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A Section
Features
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READ ALL ABOUT IT
Home Sweet Home
CRITICAL THINKING
Reallyread.it is a social media movement promoting news literacy . . . . . . . . p. 10
Real estate advertising revenue blasts off thanks to digital advances . . . . . . . p. 36
POSITIVE INFLUENCE
To Protect…and Block?
Should detention center photos provided by the government be considered propaganda? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 17
McClatchy introduces new series to connect with readers on policy solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 11
How newspapers are dealing with the EU’s general data protection regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 44
A NEW DAY
Covering Trauma
Former Denver Post journalists start news website, the Colorado Sun . . p. 14
Are newsrooms doing enough to take care of their journalists’ health and safety? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 50
ONE-STOP SHOP UK news publishers unite to create shared ad network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 15
18
DATA PAGE Minutes spent per day with media in the U.S., how Americans perceive misinformation in the news, funding for local and national news nonprofits p. 20
PRODUCTION Exploring the best time savers in production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 30
NEWSPEOPLE New hires, promotions and relocations across the industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 57
BUILDING AUDIENCE-DRIVEN JOURNALISM
SHOPTALK
Democracy Fund re-launches Engaged Journalism Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 16
The perils of carpetbaggers managing local newspapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 66
PHOTO OF THE MONTH James Neiss/Niagara Gazette . . . . p. 18
Columns INDUSTRY INSIGHT
BUSINESS OF NEWS
DIGITAL PUBLISHING
Election is an opportunity for newsrooms to explain vital role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 22
What newspapers can learn from digitalonly services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 24
One editor’s hunt for stories leads him to ‘untapped corners of the internet’ p. 26
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editorial
Public ‘Enemies’
T
Fake. Disgusting. Failing. The enemy.
hose are just a few words President Donald Trump has called media organizations, particularly the ones he doesn’t like. Trump has been spouting his anti-press comments since his presidential campaign, but now that he holds one of the most powerful offices in the world, his careless words are creating a dangerous echo chamber among his supporters. In fact, it’s become so hostile that a group of Democratic senators has introduced a resolution urging Trump to respect the rights of the press. “Punishing reporters for simply doing their job is a strongman tactic that cannot be tolerated in a free democracy. President Trump may not like tough questions, but that’s simply too bad,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. In July, while covering a Trump rally in Tampa, Fla., CNN’s Jim Acosta shared a 45-second video clip from the rally on Twitter (it currently has more than 4 million views). In the clip, Trump supporters are heard shouting “Stop lying!” and “You suck!” while waving their middle fingers and giving Acosta a thumbs down. One man even lifts up the front of his T-shirt that says “F*ck the Media.” “Just a sample of the sad scene we faced at the Trump rally in Tampa,” Acosta wrote. “I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy.” Yet for thousands of people, the press is the enemy. A recent Ipsos poll showed almost a third of the American people agreed that the news media is the enemy. This “growing animosity towards journalists” will continue, according to the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “More and more democratically-elected 6 |
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leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy’s essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion,” said the report. “The United States, the country of the First Amendment, has fallen again in the Index under Donald Trump, this time two places to 45th. A media-bashing enthusiast, Trump has referred to reporters ‘enemies of the people,’ the term once used by Joseph Stalin.” Being harassed and targeted is nothing new to journalists, but in the wake of the Capital Gazette shooting, threats are being taken more seriously now, and news outlets are doing more to secure the safety of their journalists. For example, journalists are now using security guards and bodyguards when covering Trump rallies, according to Politico. Realistically, the demonization of the press will not go away anytime soon. But newsrooms are pushing back. Last month, more than 300 newspapers published editorials in response to Trump’s attacks on the media, calling for “the dirty war on the free press” to end. And during a recent meeting with Trump, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said he told the president “directly that (he) thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous.” “I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news’ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people.’ I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence,” said Sulzberger. “…I warned that it was putting lives at risk, that it was undermining the democratic ideals of our nation, and that it was eroding one of our country’s greatest exports: a commitment to free speech and a free press.” This kind of truth is what we need to speak in order to triumph over our adversaries. Even when he was being booed and insulted, Acosta didn’t stop doing his job. He knew it was his duty to report because he believes—and we should all believe—“the press is not the enemy.”—NY
