can learn from ‘slow news’ start-ups

By Rob Tornoe

S

low news.

It’s a phrase I’m sure you’ve already seen spread across social media. It refers to a new trend among some start-up news ventures to break free from the demands of covering breaking news to offer more contemplative coverage of issues that impact and shape our world.

Two news start-ups are charging full forward on the idea of slowing the pace of news in an era of 24/7 coverage. Tortoise, a British start-up with co-founders that hail from Dow Jones and the BBC, quickly became the most-funded journalism project in Kickstarter’s history. The Correspondent, a successful reader-supported news site based in the Netherlands, recently 24 |

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hit its crowdfunding goal of $2.5 million to launch a new website in the U.S. with around 15 reporters and editors on staff.

Of course, newspapers that serve a local community are already built on attempting to balance the dual sides of news coverage—the immediacy required in covering developing stories that impact local readers and strong analysis and enterprise reporting that digs in deep on important issues relevant to the community. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t new tricks or methods traditional news outlets can pick up from these “slow news” focused start-ups looking to shake things up.

Take The Correspondent, for instance.

Yes, its business model of avoiding all ad dollars and relying solely on a small

number of digital subscribers to fund a small newsroom with a handful of reporters isn’t exactly a sustainable option for most newspapers. But if you take a look at the website’s 10 founding principles, number five—“We collaborate with you, our knowledgeable members”—is a feature that could be adapted to strengthen your newsroom’s reporting.

What has made The Correspondent so successful in the Netherlands (where it has a staff of 55) is that its focus on readers doesn’t just end with revenue—the site’s journalism itself is centered around reader feedback. Reporters pool the expertise of readers by getting them directly involved in the reporting process. Co-founder and CEO Ernst Pfauth said he had the idea for the editorandpublisher.com

12/18/18 2:16 PM

unique approach during his time at the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad, which, like many American newspapers, had become walled off from its readers.

“I expected the journalists there to work with readers…I mean, thousands of readers know more than just a couple of journalists,” Pfauth said. “But to my surprise, most journalists were not interested in readers and were almost afraid of them…many were just broadcasting their stories, and the only readers they were hearing from were anonymous conspiracy theorists who shout at each other in the comments section.”

So Pfauth helped develop a two-pronged approach at The Correspondent to really encourage readers to share their expertise with the site’s reporters. First, a journalist shares his story idea on the site’s unique platform, acting as a direct call out that invites readers with expertise with the subject or the business involved to share their knowledge. A recent example is a story about refugees, where the reporter asked readers to pair up with a refugee in their community to describe what life is like for them in their new country (at last count, the call received more than 400 responses).

Pfauth said the initial response from many traditional journalists is fear that another outlet would simply swoop in and steal a potential scoop or story idea. But in practice, he said the opposite is actually true—that announcing publicly what you’re working on turns out to be a great way to claim a story for your news organization.

“I think David Fahrenthold’s research at the Washington Post (on President Trump’s finances) is proof of that,” Pfauth said. “He basically gave away his whole story idea on Twitter, and instead of other journalists stealing that story, it became his story right away and everyone started helping him. In the end, it led to a Pulitzer.”

The second step of The Correspondents reader-centered approach involves the site’s journalists actually sharing reporting notes, posting transcripts of conversations and offering some insight into how their story is progressing. This develops a more engaged following to the reporting itself, which ultimately leads to better sourcing.

Pfauth said he and his reporters have found that being open about the new facts and angles they’re uncovering in the process of reporting on a story makes it more accessible for readers and encourages more sources to come forward. It also demystifies the process of journalism and makes the process that much more transparent and trustworthy.

By Pfauth’s estimate, the site’s reporters spend a majority of their time listening and interacting with readers. In fact, The Correspondent encourages its journalists to spend as much as 50 percent of their time going through the site’s comments section (which they refer to as the “contributions” section). Only paying members can post, so thankfully it limits the amount of anonymous trash that ends up littering so many news websites.

The biggest success for The Correspondent was a story about the multinational oil company Shell. Energy and climate correspondent Jelmer Mommers issued a public call to Shell employees asking to discuss if journalists misunderstood what’s really required to make the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. editorandpublisher.com

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The call garnered dozens of people who work or used to work for Shell, who Mommers interviewed and transcribed into what became known as “The Shell Dialogues.” Mommers also shared the most important findings and conclusions of his reporting along the way, which led to more Shell employees reaching out.

Ultimately, the process eventually uncovered a 1986 internal Shell report on the greenhouse effect and a 1991 Shell video that revealed the company knew climate change was a dire issue while continuing to invest in fossil fuels. The news created headlines around the globe, including here in the U.S., where the scoop was shared by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Wired, Mother Jones and others.

“Because he was so open about his Rob Tornoe is a carresearch, he got all toonist and columthe sources needed to nist for Editor and break a big scoop,” PfPublisher, where he auth said. “So I think writes about trends instead of being afraid in digital media. that you might lose He is also a digital your story idea, it emeditor for Philly.com. powers you and brings Reach him at robtornoe@gmail.com. you better stories.” 

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KENTUCKY NEW ERA GROUP HAS SOLD

HOPKINSVILLE KENTUCKY NEW ERA 6,800 daily circulation and related publications and websites

TO

PAXTON MEDIA GROUP We are pleased to have represented Kentucky New Era Group in this transaction.

Dirks, Van Essen, Murray & April

Santa Fe, NM t: 505.820.2700 www.dirksvanessen.com

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production

BY JERRY SIMPKINS

MAINTAIN PRINT CONSISTENCY The benefits of gray bars in newspapers 26 |

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I

’m not quite sure how far back the discussion (aka argument) goes regarding gray bars and achieving gray balance on press through their use in newspapers.

Many articles I have read go back well into the 1980s and I’m fairly sure the debate went on well before that.

I’ll start with the theory of gray balance.

I’m not going to attempt to go into the techie aspects of things because, to be quite honest, there are numerous excellent articles on the theory of gray balance written by individuals much more qualified on the subject then myself. Instead, I’m going to look at things from a newspaper prospective and how gray bars affect our industry and their use and possible value.

If you’re not familiar with gray bars, here’s a brief summary of what they’re about.

Gray bars are a combination of three primary newspaper printing colors: cyan, magenta and yellow to achieve gray balance. The theory is that when you fingerprint your press and establish standard density in your process colors independently, you arrive at a measurable gray balance that can maintain standards for full color printing and ensure consistency.

When set-up correctly and measurements are established and maintained with a densitometer, the bar will print as a neutral grey under normal printing conditions.

If the gray bar takes on any variation of color, i.e. a shift in color cast and appears bluish, greenish, reddish, etc. to the eye, you are “out of balance” in your process color settings and a correction is necessary to return to natural gray balance.

The benefit of a balanced gray bar is consistency in printing.

Gray balance that is tested and set-up meticulously on the front-end (prepress) then maintained throughout the printing process will give you this consistency. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you are able to achieve gray balance on press, it will match the desired color proof and with a very small degree of tweaking on press will satisfy even the toughest critic (or commercial customer).

In effect, the gray bar acts as a guide or benchmark to set ink and takes that function away from the live image areas, such as photos.

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Establishing a Proper Gray Balance The first step to incorporating a gray scale (if you choose to use one after reading this entire article) is to run a very simple press test.

First, make sure that your press is printing optimally; i.e. roller settings in spec, blankets in spec, iron to iron set, good quality plates exposed properly, good chemistry, etc.

Anytime any of these change after the test, it will affect gray balance and consistency. Seeing these changes can be a blessing or a nightmare. Being able to recognize the changes as they occur can provide a great indicator/tool to let you know what is going wrong (once you’re able to analyze what each change means).

But, if you establish baseline measurements for your color bar/ gray balance for the test and don’t maintain the basics I’ve listed here, you could end up chasing your tail to maintain gray balance and soon, colors in your image area will be adversely affected by the tail chasing process. In other words, once you’ve established a baseline for your gray bar, monitor those changes and fix the problem instead of adjusting to it.

The simplest test I’ve found is one you set up yourself. Throw a few nice color photos on a page with a cyan, magenta, yellow and black color bars running across the top, middle and bottom of the page, along with a bar composed of CMY screens at a percent28 |

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age recommended by the vendor. A typical setting is 50 cyan, 40 magenta and 40 yellow. Work with your ink vendor to decide on proper density settings for your CMYK solids and have a well calibrated densitometer ready to measure all filter readings in the gray bar for CMYK. Warm up your press and take CMYK measurements across the page, and once you’re where you want to be (guided by the vendor), record the makeup (density readings) of the gray bar.

The final printed bar should be gray and ink set even across. It should appear a natural gray to the eye and measure accordingly.

There should be no color cast measurable or visible throughout.

Very slight density readings may be unavoidable across the bar but should be kept within tight/strict tolerances. It’s also important to make sure that you use the same dot size (screen) in your gray bar as you do your images/photos.

Once you have this guide, it will become the baseline for all your printing.

Are Gray Bars Still a Good Practice for Newspapers?

I see this as matter of opinion and personal preference. It’s hard to argue with the fact that you can establish consistency through the use of gray bars and that consistency in printing and ink savings

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can be achieved through their use. But are they practical for every application? I believe they are not.

The majority of the work done in large commercial shops involves long runs and the use of gray bars throughout the run is critical in maintaining uniformity and consistent color balance; this cannot be debated.

Additionally, any “tool” we can benefit from in printing is valuable. Gray bars fall into a category of being very beneficial for long runs, but I would argue their value on many of the short commercial runs most of us have in our shops.

Which brings us to our next question: Are memory colors sufficient for short runs, and should gray bars be eliminated in the interest of saving space?

What color is grass? What color is the sky? Basic flesh tones?

Sidewalks/cement? A red brick? If a hue/cast appears in any of these memory colors, it will normally be immediately noticeable.

Let’s break these questions down briefly.

I’ve seen numerous photos in which grass has an extreme blue hue to it. Should the press operator be chastised for ignoring the gray bar balance and setting the ink properly to achieve green grass? I don’t believe so.

The sky is most of the time blue, of course. There are many different shades of blue—light red, gray in the sky of many photos, but for the most part, if you’re looking at a green sky something is drastically wrong with the photo. Should the press operator be chastised for ignoring the gray bar balance and setting the ink properly?

Probably not.

The list goes on. Can these issues with a cast be controlled with a properly fingerprinted press and a test on the front-end (and on press) to establish densitometer measurements and achieve proper gray balance giving us more consistent printing? Absolutely.

But is that practical for the small runs that many of our shops have? Possibly not.

Another side of the argument is credit to gray bars for any size run. Besides the obvious benefit of a gray bar lending itself to print consistently, there is another side of things to consider.

Everyone—and I mean everyone—sees color a bit differently.

How many times have you had a commercial customer or publisher complain about a color photo and you’re looking at it trying to figure out exactly what the heck they’re talking about? The way I see color and the way you may see color can be two extremes. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it’s our jobs to please the masses; this argument flies in the face of the concept of memory colors.

I have a story that many of you press operators will completely understand. If you’ve been in the newspaper business for any

amount of time, you’ve no doubt run into one of these individuals and can relate to my story.

In a shop I worked at many years ago in Massachusetts, I had a press operator that regardless of the length (draw) of the run always stuck close to the densitometer. We had gray bars on our paper and every time you’d turn around, he would be taking a reading and making a correction. Without a doubt, he was the best color operator in the shop and set color very consistently.

One day, I asked his supervisor why he was the only one who really relied on the densitometer when most of the other operators set ink density to memory colors (I should have been able to figure things out for myself, but I was fairly new to the industry).

The answer was because the gentleman was certifiably color blind.

Of course I had to confirm it with a few of the other operators who pointed out I seemed to be the only idiot in the shop that didn’t already know this.

Although to this day I’ll still argue the value of gray bars on short runs, this sticks in my mind as a pretty strong argument for the “Do it by the book” folks.

Now, what about incorporating gray balance into mastheads and page design? Is this still a necessary practice?

Regardless of the length of the press run, many newspapers continue to print gray bars on section fronts and other pages throughout the paper to monitor and control color settings. This concept was popularized and continues to be used by USA Today and other major newspapers throughout the world. So what do they know that we don’t, or are the use of gray bars overrated and overused?

First of all, let’s talk about placement. Most, if not all, large commercial shops (Quad Graphics, for example) use color bars with gray bars to maintain print consistency on press. The typical position of these bars is often in the trim area and you may never see them by the time the product hits your shop in the form of a preprint. But when a booklet is printed the typical placement, it’s normally down the spine of the book to hide it from the area of general real estate.

Years ago in newspapers, we decided to incorporate gray bars into the overall page design. I remember selling this concept to an editor and publisher to improve the overall quality of our color photos.

Graphic artists and page designers quickly embraced the concept, and to this day, several newspapers incorporate gray bars into their section fronts. It’s become such a common sight on newspaper pages that I truly believe most editors and readers pay it no mind anymore. But, it can also take up valuable space on a page when publishers simply run a large gray bar across the bottom of the page.

In fairness to the editors who hate the big gray line on their front page, I suggest checking in with your production guys to see if they

Are memory colors sufficient for short runs, and should gray bars be eliminated in the interest of saving space?

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THE LATEST FROM… ProImage

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ProImage offers several ways for publishers to stay competitive. One product is NewsWayX, a highly advanced digital workflow and production tracking solution for newspaper and magazine printers. NewsWay was designed and built as a web-based-browser software platform from the ground up. None of the web and browser-related features of NewsWay are add-ons but an integral part of the solution. The NewsWay platform is the software foundation on which the user, through a browser, may interact with the solution’s powerful plugged-in modules. Since there are no client licenses, the system can be expanded to other users as needed.

NewsWayX also features a single, integrated user interface that keeps all users informed about editions and their status. Because it is based on HTML5, NewsWayX can be fully accessed from any computer platform that supports a browser. With its new easy-to-use interface, the production staff does not require lengthy training sessions in order to learn the software.

The platform provides highly sophisticated job tracking capabilities. The system displays the production status in a layered approach, from very general production views to the status of a single file or plate. This makes it easy for production to monitor multiple jobs running simultaneously.

The technology utilized provides full scalability. A basic system can start with a single server and when production load grows, further servers can be added as computing resources to share the increased load. No changes to the existing workflows are needed, thus making the entire process transparent to production.

NewsWayX has specialized tools to provide the ability for the printer to maximize revenue through contract printing. NewsWay Shuttle, a special branded portal for external customers, allows them to upload files, submit them to the production plan and approve them for production in a seamless and efficient manner.

Overall, NewsWayX offers a faster turnaround plus increased productivity for cost savings in the production process helping publishers to keep up in a digital age.

Rick Shafranek has more than 25 years experience in the publishing industry. He has covered various sales and marketing positions with Linotype-Hell, Heidelberg and currently, New Prolmage America, where is the vice president of sales and marketing.

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Gray bars help to establish and maintain consistency...

even use it. This may be a very unpopular statement, but I’d venture to guess that more than half of the newspapers with a gray bar on section fronts never take the densitometer out of the case. So why waste the space? Unless it helps page design, don’t.

It’s Your Decision Like many things in printing, there often isn’t a right answer. The only answer is often to “What works best for your particular property?”

I get to share my opinion because right now I’m the one with the keyboard in front of me, but you’re the one who has to ensure your shop is pumping out the best quality work possible in the quickest time with minimal wasted time and money.

The case for memory colors is strong for short runs that don’t allow press operators to take enough accurate densitometer readings in the gray bar throughout the run. Many runs of 1,000 or 2,000 papers are over by the time you can get the densitometer out of the case. Additionally, to get the density reading exactly where you want it, you’ll add to your waste as the press runs and you’re still taking readings.

For short runs on newsprint, I’m a firm believer in setting color by eye; memory colors and a good (not color blind) press operator are the best way to go.

On the other side of the discussion, there is just no arguing with the fact that gray bars help to establish and maintain consistency and are a wonderful tool for longer runs.

What’s best for your shop is a decision you have to make.  Jerry Simpkins has more than 30 years of experience in printing and operations in the newspaper industry.

Contact him on LinkedIn.com or at simpkins@tds.net.

editorandpublisher.com

12/18/18 2:20 PM

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12/18/18 5:11 PM

Knock ‘Em Dead With 2018 behind them, news leaders look to slay the competition in the new year

By Nu Yang

W

hen Dictionary.com announced its 2018 Word of the Year was misinformation, I’m sure many of us in the news industry were not surprised. Dictionary.com defines misinformation as “false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead”—and there was plenty of that going around last year. From fake political ads on Facebook to fact-checking our president, newsrooms are working overtime to stop misinformation from spreading.

As we look ahead to 2019, who knows what the next word of the year will be?

What we do know is that 2018 bought us many challenges and many successes, and as we move forward into a new year, our focus will continue to be on shedding light on the truth.

With 2018 behind us, E&P asked several news leaders to share their thoughts on this past year and what they think 2019 will hold for them.

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Knock ‘Em Dead

Leonard Woolsey President and Publisher Galveston County Daily News Galveston, Texas

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

Leonard Woolsey: Managing culture—making sure everyone in the newspaper understands urgency is the norm of our business. I am proud to say employees are fully engaged in the financial success of the newspaper. From page counts and reducing expenses to sharing news about a new business opening, everyone in the operation is predisposed to finding ways to make the newspapers not only a great editorial product, but a financial success. Money and profit are not dirty words at the Daily News.

Paul Tash: The tariffs on Canadian newsprint put a very heavy burden on the industry. Because the Tampa Bay Times has the largest circulation in Florida, the tariffs were a particular challenge here and forced some hard decisions, including layoffs. We responded by rallying public and political support and taking a prominent role in the coalition aligned against the tariffs. After a full day of hearings in Washington, the tariffs were overturned, although newsprint prices are not falling nearly as fast as they increased once the tariffs were imposed. Beyond the 34 |

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Paul Tash Chairman and CEO Tampa Bay Times Tampa Bay, Fla.

financial impact, the controversy showed that newspapers can still make our voices count. In the industry, sometimes we forget.

Samantha Johnston: My biggest challenge was looking throughout the company and realizing that conversations were happening among colleagues about their peers who they perceived as less than competent, yet when the rubber met the road, everyone was optimistic and supportive and acting as cheerleaders instead of simply saying, “You’re right.

You’re not succeeding. Let me help.” I love the concept of caring personally and challenging directly. I’ve learned that when I challenge directly from a place of authenticity, it is typically received gratefully and not defensively. I see my most important role as that of developing the talent that will lead this industry today and into the future and being a loyal and trusted peer and that requires both being radically candid with the people around me, but more importantly, creating the type of culture where everyone feels like they can criticize me and other managers, too. This year, I put a lot of intention behind being authentic in my communication—when things are good and when they are bad. It’s

Samantha Johnston General Manager Colorado Mountain News Media—West Aspen, Colo.

game-changing and culture-changing.

Jeff Light: Our paper has been sold four times in eight years, so our challenge always is to stay focused and to educate the new people who become involved with our business about what we are trying to do and why. In the acquisition of any company, the moment of the transaction is the point of least information, so it is a time when mistakes can be made. With our last owner, we also saw a lot of turnover at the top and the constant pressures of a public company, all of which added to the potential for error. Coming in to this year, our biggest challenge was trying to help our then-corporate leaders to articulate what they were trying to achieve in a way that could build confidence and energize the company. It was a great struggle for that group to run the company in a manner that aligned with the goals of our employees and the values of the communities we serve. We were fortunate to have been acquired mid-year by a private owner (Patrick Soon-Shiong) who brings a different level of insight and commitment to what we do. He has shown deep appreciation for the social justice mission of our company and an infectious enthusiasm for story-telling, technology editorandpublisher.com

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Jeff Light Publisher and Editor-in-Chief San Diego UnionTribune San Diego, Calif.

and accountability. Many of our shortterm crises have been resolved, leaving us to face the difficult and exciting challenges of the long term.

Thomas A. Silvestri: Sustainable revenue is the urgent answer that I’m sure you’ll get from many colleagues. So, I’ll add constantly readjusting in a time where nothing seemingly lasts long.

Overcome is an interesting word. Do we ever overcome the big picture? In the face of high expectations and the risk of major disappointments, you confront by raising awareness, deepening understanding and firming up commitment to what needs to get done now, in 90 days and in the future.

Push harder and smarter on better performance, setting smart goals and executing multiple projects and initiatives at once.

What was the most important financial lesson you learned?

Woolsey: Don’t take your supply for granted. Both the newsprint shortage and the dramatic run up on prices were terrifying. At times we wondered if we would be able to secure a truck of newsprint or if it would arrive on time. I hope we never find ourselves in both the price editorandpublisher.com

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Thomas A. Silvestri President and Publisher Richmond TimesDispatch Richmond, Va.

and supply pressures like that again. It changed our business forever.

Tash: It’s good to have friends. They don’t show up on a balance sheet, but they are tremendous assets.

Johnston: The notion that “If we build things, they will come” is wrong; that gravy train has been over for a

business plan (no matter how big or small), get sales teams jazzed, create killer content, build solid value propositions for the customers and audiences, and go to market with things you believe in. We’re one of the only industries in the world that invests in building cool things, gives them away for free, and then acts surprised when people aren’t clamoring to buy them when we get around to selling them. There may be products you build and never take to market, but the ones you do should always have a monetary component and we shouldn’t be ashamed of that. Journalism is a noble cause, but great journalism doesn’t come free.

Light: We resolved last year to take a hard look at the next five years for our business. What do we know about how this is going to unfold? We pledged to be clear-eyed and disciplined. We weren’t just drawing trend lines; we were evaluating our future, in detail. What is going to happen to our top 50 advertising accounts?

What is the lifespan of our TMC business?

What are our print circulation prospects?

What is our profitability by line of business and by day of week? Can we make the turn from an advertising company to a consumer revenue company? Once you do that

This year, I put a lot of intention behind being authentic in my communication—when things are good and when they are bad.

long time. If there is one truth with audience engagement, it’s that opportunities that can and should be monetized must be monetized from the beginning.

Falling into the trap of, “We need to launch it so that people can see what it is and they’ll love it and buy it,” most often results in a cool idea that doesn’t have a good business plan behind it and it ends up being a cool idea that never gets monetized. It doesn’t matter if it’s newsletters, podcasts, voice programs, videos…build a

work, the wishful thinking and the cynicism go out the window. It’s daunting, but not at all depressing. Quite the opposite. You get a much more urgent sense of what it means to be off your plan today when you can see that line drawn five years into the future. The lesson for us was that there is nothing to be gained by cowering before the task. There is no better feeling than building a complete team with full command of the trajectory of the business.

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Knock ‘Em Dead After decades in the wilderness, I feel like the industry is starting to find its way.

Silvestri: Get off the mark as soon as you can and allow a long runway for planning, promotion, pinpointing progress (or lack of it) and polish. Also: When you hear someone say “It looked good to me,” drop what you are doing and check it again.

What were some of your success stories from 2018?

Woolsey: For decades (dating back to 1967), the Daily News purchased preprinted comics from an outside national source—that is until a sharp-eyed editor challenged the behavior.

By doing so, his bold idea and hard work moved the outsourced printing back in-house, created a new comics lineup, reduced features fees and contributed a $100,000 annual impact. We dramatically reduced costs, sold advertising on the pages and saved jobs. All of this resulted because everyone on staff was on the lookout for an opportunity to improve the financial aspects of business.

Tash: We made key additions to our leadership team, we launched our new website and we published extraordinary journalism. This has been a challenging year, but we are ending it with good momentum.

Johnston: One: Hiring Jerry Raehal as the publisher in Glenwood Springs, Colo. Recruiting top talent is as rewarding as anything else I get to do. Two: Launching a new magazine called The Roaring Fork Collection that literally left retailers calling our sales department and saying, “A customer just walked into my store with my ad ripped out and said ‘I want this.’” Print, when thoughtfully orchestrated to fill a necessary niche, still works. Is the world spinning on a digital axis? You bet it is. Can print still work? You better believe it. Three: Seeing the long tail of digital discussions finally starting to wag. Our sales teams have worked so hard to help our business customers leverage digital opportunities, yet print still has such a powerful hold on resort communities (a problem we’re grateful to have). We are starting to see an increasing consumer confidence in digital and the investments are clients are making are paying big dividends for them.

It’s rewarding to see this important paradigm shift.

Light: In January, stories by our investigative team led to a $775 million rebate to utility ratepayers because of corruption revealed by our reporting. In August, a sitting congressman and his wife were indicted on 60 counts, including fraud and conspiracy—again, based on our team’s work. In the last half of the year, we have done extraordinary work reporting on the migrant crisis unfolding on our border. This is a story with tremendous stakes for 36 |

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the San Diego region, and our newsroom has used every tool at its disposal—podcasting, animation, interactive video, and frank, fearless reporting. At one point, we wrapped our entire Sunday paper in portraits of immigrants who have helped to make our community one of the most diverse and successful in America, bringing yet another dimension to a complex story.

Silvestri: Winning top journalism and advertising awards at the Virginia Press Association competition. Delivering our 75th Public Square, which advances civil and civic community conversation on issues of importance to our readers. Quickly adapting to new management and benefiting from new relationships at the top. Being part of a BH Media initiative to launch special sections to salute military veterans in our communities on 11.11.Tapping our investment in an outstanding staff meteorologist to help achieve record pages views during September’s month of storms. Advancing new revenue initiatives using events, books and our archives, the latter focus producing a 12-page Retro Richmond special section for Thanksgiving that retold the stories of famous musicians who played in Richmond. Launching a film festival with our partners at One Day University. Continuing a new tradition of honoring more than 20 outstanding residents in our RTD Person of the Year event and special magazine.

When you look at the industry, what are you most excited about for 2019?

Woolsey: I believe there is a trend to authenticity—people rediscovering not all news is the same, not all content is nutritious, not all advertising platforms are valuable. Call it “choice overload,” but people seem to be reducing and becoming more selective of media outlets. I believe this is good for our industry. Newspapers and established brands could find themselves on the receiving end of people retiring to trusted sources, tactile experiences and more selective choices.

Tash: There is a strong sense of solidarity and a willingness to share experience toward our collective success. Also, I am inspired by the talent and energy of young people who are coming into this business, whatever the challenges.

Johnston: Local Media Association’s Business Model Accelerator. I’m biased because I’m a new Local Media Foundation board member, but this project is legitimately awesome. The Accelerator will vet, test, prove and execute promising new business models that will sustain local journalism by helping to transform local media companies and/or create brand new enterprises. Think bold, disruptive ideas that can be scaled. editorandpublisher.com

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Light: After decades in the wilderness, I feel like the industry is starting to find its way. People are beginning to understand the value of credible information, insight and ideas; there is a new appreciation for the craft of journalism. The industry is reinventing itself as a subscription-based business that sells real value to real people rather than as a broker of clicks or a reseller of audiences. It is not an easy path, but I find this heartening.

Silvestri: Our innate ability to confront challenge, after challenge, after challenge and finding innovative ways to win new revenues and new audiences, while still being a business with customers who have been with you for 40, 50, 60 years. Also, serving your community well never gets old.

What are your goals and priorities for this year?

Woolsey: Continuing to develop relevant and sustainable business models. Even though we are 176 years old, we need to operate like a startup. I hope as we continue to go down this road of everyone working towards these goals, we’ll continue to evolve and play an important role in the eyes of our readers, advertisers and communities.

Tash: We should be as successful in our digital efforts as we have been in print. We are making real progress and need to make more.

vertical content areas.

Silvestri: First and foremost, indispensable journalism. Financially, we’re already halfway into our budget year so our priority is to hit every goal in every sales initiative and execute every project and action plan on time and on budget. And listen for the warning sounds and make a lot of noise on the victories.

What is on your wish list for 2019?

Woolsey: Stable or declining newsprint prices, steady supply, and advertisers rediscovering that the authentic experience of sharing a compelling message via a printed community newspaper is more impactful than clicking a mouse in a whirlwind of digital noise.

Tash: No hurricanes, no recession and no major retailers going out of business.

Johnston: Plentiful opportunities for so many great journalists who are still out of work; an American public who continue to believe in the importance of the work that we do; and our continued ability to create smart marketing solutions that drive local businesses toward prosperity.

Light: This industry occupies a special place in our country. We sit at the crossroads of information, commerce and ideas. The stewardship of these businesses is important for all of us. There are a lot of pieces in play right now. I hope we see

Listen for the warning sounds and make a lot of noise on the victories.

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Johnston: To continue to create the most compelling and relevant content with the top talent in the industry and to be the model for monetization that others strive to replicate.

Light: Invest in local journalism.

Acquire digital subscribers. Protect the Sunday print product. Reduce overhead costs. Expand digital agency and branded content studio. Grow events. Develop editorandpublisher.com

+E+P Feature_PublishingOutlook.indd 37

things shake out in ways that will benefit the smart, capable and ethical people who have committed themselves to the journalistic tradition in America.

Silvestri: To do everything in my capacity to help RTD colleagues succeed, our advertisers prosper and our readers coming back for more. Also, I wish good health for all. 

256-275-4333 sales@GreenShootMedia.com

12/18/18 2:35 PM

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SHARING SECRETS The rise of encrypted mobile messaging apps has helped journalists protect and guard sources and their information

By Gretchen A. Peck

F

or many of their users, mobile messaging apps are just expedient little tools for texting and sharing photos or videos with friends who use the same app. The fact that those messages and content are encrypted is just an added a perk. But for journalists and their sources—especially sensitive sources like whistleblowers—encrypted messaging apps are an increasingly valuable means of communication, which provide a modicum of assurance that the information being exchanged is private and protected from anyone outside of that conversational relationship.

In the encrypted mobile messaging space, there are both major and minor players. Some are lesser known brands, like Threema, a Swiss-developed suite of mobile apps that encrypt text messages, documents, and voice calls for both Droid and AppleOS devices. The developer promises users, who pay for this app, “seriously secure messaging.”

Others are wildly popular—ubiquitous even—in some markets. Take Facebook-owned WhatsApp, for example, which at last count (January 2018) boasts more than 1.5 billion users worldwide.

Journalists have been quick adopters of Signal, a messaging app tied only to the users’ mobile number, allowing anyone with the app and that number to reach out to reporters in confidence.

Wire, which had a large European following initially, has gained some traction in North America and around the world. Morten Brøgger, Wire’s CEO, estimated that

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Wire now has a half-million users of its free encryption app and more than 400 paying enterprise clients.

Wire is different than other tools not just in business model, but in the way that it’s been designed. In terms of the business model, the developer courted those enterprise clients by addressing corporations’ needs to communicate securely and privately.

Email is very “last millennium” the CEO suggested and said that Wire’s design is “the new black.” First, the Wire interface is designed to be consumer friendly and “very modern.” But it’s not just how it looks that’s distinctive; it’s how Wire implements encryption that’s significant, too.

“In the classic cloud, you have the application in the cloud, and all the users with their devices are connected to that,” Brøgger explained. “In the cloud, you have all the logic, all the processing, all the storage, all the security, and if that traditional SaaS provider offers encryption, the encryption keys will be stored centrally in the cloud.”

The problem with this model is that it creates a vulnerability he calls “the man in the middle.” If hackers can compromise the cloud, they can get access to the encryption keys, making it possible to decipher the content.

Wire’s solution is more like a “distributed cloud,” he said. “Some of the logic is in the middle, but a lot of the logic is actually on the client. We have some of the processing, but not all of it. We have some of the storage, but not all of it…So we have none of the encrypted content.”

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SHARING SECRETS a human right to communicate privately, especially in the cases of journalists and sources or enterprise clients protecting intellectual property and business communications.

Communicating in Confidence Because they’re free or low cost and readily available for download, journalists often leverage multiple messaging apps, giving sources the opportunity to communicate in however they feel most comfortable.

BuzzFeed News’ cybersecurity correspondent Kevin Collier uses several encryption tools for communication. Choosing which to use largely has to do with a source’s preference.

“Signal is the one I use most frequently,” he said. “If I have a source who requests Wire or Wickr, I will…Sometimes, it’ll be a hacker or a security-type of source who is partial to one of those. If it’s someone who is well informed in this space, I’ll acquiesce to them. Overwhelmingly, though, I’ll use Signal, and if it’s a source who doesn’t seem particularly up on the issue, I’ll request that we use Signal if it’s remotely sensitive.”

Collier suggested that email is perhaps one of the most vulnerable means of communication, and cited some research he’d done about the hacking of email accounts to persons related to the “Gulf conflict” policy, including a Trump Administration advisor.

Email is rightfully seen as problematic.

“There is a broad consensus that if you’re going to be speaking using technology that is readily available to most people, Signal and its disappearing messages—and I’ve really got to stress the disappearing messages part—is still your best bet,” Collier said.

“That said, a truly dedicated adversary—by which I mean most governments—they can usually find a way in…If the U.S. government, with its full range of legal powers, truly wants your messages, there’s a pretty strong chance they will get them.”

Aaron Mehta first began using WhatsApp and Signal apps in 2017, largely because sources asked to communicate in this way.

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News, which covers the global defense community.

When asked if WhatsApp and Signal have played a significant role in his communications with sensitive sources or whistleblowers, Mehta said, “Absolutely.”

“I think a lot of journalists last year woke up to the necessity of using them,” he added.

It’s not just sources who come to him and ask to communicate in this way. He sees it as part of his due diligence to suggest these apps as a preferred means of digital communications.

“Part of our job as journalists is to protect sources from themselves sometimes,” Mehta said.

Should governments around the world wage a successful campaign against encryption, Mehta suggests that it would present a challenge because these technologies are so easy to use and readily available; however, he believes journalists and sources will learn to adapt.

As a reporter covering national security and law enforcement at the Washington Post, Devlin Barrett has some special experience with encrypted apps.

“I think they’re useful tools, but I don’t think they’re a magic bullet when it comes to secure communications,” he said. “When it comes to source protection, human behavior, to me, is just as important as the mechanical means of communication.”

During his years in journalism, Barrett observed what he calls a “continuum”—a natural evolution—of digital communications. Encrypted mobile apps did not just spring forth from a vacuum.

“People are really into encrypted apps post-Snowden and in the heightened investigation space that we’re now in,” he said. “There was a time when sources wanted to talk on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) because that was more secure for them than just calling on the phone. Then, people wanted to talk on Facebook, because they thought that was more secure. People wanted to text. And now, you have encrypted messaging apps. There’s an arc to this.”

Barrett also observed that it’s been the habit with digital communication technologies that developers will amass a user base

} Morten Brøgger, Wire CEO

} Devlin Barrett, Washington Post national security and law enforcement reporter

that’s fully confident in privacy and security, only to see it compromised “in the long run.”

“My concern as a reporter is that there is always going to be someone trying to look over your shoulder at your conversation, and you want to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “You have to be very careful and put a lot of thought into how you operate.”

When Security is Attacked Encryption is, in theory, a secure means of communication, but these mobile apps have not been without vulnerabilities. In editorandpublisher.com

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S Mobile Apps with Encryption at Their Core Signal Messenger Platform: Android and iOS mobile; Linux, Windows and Mac OS desktop No. of Users: Not published Features: Available in 51 languages, Signal allows users to send encrypted one-to-one or group messages, which may include files, voice notes and videos. It also allows for one-to-one voice and video calls, also protected by end-to-end encryption. Signal has “disappearing messages,” which can be controlled by the user, who can choose different disappearing message intervals for each conversation.

Telegram Platform: Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone, Windows and macOS desktop No. of Users: Not published Features: Based in Dubai, the developer of this app promises it will be “free forever. No ads. No subscription fees.” The app offers encrypted personal and business messaging, with a “destruct” function set by a timer. Users can create groups of up to 100,000 members, to share documents of any type, and to sync messages across phones, tablets and desktop computers. The app also leverages usernames and has some added utility, such as a photo editor and cache management.

Threema Platform: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Amazon Fire OS No. of Users: Not published Features: Available in 11 languages, Threema supports one-toone and group communications, including text and voice messages, voices calls, and file exchanges, including photos, videos and GIFs. It also allows users to create and distribute digital polls, and to hide confidential chats and password protects them with a PIN or fingerprint. All data is protected by two layers of encryption— an end-to-end layer between the conversation participants and an additional layer between the app and the servers.

Zurich last year, German cryptographers from Ruhr University spoke before an audience at the Real World Crypto Security Conference, revealing that they’d discovered a breach in WhatsApp, which allowed hackers to infiltrate group chat communications on the platform.

In 2017, the British government reportedly asked WhatsApp developers to create a “backdoor” entry to the mobile app, which would essentially allow law enforcement to obtain the content of encrypted communications in the case of battling crime and thwarting terrorism. They cited the case of Khalid Masood, the terrorist who editorandpublisher.com

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Threema GmbH’s servers are located in Zurich. Threema Work and Threema Gateway are the developer’s business solutions.

WhatsApp Platform: Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Mac and Windows PC No. of Users: 1.5 billion+ (as of January 2018) Features: WhatsApp allows for text, documents, video and photographs to be exchanged between individuals and groups of users, with end-to-end encryptions. The app also facilitates voice and video calls. It is particularly adept at group messaging, allowing for up to 256 to share messages, photos and video in a group.

Groups can be named, muted and have customized notifications.

WhatsApp Business is targeted to enterprise clients.

Wickr Me Platform: Mac, Windows, i0S, Droid No. of Users: “Millions worldwide,” per Wickr Features: Wickr Me is a free app with secure one-to-one and group messaging, file sharing, and voice calls, with device-todevice encryption. Wickr Inc., the developer also created a tiered suite of teams and enterprise level tools that begin with a free base-level app for groups of 10 or fewer. The paid solutions offer additional users and utility. Wickr Pro includes encrypted screen sharing, voice and video calls, voice memos and file transfers of up to 5GB. Wire Platform: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac OS, Linux, web browsers No. of Users: 500,000+ on the free app; more than 400 corporate customers worldwide using the paid enterprise solutions Features: The Wire app facilitates end-to-end encrypted chats, calls (voice or video) and files. Rather than basing contacts on phone numbers, Wire assigns users with a username. Headquartered in Switzerland, Wire has a U.S. office in San Francisco. Its servers are strategically based in Germany and Ireland. Wire is also the developer of encrypted communication tools for paying, enterprise clients.

drove a car into a crowd of people outside the Palace of Westminster, who was believed to have used WhatsApp just two minutes prior the attack, implying the app may have been instrumental to his plan or that it could’ve been thwarted had authorities been able to intercept his messages.

The request was rejected, and when Sky News reported on it, WhatsApp responded in a statement, “We carefully review, validate, and respond to law enforcement requests based on applicable law and policy, and we prioritize responses to emergency requests.”

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SHARING SECRETS

} The Wire app is based on a distributed cloud architecture, which minimizes vulnerabilities, such as cyber threats and hacking. It also means that the developer never fully possesses the encrypted content.

Bernardino, Calif. in 2015, Apple received a similar request from the U.S. Federal Government, which sought a “backdoor” in order to access encrypted content on the suspects’ iPhones. Apple resisted in court, but eventually, the Feds reported that it had found a way to access data on those phones without Apple’s help.

“Over time, law enforcement gets smarter and comes up with a work-around to things that flummox them,” Barrett said. “The long-term effects of the Snowden case is that the tech companies decided that they would publicly oppose government efforts to—in their terms—make a sort of large, meaningful, accessible backdoor for government and law enforcement to go in with a court order and get the information they want access to.

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the things a lot of people don’t think ahead about is that when it comes to encrypted messaging, if law enforcement has access to the phone, the device itself doesn’t matter if the messages are encrypted or not. They just open the phone and read the whole thing…

There may be an excess of confidence about the security of some of these (apps).”

Encrypted mobile devices were at the heart of the “Phantom Secure” bust, which compelled Vincent Ramos, the CEO of Phantom Secure, to enter a guilty plea in October 2018 to prosecutors in Southern California. Ramos and his co-conspirators had been using encrypted mobile devices to traffic cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine across North America and in Australia, Thailand and Europe.

In 2015, the Brazilian government was mounting a case against a drug trafficking ring and sought the help of WhatsApp to obtain the criminal enterprises’ encrypted messages. Facebook declined, and in retaliation, the mobile app was banned across the

country, and a local Facebook executive was arrested. The punishment was short-lived when a day later, a judge overturned the ban and dismissed the obstruction allegations.

At the end of 2017, Reuters reported that the Australian parliament passed a law mandating that “backdoor” access to encrypted platforms. Other nations, such China and Russia, have outlawed end-toend encryption apps entirely.

Here in the U.S., encryption has long been considered a challenge, if not a bane.

Speaking in London at the 2017 Global Cyber Security Summit, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said the Department of Justice coined a term, “responsible encryption.”

“We use (it) to describe platforms that allow police to access data when a judge determines that compelling law enforcement concerns outweigh the privacy interests of a particular user,” Rosenstein told summit attendees. “In contrast, warrant-proof encrypeditorandpublisher.com

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S

} With more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, Facebook’s WhatsApp is perhaps the most widely recognized and downloaded mobile app that offers end-to-end encryption.

tion places zero value on law enforcement.

Evidence remains unavailable to the police, no matter how great the harm to victims.”

In the Court of Public Opinion, it’s not hard to imagine this justification gaining traction with politicians and constituents and in spite of loss of privacy. It is fairly easy for politicians to convince the American people that freedoms should be sacrificed in the interest of safety.

“Warrant-proof encryption comes at a cost because it enables criminals and terrorists to communicate without fear of detection,” said Rosenstein. “Obviously, there is no Constitutional Right to sell warrant-proof encryption. If society chooses to let companies market technologies that cloak evidence of crimes, it should be a fully informed decision.”

Rosenstein isn’t the only government official encouraging the public to be better informed about the risk-benefit analysis of encrypted communications. In May 2015, then-FBI Director James Comey spoke editorandpublisher.com

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at the American Law Institute and the Georgetown Law Center, where he cited encryption as being integral to international terrorist organization’s recruitment efforts and warned about criminals being able to “go dark,” the sinister term adopted by U.S. Federal agencies.

Amy Hess, the FBI’s executive assistant director for the Science and Technology Branch, went to Congress in April 2015 to implore a Congressional Oversight Committee to consider how encryption has made it increasingly difficult for the Bureau to access both “data in motion” and “data at rest.”

To the committee members, she said, “If there is no way to access encrypted systems and data, we may not be able to identify those who seek to steal our technology, our state secrets, our intellectual property and our trade secrets.”

Fear is a powerful motivator.

“I don’t think we’re likely to see a grand compromise (between the Feds and developers) anytime soon, but that’s certainly what law enforcement would like,” Barrett said. “I think there are parts of the technology world that would be willing to do that, but overall, the technology sector is not willing to have sort of a public, grand compromise with the government when it comes to encryption.”

The protection of encrypted technologies and communication has a somewhat unlikely ally—the U.S. government. A bipartisan group of U.S. Congressional Representatives, led by Ted Lieu (D-CA), introduced a bill to the House last June (H.R. 6044—ENCRYPT Act of 2018) which seeks to protect the privacy of citizens using these tools and prevent state and federal government agencies from mandating by law that developers turn over their encryption coding.

Target-Rich Opportunity There’s another way in which encrypted mobile technologies are being threatened: developers chasing revenue.

The popular WhatsApp has amassed a formidable, tech-friendly audience that advertisers and marketers want to woo. Up to this point, WhatsApp has remained ad free, and that’s largely because of the fun-

damental encryption technology. It means that servers on WhatsApp only have access to the users’ phone number, never any of the raw data or content. To intelligently target digital mobile ads, marketers fundamentally require, at bare minimum, data related to keywords.

But marketers can be a persistent bunch, and they’re like dangling carrots before app developers.

E&P asked Wire’s Brøgger if the company had any plans to “monetize” its community. “No,” he said. “That is exactly why Wire has pivoted to focusing on monetizing our applications—not our users—by selling to enterprises, which also benefit from reducing the risk of malware.”

He also added that he feels confident that other encrypted messaging apps may go down that path, chasing after data-driven revenue and potentially compromising the safety nets encryption affords.

Developers may feel users in Europe push back harder against the monetization of audiences, in comparison to users here in the States. Barrett noted that the conversations about privacy are distinctive. In the U.S., the greatest perceived threat to privacy is the government, while in Europe, privacy debates are largely focused on corporate intrusion and malfeasance.

In addition, developers will likely continue to feel the pressure to both deliver a secure, reliable experience to their app users and to be supportive when law enforcement and a court order comes calling.

As Congress considers the risk-benefit analysis of encrypted mobile apps—weighing issues like privacy, cybersecurity, whistleblowers and counter-terrorism—encrypted mobile apps will remain the best digital option for communications between sources and reporters.

Or, as Mehta suggests, “Meeting in person or over the phone is the best way to make sure there’s no trace on you.”  Gretchen A. Peck is an independent journalist who has reported on publishing and printing for more than two decades. She has contributed to Editor & Publisher since 2010 and can be reached at gretchenapeck@gmail.com or gretchenapeck.com.

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GOING NAMELESS AND FACELESS Do journalists deserve some blame for America’s mass shootings?

By Angela Morris

T

he reporter who won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing initially thought she was in Charleston, S.C. to chronicle the lives of nine churchgoers who died in 2015 when a stranger with a Glock murdered them while they were praying.

The names, mug shots and one paragraph each about the lives of those nine victims did make it into Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s story, “A Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof,” published in GQ in September 2017.

But the rest of her over 12,000-word story told the tale of their killer instead. Ghansah spared nothing in tracking down intimate details of the shooter’s life, coming from his childhood friends, elementary school principal, church minister, co-workers, teenage pals and more. The reporter went back to his birth, telling of the isolation of his school years as a low-income white boy, can’t-getout-of-bed depression, rancid racism, incessant preparations for killing African-American parishioners and his death sentence for a federal hate crime conviction.

It’s an incredible work of journalism, but also an example of the type of mass shooting coverage that’s maddening to advocates who, for years, have tried to little avail to persuade the media to stop publishing the names and images of mass shooters.

Adam Lankford, one of the nation’s leading academics who editorandpublisher.com

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studies mass shootings, and a criminology and criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama, said he respects Ghansah and her skillful work, because in-depth investigations like this piece can help scholars find patterns and create solutions to the nation’s mass shooting epidemic. But, he added, he wishes Ghansah knew how dangerous it is to publish mass shooters’ names and photos.

“The Charleston church shooter received more than $17 million worth of free advertising in media mentions following his attack,” Lankford said. “He has already been cited as a source of inspiration by multiple copycats, including the 2017 Sutherland Springs shooter who killed 26 victims and wounded 20 more.”

There’s mounting evidence of a contagion effect in media coverage of mass shootings and school shootings, but experts say that most journalists know nothing about the research. Victims’ advocates and academic scholars who urge media reform have said the media is doing better at reporting more about victims, survivors and the community, but they feel frustrated by their lack of progress in getting the press to limit the use of mass shooters’ names and images. Because reporters and editors know that reporting about mass shooters can help society by highlighting problems and potential solutions, it’s key that journalists themselves start a discussion about how to fulfill their duty to society, while also limiting JANUARY 2019 | E & P

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Shutterstock image

GOING NAMELESS AND FACELESS

 A huge crowd participated at “Never Again” rally in Tallahassee, Fla. to protest and change gun laws after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

the harmful effects of mass shooting coverage.

“No individual journalist wants to think his or her well-intentioned work is contributing to further carnage,” said University of Oregon journalism professor Nicole Smith Dahmen, who researches media coverage of mass shootings. “But we have to ask ourselves: What is the morally responsible thing to do here?”

She said it’s time for newsrooms to discuss changing their reporting of “who” in mass shooting stories because of the mounting evidence about how harmful the coverage can be. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics requires journalists to seek the truth and report it, but also minimize harm, she said.

The first step is learning about the research. Even those journalists who know about some of the research don’t realize “how compelling and persuasive it is,” Lankford said. “It’s more than just anecdotal evidence. It’s not just speculative.”

MOUNTING EVIDENCE

Over the past three years, academic scholars prying into mass shootings have built a convincing body of evidence to show that media coverage is causing harm.

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A new mass shooting gets its incentive from similar, recent mass shootings, and this contagiousness lasts for 13 days, according to a 2015 study by five researchers, including Sherry Towers, a mathematician and statistician at Arizona State University. On average, mass shootings happen every two weeks in the U.S., and school shootings occur monthly, the researchers wrote in the article, “Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings.”

Lankford’s research has delved into the reasons why one mass shooting might lead to the next.

He scrutinized 24 shooters whose statements indicated they wanted fame from their crimes. It’s a normal thing for American mass shooters to seek fame. Our nation has just 31 percent of the world’s rampage shooters, yet it has 75 percent of the fame-seeking shooters, Lankford reported in a 2016 article, “Fame-seeking rampage shooters.”

Their statements are chilling.

One of the 1999 Columbine shooters said he knew he and his co-shooter would have “followers.” Both gunmen debated which big-name director would create a movie about them.

The 2015 Umpqua Community College shooter wrote that when editorandpublisher.com

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a rampage shooter spills a little blood, the whole world knows who he is because his face is on every screen and everyone says his name.

“Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight,” the gunman wrote.

Lankford wrote that fame-seekers on average killed seven victims and wounded eight—more than twice the victims of other mass shooters. The number of fame-seeking shooters has grown from just one in the 1960s up to 15 since 2000. Lankford predicted that number will keep growing, and fame-seeking shooters will try to kill more people, knowing more victims mean more media attention. They’ll also innovate new ways to earn more media—for example, hitting unimaginable targets such as in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The Sandy Hook shooter debated in an online forum which school shooting was the most famous.

“Just look at how many fans you can find for all different types of mass murderers,” he wrote.

Wanting to quantify the amount of media attention that mass shooters attract, Lankford used a media tracking service to measure media coverage, online searches and Twitter mentions of seven mass killers between 2013 and 2017. The value of the perpetrators’ media coverage on average was worth $75 million, he wrote in a May 2017 article: “Do the media unintentionally make mass killers into celebrities?”

Killer coverage was worth a lot more money than earned media of professional athletes and just a little less than the biggest television and film stars.

“This media attention constitutes free advertising for mass killers that may increase the likelihood of copycats,” wrote Lankford.

As for photographic coverage of mass shootings, newspapers are publishing far more photos of perpetrators than victims—by a ratio of 16 to 1, according to research by Dahmen, the journalism professor, who researches media coverage of mass shootings.

Following 2007’s Virginia Tech shooting, in which 32 people died, 95 percent of front pages had a photo, often in the lead story. For 2012’s Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 26—many children—90 percent of papers had front-page, lead story photos. After 2015’s Umpqua Community College shooting, which took nine lives, just 35 percent of papers had front-page photos. Maybe it had less coverage because fewer people died, Dahmen wrote.

In all cases, the perpetrator photos outnumbered the victim photos. For Virginia Tech, there were 42 images of the perpetrator for every one photo of a victim. For Sandy Hook, the perpetratorto-victim photo ratio was 3 to 1, and for Umpqua the ratio was 15 to 1. Dahmen wondered whether the extreme tragedy of child fatalities at Sandy Hook could explain why the perpetrator photos didn’t dominate so much.

“Perhaps this was a rare case where newspaper editors made a conscious decision for ethical reasons to emphasize the victims and shock of community instead of publicizing the perpetrator,”

she wrote.

Dahmen’s article about shooter and victim photos was published Feb. 14, the same day a mass shooter opened fire and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Researchers and advocates of media reform have said that the press did a good job of reporting on the Parkland victims and survivors—who have become vocal, effective advocates for gun control. However, as with all other coverage of mass shootings, the name and image of the killer have been reported far and wide, and they continue appearing frequently in the pages of the local newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Sun-Sentinel editor-in-chief Julie Anderson wrote in an email that she and colleagues felt it was important to use the shooter’s name, but did discuss omitting his mug shot in stories. They weren’t aware of the research about copycat effects prior to the Parkland shooting.

“If we had, we would have been more thoughtful about the use of the shooter’s photo. It wouldn’t have changed our practice of identifying the person,” she said.

Fame-seekers on average killed seven victims and wounded eight—more than twice the victims of other mass shooters.

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Anderson explained that she and her staff are reporters first and foremost and they’re recording history.

“As we explored his family history, interactions with the school system and law enforcement to understand how this happened, we believe it’s important to use his name to establish credibility,” she said. “We want no doubt about who we are talking about.”

However, some Parkland survivors may disagree with the practice.

About three months after the shooting in Parkland, a student in Santa Fe, Texas, killed 10 people at his high school. Days later, Parkland survivor David Hogg tweeted that he wished media outlets would stop naming the shooter.

In the wake of the back-to-back shootings at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, and a Thousand Oaks, Calif., bar on Nov. 7, 2018, NPR wrote that it had decided to say shooters’ names as few times as possible and focus instead on victims and policy debates, wrote NPR national correspondent Leila Fadel in an article.

Lankford, the criminology professor, said media outlets that decide to limit shooters’ names and photos should “loudly and firmly proclaim” their new policy so that wannabe mass shooters who seek fame will know about the change.

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 Candlelight honoring the 17 victims from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Coral Springs, Fla. on Feb. 25, 2018.

members acted more responsibly than they have in the past by limiting their publication of the name and photo of the perpetrator, which was very good to see,” he said.

PUSHING FOR CHANGE

Ending perpetrator publicity has been a main focus for campaigns that urged the media to change mass shooting coverage.

Early efforts came from victims’ advocates with the group No Notoriety and the “Don’t Name Them” campaign, a partnership of Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training center, the I Love U Guys Foundation and the FBI. Lankford and his research partner, Eric Madfis, recently released a new, scaled-back proposal.

All of these campaigns ask journalists to stop publishing perpetrators’ names and photos, which will deny them the infamy they were seeking, if they knew that no matter what, no one would know their name or face.

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perpetrators and toward victims, injured survivors and heroes.

Other than limiting the name and image, the media should report everything else about mass shootings in as much detail as desired.

Stories about perpetrators are essential because they reveal offenders’ behavior patterns, help scholars to find evidence-based strategies to stop shootings and teach the public to report warning signs in would-be shooters, which could thwart attacks.

“By reporting everything else about these crimes in as much detail as desired, the media can continue to fulfill their responsibility to the public,” they wrote.

Lankford said that in the grand scheme of things, keeping assault rifles away from would-be mass shooters would make the biggest difference in ending the deadliest mass shootings. The current political climate makes gun control legislation difficult-toimpossible, while changing media coverage is a workable solution.

“You’d think negotiating with the media to change their behavior should be easier than negotiating with the NRA,” Lankford said. “But the proof can be in the pudding in terms of: is this just a big business, and every business is defensive and protects their own products?” editorandpublisher.com

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Tom and Caren Teves, who founded No Notoriety after their 24-year-old son, Alex, was killed in the 2012 Aurora, Colo. movie theater shooting, said they support coverage that explains how and why mass shooters commit their crimes, just with strict limits on using the name and photo. They urge a focus on stories about victims, survivors and heroes—and say this has improved about media coverage over the years. It’s much harder to convince journalists to limit a perpetrator’s name and photo.

When Caren Teves speaks to reporters one-on-one, many say the No Notoriety approach makes sense, and they would try to adhere to it. But when the discussion works its way up through a newsroom, the editor or station manager nixes the idea.

“The media likes to look at themselves like on the higher moral ground, and frankly, on this argument they don’t have the higher moral ground,” Tom Teves said. “It’s an inconvenient truth for the whole media because they would have to change what they do, and they are afraid to make the change because they are afraid about the bottom line.”

Dahmen explained that the challenge in asking journalists to stop publishing shooters’ names and images is that it’s a standard journalistic practice to report the “who” in a story.

“In journalism 101 you learn: who, what, when, where, why and how. ‘Who’ is the first thing,” she said.

Dahmen has conducted research that indicates that change is likely to be slow.

She and three co-researchers in 2016 surveyed 1,300 journalists about their opinions on mass shooting coverage and found that most respondents were in favor of perpetrator coverage, strongly supporting naming the perpetrator and including his photo in stories. Journalists largely didn’t acknowledge or were ambivalent about the contagion effect of their coverage, said the article, “Covering Mass Shootings,” published in May 2017.

Editors had the most positive view about the current state of mass shooting coverage, and they supported perpetrator coverage more than all other news workers. Age was the most powerful predictor about journalists’ attitudes, with older journalists thinking that current mass shooting coverage was more effective and strongly supporting the coverage of perpetrators.

than automatically seeing it as an attack on the media, he said. But because every mass shooter is different, there may be times that it’s necessary to name killers and show their photos.

“We can certainly ask, in any story after a mass shooting, ‘Is the name of the perpetrator relevant this time?’” Shapiro said. “I think a killer’s name and image should be used with great care, and only when necessary to advance the story.”

There are real-life examples of how the perpetrator coverage can advance the story.

Silvia Foster-Frau, the San Antonio Express-News’ lead reporter for the 2017 church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, said publishing the gunman’s name prompted two women from the killer’s hometown to call and report that he sexually assaulted or harassed them in high school.

Other Express-News stories about the shooter revealed that a domestic violence conviction while he served in the U.S. Air Force should have stopped him from buying firearms. The Air Force didn’t report that conviction to the nation’s criminal background check system. Now the service is reviewing all criminal records and

“I think a killer’s name and image should be used with great care, and only when necessary to advance the story.”

TWO SIDES

As any good journalist knows, there’s always more than one side to a story. The other side here comes from the reporters and editors who’ve seen the ways that stories about mass shooters—and printing their names—can benefit the public.

Any journalist who has covered a mass shooting is haunted by thoughts of covering it responsibly, according to an email by Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. The proposal to stop naming shooters is worth debating, and journalists should listen rather editorandpublisher.com

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ensuring convictions are properly reported.

“By knowing about this past, (reporter Sig Christenson) was able to identify this flaw in the system and hopefully prevent something like this from happening again,” Foster-Frau said.

Independently, the Express-News did debate and omit the shooter’s name and photo from some stories about victims and survivors, to be sensitive to their grief, she noted. After learning more about the research about mass shooting coverage and proposals for media reform, Foster-Frau said it’s worth a wide newsroom discussion, which must happen before journalists are breaking news about the next major shooting.

“It’s at a point where these mass shootings and mass traumas are happening so frequently,” she said. “Newsrooms need to be having more serious conversations about how we are covering mass traumas in our community and raise these ethical issues. Bring them to the table and talk about what is best practice—what’s in the best interests of the society we live in.”  Angela Morris is a freelance journalist based in Austin, Texas. A former multimedia producer for the San Antonio Express-News, her writing has appeared in the National Law Journal, American Lawyer and Texas Lawyer. Follow her on Twitter at @AMorrisReports.

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E&PDefendDemocracySnowballFP.qxp_Layout 1 10/11/18 8:59 AM Page 1

TRUTH

DEFEND DEMOCRACY. DEFEAT LIES. SUPPORT NEWSPAPERS.

Stronger the Press, Stronger the People Newspapers strive to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. We fear no one.

E&P is a staunch supporter of the newspaper industry and is dedicated to promoting its success and well-being in the years to come. From time to time, we will print full-page ads such as this, to inspire advertising and marketing ideas — touting the importance of ethical journalism and its value to democracy.

By Evelyn Mateos evelyn@editorandpublisher.com

Jim Kirk has been named publisher and executive editor of Crain’s Chicago Business. More recently, Kirk served as editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. Previously, Kirk served on the board of the Illinois Press Association and is a past president of the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors.

Kirk has also served as senior vice president of strategic initiatives, senior vice president, editor and publisher for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Wendy Holdren has been named managing editor of the Register-Herald in Beckley, W.V. She succeeds Dawn Dayton who held the position for more than 30 years. Holden joined the paper shortly after graduating college in 2011. Previously, she served as a courts reporter and also covered Beckley city government and health care issues.

Michael Maneval has been named city editor of the Williamsport (Pa.) Sun-Gazette.

He has been with the company for more than a decade, serving as night desk editor and business editor. Prior to joining the Sun-Gazette in 2006, Maneval was an editor and reporter at the Ridgway (Pa.) Record, and wrote for St. Marys (Pa.) Daily Press and Kane (Pa.) Republican. In this new position, Maneval will be responsible for planning coverage of local news events, deploying staff, developing the daily news digest and developing content for the front page of the Sunday edition as well as the Sunday Region section.

Daryl Winter has joined McClatchy as vice president of national sales, digital. Winter brings two decades of digital sales experience to the company. In the past, he has held digital sales roles at Turner Broadcasting, WWE, Discovery, and recently served as vice president of sales at BET. In this new position, Winter will be responsible for driving national sales and leveraging the McClatchy portfolio of editorandpublisher.com

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NewsPeople

Todd Sears has been named president and publisher of the Omaha World-Herald. Previously, Sears worked at two East Coast newspapers within the BH Media Group, the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary that owns the World-Herald, served as vice president of advertising and revenue development at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and as director of advertising at the Press of Atlantic City. More recently, he has served as president and publisher at the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill.

brands and audiences to serve agencies and national brands. He will be based in New York.

Shane Fitzgerald, executive editor for the Intelligencer in Doylestown, Pa., has been named the regional executive editor and will oversee editorial content for the Pennsylvania publications: the Intelligencer, Bucks Country Courier Times, Pocono Record, Burlington County Times in New Jersey, as well as six weekly newspapers in Dover, Del., and their websites. In addition, Nancy Stuski, advertising director for the Intelligencer, has been named the regional advertising director and will lead advertising departments at the three Philadelphia-area newspapers as well as the Dover weeklies and all the platforms on which they publish; and Steve Todd, circulation director for the Intelligencer, has been named regional distribution director, where he will manage circulation operations, distribution, strategic planning, budgeting and forecasting for the Intelligencer, Bucks County Courier Times, Pocono Record, Wayne Independent, Burlington County Times, Middleton (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record and the weekly newspapers in Dover.

Former Tampa Bay Times sports columnist Tom Jones has joined Poynter as its new senior media writer. Jones has spent his 30-year career at the Times, Tampa Tribune and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Jones was also the co-host for more than four years of a morning drive-time sports talk radio show in Florida.

Jenn Abelson has joined the Washington Post investigative unit. Most recently, she was a writer for the Boston Globe Spotlight team. She joined the Globe in 2001 after graduating college. Her work has been recognized with honors, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Lynne Lance has been hired to operate the National Newspaper Association headquarters in Springfield, Ill. Lance previously served as the NNA’s chief operating officer during its management by Illinois Press Association. Prior to joining NNA as membership director and then chief operating officer, Lance served the communications firm of O’Conner-Burnham & Co. in Georgia, Daniels Press in Alabama and Wordmasters in Illinois.

Rob Galloway has been named publisher of the Record-Courier in Gardnerville, Nev., succeeding Mick Raher. Galloway has 16 years of experience in media and sales and marketing in the Sierra Nevada region.

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NewsPeople ACQUISITIONS Chronicle-News Media Group, LCC has acquired the Trinidad (Colo.) Chronicle-News, a five-day-a-week publication that has served Trinidad and surrounding communities since 1877, from the Shearman Co. in Lake Charles, La. Terms were not disclosed. The Chronicle-News Media Group, LCC includes area residents Julie and Kirk Louden and Kim and Rich Hoffman. Shearman Co. will continue to own newspaper operations in Lake Charles and Hobbs, N.M. Paxton Media Group has acquired the Goldsboro (N.C.) News-Argus from Wayne Printing Co. The transaction also includes Yellow Pages operations in the region. The terms of sale were not disclosed. Paxton Media is a family-owned company headquartered in Paducah, Ky. and owns more than 35 daily newspapers, a television station and numerous weekly publications across several states. The News-Argus will join other Paxton publications in the North Carolina/Tennessee/Georgia division of Paxton Media Group.

Chatham Media Group LLC has purchased the Chatham (N.C.) News and its sister publication, the Chatham (N.C.) Record from the Resch family. The new ownership includes Bill Horner III, former publisher of the Sanford (N.C.) Herald, Kirk Bradley, president of Lee-Moore Capital in Sanford, N.C., and Chris Ehrenfeld, owner of Bold Construction and president of the Central Carolina Community College Foundation. The new owners paid cash for the newspapers but did not disclose the purchase price. The Chatham News was first published in 1924 and the Chatham Record dates back to 1878. Both have been family-owned for nearly 80 years.

Kay Media Co. has purchased the Ponca City (Okla.) News from the Muchmore family.

Kay Media Co. is owned by Scott Wesner and Scott Wood, who also own several other papers, including the Elk City (Okla.) News.

manager in 2012. In 2016, Galloway assumed the role of publisher of the Tahoe Tribune, a role he will continue.

Elizabeth Walters has been named daily editor and digital editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. She has served as the Journal’s online content coordinator since last July. Prior to that, she served at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as digital coach, and worked at the Greenville (S.C.) News, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and the New Albany (Miss.)

Gazette. In her new role, she will oversee the daily news content from Monday through Saturday, shape the paper’s digital strategy 52 |

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and find new ways to reach their audience.

In addition, Chris Kieffer was named opinion editor and the Sunday section editor. Kieffer had been serving as acting editor since last May and first came to the Journal in 2009. Previously, he worked as an education reporter and as a managing editor for multimedia and enterprise reporting.

John Bode has been appointed to the board of Postmedia Network Canada Corp. and its subsidiary Postmedia Network Inc. Previously, Bode owned and operated a strategic consultancy practice, and prior to that, he served as chief financial officer at Tribune Publishing. Bode also currently serves as chief operating officer at ReaderLink Distribution Services.

Elizabeth Cook has retired from the Salisbury (N.C.) Post, where she served as editor for 25 years. After a brief tenure at the Daily Independent in Kannapolis, N.C., Cook joined the Post in 1978 as a reporter. Later, Cook became lifestyle editor, followed by associate editor, managing editor, and editor in 1993. Cook also served as president of the North Carolina Press Association from 1999-2000.

Nicole Carroll, editor-inchief for USA TODAY, has been elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Prior to her current position, Carroll was executive editor of the Arizona Republic. She also served as vice president of news. In 2016, she added regional responsibilities, serving as Southwest regional editor for the USA TODAY Network.

Tim Grieve has resigned as McClatchy vice president of news to pursue another venture in the media space. Following Grieve’s

Shannon Casas has been named editor-in-chief for The Gainesville (Ga.) Times and its online news website. She has been a member of the Times newsroom staff for 12 years. Casas has served as managing editor, metro editor, assistant life editor and more recently, director of content for the paper. In her new role, Casas will oversee all news coverage for the daily newspaper, its digital and social media offerings, and affiliated print products and manage the newsroom staff. She succeeds Keith Albertson, who left the newspaper after a 33-year career with the Times.

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NewsPeople departure, McClatchy’s four regional editors will report directly to Craig Forman, president and CEO of McClatchy. In addition, Andrew Pergam, vice president of video and new ventures, will now oversee McClatchy’s news desks, real time operations and the newsroom reinvention team.

Edwin Eisendrath has resigned as CEO of Chicago Sun-Times Media. Eisendrath partnered with labor unions among others to buy the Sun-Times in 2017. During his tenure, Eisendrath restructured the paper’s operations to emphasize digital and video journalism. Sun-Times’ chief operating office, Nykia Wright, has been named interim CEO. International Newspaper Group (ING) has announced its new board of officers and directors. The ING 2019 officers include: Russ Newton, general manager of Bay Area Production, as board president; Mark Hall, VP of Postmedia Network, as regional director; Tom Travis, VP of production and distribution from Sports Information Group/Daily Racing Form, as treasurer; Kevin Desmond, SVP of operations from the Star Tribune Media Co., as secretary; Steve Mattingly, SVP of marketing of Southern Lithoplate, as program chair; and Joe Bowman, VP of operations from Plain Dealer Publishing Co., as immediate past president. The ING 2019 directors include: Alvin Nesmith, production manager, Tampa Bay Times; Beau Campbell, VP of Midwest sales, The Siebold Co.; Bill Bolger, VP of operations, Gannett Publishing Services; Brian Karnick, SVP of manufacturing, Tribune Publishing; Clarence Jackson, senior director of operations, Atlanta Journal Constitution; Doug Wilson, VP of production, Adams Publishing Group; Gary Owen, director of sales mailroom solutions, Muller Martini Corp; Jesse Samaniego, national sales manager, Central Ink Corp; Joseph Vincent, SVP of operations, Dow Jones & Co.; Mike Dodd, president, US Ink; Mike Green, VP of sales North editorandpublisher.com

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J. David Ake has been promoted to director of photography for the Associated Press. He will be based in New York.

Ake previously served as the deputy bureau chief for visual journalism at the AP Washington bureau, where he directed coverage of several high-profile beats including the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon and the State Department. He previously worked for Reuters, United Press International and Agence France-Presse. He came to the AP in 1997 as a photo editor at the Chicago bureau.

America, Flint Group; Richard Rinehart, director of operations, McClatchy; Ron Sams, VP of sales, manroland Goss Group; Todd Socia, VP of production, New York Times; Wayne Pelland, VP of manufacturing and distribution, Gatehouse Media; and William H, May, Jr., VP of operations, Dallas Morning News.

Michael Friedenberg has joined Reuters as president of news and media operations for the company. He will be based in New York.

Previously, Friedenberg served as the global CEO of IDG Communications, a media, data and services firm, where he led the company across 147 countries. Editorial content for Reuters will continue to be led by editor-in-chief Stephen J. Adler, who will report to Friedenberg.

Nancy Meyer has been named publisher for the Orlando Sentinel, replacing Avido Khahaifa, who spent 34 years with the company and recently left to pursue new opportunities. Meyer will continue to serve as publisher and general manager of the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. Meyer previously served as publisher for the Sentinel in 2015 and 2016. In addition, Julie Anderson was named editor-inchief of the Sentinel, adding to her current duties as editor-in-chief of the Sun Sentinel; and John Cutter was named director of news operations and standards, overseeing daily planning, new ventures and serving as a reader advocate.

Andrew Johnson, publisher of the Dodge County Pioneer in Mayville, Wis., has been elected president of the National Newspaper Association. Formerly, Johnson served as vice president of the association. He succeeds Susan Rowell, publisher and regional manager for Lancaster News/Carolina Gateway in South Carolina. Also elected to the board were Matt Adelman, publisher of the Douglas (Wyo.) Budget and Glenrock (Wyo.) Independent, as vice president, and Mike Fishman, publisher of the Citizen Tribune in Morristown, Tenn., as treasurer.

Tim Ritchey has been named publisher to three of McClatchy’s California media companies: the Fresno Bee, Merced Sun-Star and the Tribune in San Luis Obispo.

Ritchey will continue to oversee the Modesto Bee, which he has been a part of for the past 11 years. He will also remain as vice president of advertising operations for McClatchy’s West region. He succeeds Ken Riddick, who is stepping down after two decades with McClatchy.

Miki King has been named chief marketing officer of the Washington Post. In her new position, King will be responsible for overseeing the subscription acquisition and retention as well as enterprise subscription packages to universities, companies and non-profit organizations. She will also lead the team developing the Post’s national marketing campaigns.  JANUARY 2019 | E & P

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EDITOR: The editor for the Greenfield Recorder will be a forward thinking editor with a passion for local news, community leadership, and the competitive spirit to grow audience of our daily print, niche and digital products in Western Massachusetts. This is the top editorial leadership position at the Recorder and requires strong writing and editing skills as well as a strong working knowledge of how to drive the development of content for our audiences across multiple platforms including our websites, social media channels, and print products. We have a news team that produces award-winning products and has a strong commitment to community journalism. The Greenfield Recorder was named Distinguished Newspaper of the Year in 2016 by the New England Newspaper and Press Association.

RESPONSIBILITIES: • Lead, coach and develop newsroom team to achieve subscription growth across digital and print platforms.

• Serve as a key member of the editorial board and help shape the editorial voice of the newspaper.

• Ensure the maintenance of high journalistic standards on a daily basis.

• Manage newsroom budget for maximum efficiency and strongest results.

• Serve as the newspaper’s public face in our communities.

•Work with leaders across departments to develop new products that grow our audiences and reach in the market.

• Use of web analytics tools to grow site traffic as well as in development of stories.

• Application of SEO research and best practices to stories, sections and projects.

• Work collaboratively on projects ranging from podcasts to video to enterprise stories.

• Managing and growing media brand social media audiences on Facebook and Twitter as well as exploring other platforms including LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.

SKILLS & REQUIREMENTS: • Five or more years editorial management experience.

• Strong writing, editing organizational and interpersonal skills.

• Working knowledge of video and audio platforms.

• Proven success using Google Analytics or other enterprise analytics solutions to drive content decisions.

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• Understanding of digital and print workflows and deadline requirements.

• A strong understanding of communications law.

• Bachelor’s degree.

The ideal candidate will have experience in the best ways to present news on all platforms – a digital leader with unique ideas for our print products. This position requires an effective leader with a history of attracting and retaining the best talent, while challenging existing staff. It is important that the editor have an excellent record of producing strong community journalism. The position requires a journalism or related degree, 5+ years of experience in newsroom management, exceptional editing skills, and knowledge of newsroom budgeting.

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced journalism executive who seeks new challenges where skills and abilities will be utilized to their fullest.

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The Greenfield Recorder is owned by Newspapers of New England, a family-owned company with a commitment to serious community journalism. We offer competitive pay, paid vacation and personal days and benefits including optional health insurance, dental coverage and 401K retirement plan. We are an equal opportunity employer. Send resume and cover letter to hr@gazettenet.com .

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Phone: 800-887-1615

Help Wanted

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Help Wanted

EDITOR - SPECIAL SECTIONS: Idaho Business Review is Idaho’s leading business news source. Our integrated platform includes the weekly Idaho Business Review newspaper, daily news and leads at idahobusinessreview.com, daily IBR email updates, targeted special business lead publications such as The Book of Lists, and several business-focused events throughout the year. We are looking for a self-motivated, social media-savvy Special Sections Editor to work as a member of IBR’s year-round business awards events and publication team. Our ideal candidate has top-notch writing skills and the samples to prove it, as well as excellent people skills. He or she has the genuine curiosity of a good journalist, and the independence and drive to learn more about Idaho businesses and the professionals behind them. The Special Sections Editor is responsible for every aspect of coordinating and writing more than a dozen high-quality annual publications and for coordinating seven awards programs. The editor also co-creates and supervises the creation of editorial and video content and carries out other tasks as assigned. The candidate should have the proven ability to work independently, to meet an array of challenging deadlines, and to find and work with freelance writers and photographers. Idaho Business Review is located in fast-growing Boise, Idaho, an area nationally known for its high quality of life and low cost of living.

To apply, email apply-a2n5qetjt3w4@applicantstack.com. Please include a cover letter along with writing samples or a link to your writing samples. We offer competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits program.

BridgeTower Media and all subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and value diversity in our workplace.

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NEWS EDITOR: Missouri Lawyers Media is Missouri’s largest, most respected legal news source. We cover legal news, court opinions, verdicts and settlements, foreclosures and public notices in Missouri.

Missouri Lawyers Media serves lawyers and legal organizations with molawyersmedia.com and six daily and weekly business, including Missouri Lawyers Weekly, a statewide news organization and repeated winner of state and national awards for journalism excellence. We also produce special-topic sections and magazines. We’re committed to the highest standards of journalism ethics and excellence, and to helping you do your best work. Missouri Lawyers Media seeks a news editor to develop and coordinate production of print and digital content for our wide array of digital and print news and information services for Missouri attorneys.

Responsibilities include: • Assigning, editing and coordinating publication of content for our daily/weekly publications, as well as special sections and special-topic magazines • Supervising freelance writers and editing their content to Missouri Lawyers Media’s high standards of accuracy and tone • Enterprise reporting and writing of features and occasional breaking news to reflect the needs and interests of a sophisticated, law-oriented audience • Coordinating content selection and editorial production of our daily newspapers • Assisting the Editor-in-Chief with story selection and copyediting.

• Assisting the Digital Editor at times by assembling daily and breaking news alerts, or other digital content for molawyersmedia.com We’re seeking a person with:

FINANCE DIRECTOR: North of Boston Media Group, North Andover, Massachusetts The North of Boston Media Group seeks an experienced, high-energy, team player to manage its accounting department and related operations.

The finance director will manage the current reporting processes, drive automation of manual chores, and support CNHI’s overall financial strategy to consolidate business operations to North Andover. This person will oversee accounting and human resources functions for numerous print and digital publications located in multiple states. This individual will communicate financial results and forecasts to senior managers.

The finance director will participate in the development, implementation, and testing of financial software upgrades or installation projects. This individual will partner with our internal technology group to create and maintain documentation of processes and practices.

Candidates must have a four-year accounting or finance degree, four or more years’ experience working with business applications like Navision and TM1, as well as a background in accounting and financial reporting. This person must possess excellent technical skills with strong computer aptitude and advanced MS Excel skills. A background in human resource management is required. Experience in the media or advertising industry is a plus. Also essential are strong organizational and communication skills and a proven track record of management success. This person must be willing to travel as needed.

North of Boston Media Group produces eight newspaper publications, which include four daily newspapers – The Eagle-Tribune, The Salem News, Daily News of Newburyport and Gloucester Daily Times – multiple magazines and award-winning websites. For more information on NOBMG, visit www.nobmg.com.

Located in the Merrimack Valley region in northeast Massachusetts, North Andover is just 25 miles north of Boston. The Merrimack Valley has a wealth of history and cultural opportunities to experience and enjoy. Historic attractions of Greater Boston, the beauty of the White Mountains and Lakes Region in New Hampshire, and the sand and surf along miles of the Atlantic coast are all a short drive away. North Andover offers world-class health care facilities and superb higher education institutions. The area is rich with easy access to shopping, recreation, entertainment and diverse dining.

Interested candidates should email a resume and cover letter to Group Publisher Karen Andreas at kandreas@salemnews.com.

The North of Boston Media Group is owned by CNHI. CNHI is a leading provider of local news and information, offering a wide array of print and digital products in more than 130 communities in 22 states. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, CNHI is a Raycom Media company.

For more information about CNHI, please visit www.cnhi.com.

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Prescott News Network, Inc. is seeking a night Production Manager for its Prescott Valley Print Facility. Located in northern Arizona, this location produces multiple newspaper titles and features an extensive commercial print division. The ideal candidate will have at least 5 years of production, off set printing and plant management experience with a heavy emphasis on finishing production. Excellent customer service, quality control and organization skills preferred. An in-depth knowledge of inserting, bindery and folding equipment is essential. This position offers a competitive salary and excellent benefits package. NSE EEOE Please email your resume to wnirecruit@westernnews.com.

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• Minimum three to five years newsroom experience • Strong news judgment and ability to grasp and effectively tell the stories found within complex court opinions or legal documents. Show us your best clips for work you’ve written or edited.

• Ability to meet multiple deadlines, manage multiple assignments and set effective workload priorities • Skill and experience in news writing, copyediting, meticulous proofreading and fact-checking • Strong audience-development instincts • Ability to initiate and direct special projects.

• Knowledge of and experience with AP style • Ability to work collaboratively with a statewide, multi-office team to complete projects • Strategic thinking and willingness to express and act on initiative • Strong organizational and data-collection skills • Multi-platform technical skills, particularly proficiency with WordPress or other content-management systems • Strong preference given to candidates with experience in legal or financial journalism • Law degree not required but a plus.

We offer competitive compensation along with a comprehensive benefits program.

To apply, email apply-a2n5qetxebdg@applicantstack.com BridgeTower Media and all subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and value diversity in our workplace.

WANTED - EDITOR to take charge of a bi-monthly investigative journal pursuing stories in the public interest in the areas of human rights and social justice. Must have magazine production experience, be able to manage a staff of full time and free-lance correspondents, work with designers and an editorial board made up of individuals committed to coverage of social issues affecting individual liberties; magazine sets high standards for professional writing, accuracy, ethics and creativity. Top compensation paid for highly-qualified individuals.

Los Angeles area or willing to relocate. Send resume and cover letter describing qualifications to: 2018editor@protonmail.com.

WEB LEADER NEWSPAPER PRESS OPERATOR: A Web leader Newspaper Web press Operator is required for a well established newspaper in the Caribbean Island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Extensive experience a must. Knowledge of sheet fed press operation is a plus. This job is ideal for a retired or semi-retired professional who would want to put in 20 or 30 hours per week, or full time. Salary, transportation and housing will be provided. Proper references must be provided. Send applications letters with resumes to thesknobserver@yahoo.com.

Please tell them you saw it in

®

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shoptalk /commentary Trump and Media Feed Off Each Other

By Bob Cox

D

onald Trump loves CNN. He most certainly does not want the New York Times to fail. And the Washington Post is doing fine by him.

You might think differently if you watched the news conference that Trump gave the day after the U.S. mid-term elections in November. Trump tangled with CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Later that day, Acosta’s press pass to the White House was revoked, making it impossible for him to gain access to the place he works.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released a video clip that appeared to show Acosta delivering a karate chop with his left hand to the arm of a female aide as she tried to take a microphone from him. The clip had been altered. Run at proper speed, the video shows the arm of the aide brushed up against Acosta’s left arm as she reached across to try to take away the microphone. Acosta immediately said: “Pardon me, ma’am.”

It was yet another skirmish in what Trump has turned into an ongoing war against traditional news media. His words are as nasty and harsh as ever heard from a U.S. President—the press is the true enemy of the people, journalists are liars, awful people who spread fake news.

But most of the news media are playing exactly the game Trump wants to play.

Trump’s formula is simple: Step 1: Say the media cannot be trusted.

He undermines the work of journalists who gather facts and present them to the public. He tells supporters the media is not telling the truth about him. He is the only source of “truth” about what is going on.

Step 2: Lie. Trump continuously makes exaggerated claims about his accomplishments and utters falsehoods. He tells supporters they will not see this in the media

not fight back. Most do not consider fighting back because this is not their role.

The media’s role is to report on the president, not find ways of undermining him.

Trump is far from the first politician to make the media the opposition. But Trump is the best and highest profile practitioner of the craft.

It appears to be encouraging others. In the Canadian context, think of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Even in Manitoba, Premier Brian Pallister has threatened to sue the Winnipeg Free Press for its reporting and the Conservative Party has sent fundraising letters to members urging them to give to help counter the lies the newspaper supposedly spreads.

It is unfortunate because news media are watchdogs, not opponents. Politicians like Donald Trump confuse the two roles—interpreting legitimate questions as criticism and factual reporting as attacks.

Serious news media that are doing their job will continue to ask questions and report facts.

They won’t fight back. And Donald Trump will keep bashing them because that is exactly how he wants things to work. 

The media’s role is to report on the president, not find ways of undermining him. because the media does not report what is really going on. He knows the media will report what he says, and point out what is not true.

Step 3: Loudly proclaim “I told you so.”

Trump uses his unflattering portrayal in the news to prove that the media is out to get him, that it makes things up, that it spreads falsehoods, etc. This provides new justification to go back to step 1, turn up the volume and use even more inflammatory language.

The end result is that Trump has an opposition—the media—at all times. Trump’s strategy depends on having that opposition.

In politics, the media is the perfect opposition. For starters, it is not a single entity, but a broad group of independent organizations that compete against each other and never speak with a single voice.

They have viewers and readers, but not a huge base of supporters to mobilize when attacked.

Individual reporters are like cats, going their own way, not overly interested in working together. Some voices were raised in support of Acosta, but there was no concerted industry effort on his behalf. He eventually got back the press pass, but that was due to the legal pressure CNN brought on the White House.

Journalists are an opposition that does

Bob Cox is publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press and chairman of News Media Canada, which represents daily and community newspapers across Canada. He has worked as a journalist and news media executive for 35 years, including stints in Ottawa covering national politics for the Canadian Press and in Toronto as the national editor for The Globe and Mail.

Printed in the USA. Vol. 152, No 1, 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 2019, 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.

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We’re Looking for the Future Generation of Newspaper Leaders Please help us by nominating a newspaper Editor & Publisher wants to recognize the up-and-comer (or yourself) for our “Pubnext generation of newspaper publishing lishing Leaders — 25 Under 35” feature arleaders, and we need your help. We’re ticle that will appear in E&P’s April issue. talking about people who are young, bright and capable of tackling whatever editorandpublisher.com Nominations are open to men and women age 35 years and younger. Candidates may the changing newspaper climate throws at them. People with business acumen to lead through be publishers, editors, advertising executives, circulatrying times and vision to implement bold, new strate- tion managers or other newspaper leaders. Nominees must own or work for a print or online newspaper. gies to move their newspapers forward.

Deadline: Feb. 11, 2019 • Nominate online: editorandpublisher.com/25under35

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