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comments ))) overcome. Because of bad actors including bots, hackers, Trump, and Russia, civic engagement is being shoved to the edge of a cliff as disinformation and state propaganda merge with extremism and a confused citizenry in real time through social media and the internet. Part of the solution must be age appropriate media literacy at each level of education to help children and adults discover reliable sources of news. If we can succeed in that effort, the bots, trolls, and propagandists will lose, and the citizenry will be able to fully harness the news for their own empowerment. ALLAN
Submitted on editorandpublisher.com
Charging for Letters Helps Stop Politicians’ PR Game
Facebook Should Personalize Privacy Settings
Newsrooms Also Guilty of Spreading Fake News
Facebook is very good at user-friendly interface. (“Critical Thinking: If You Had the Opportunity to Question Mark Zuckerberg About Facebook’s Mishandling of User Data, What Would You Ask Him?” July 2018) Would it put those skills to work to create an easy-to-understand, step-by-step guide to outline to its users what information it requires or requests, and how they would like to use it? For example: “We require an email address to create a profile. How much are we allowed to use it?” A. Only for Facebook to communicate with me about my account B. Also allow my Facebook friends to see it C. Also allow the public to see it D. Also allow Facebook business partners to acquire and use it E. Also allow government to collect and track content If it wishes, Facebook could also entice users with access to certain apps, games, coupons, etc. for one-time or permanent usage of certain information. Such personalized settings would allow Facebook to regain trust with its users and give users more control.
This article appears to take the view that newsrooms must prepare and combat fake news that is posted on social media by crackpots, partisan hacks, and fake news purveyors, thereby placing the blame for false reporting on everyone else while exempting newsrooms. (“Digital Publishing: Fighting Fake News on Social Media,” July 2018) However, newsrooms are guilty of the same shoddy journalistic standards of those they attack and call out as fake news. The real issue is individuals whose reporting actions are guided not by verifications of actual facts, but by deep, personal, emotional, political beliefs that seek to change the way people think and react. Sadly, both sides are to blame for fake news.
GREGORY R. NORFLEET
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At the Tomahawk Leader, we’ve charged minimally for endorsement letters for five years or more. (“Critical Thinking: Should More Newspapers Charge a Fee to Publish Political Endorsement Letters?” June 2018) First, it irked me to see political advertising money go in other directions, but politicians want newspapers to only print their press releases and endorsement letters. Second, I used to work in politics and have written some of those letters myself in years back. You simply type up a glowing letter and find a supporter to sign it. You even mail it for them. It really got me when I saw two identical letters signed by different people in different newspapers. We only charge $25 because we don’t want to force out letters for local candidates who are normally not so sophisticated in the realm of big time campaigns.
JERRY KURBATOFF
LARRY M. TOBIN Publisher Tomahawk (Wis.) Leader
Submitted on editorandpublisher.com
Submitted on editorandpublisher.com
Put More Focus on Media Literacy There are more opportunities for citizens to be effective civic actors than ever before. (“Crisis Prevention,” August 2018) That has been the best potential of the internet as envisioned in the early 1990s. The path toward the fulfillment of that great vision, however, now faces a chasm that must be
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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r e h s i l b Pu ar 2018
e Y e h t f o
Connecting the complex facets of publishing with vision and purpose
Submit Your Publisher of the Year Nomination Today Official nomination form available online: e d i to ra n d p u b l i s h e r.co m /p oy The accelerating pace of change in today’s information age requires a greater need for effective leadership. A successful newspaper leader must not only strategize from the trenches with practicality and realism, but also think with foresight and imagination. We are looking to honor a publisher who has risen above the rest and accomplished what seems like the
impossible, outmaneuvering the competition, outthinking the future and maintaining profitability. We are seeking your assistance in recognizing a leader with business acumen, technical savvy, and a deep understanding of what needs to be done to stay successful — along with the fortitude and tenacity to implement change.
Submission Information:
• Submission time period: Now through Sept. 21, 2018.
Please complete the online form and include a short synopsis of why the nominee should receive recognition. Include specific leadership successes, innovative program development, obstacles and challenges overcome.
• All entries will be treated with the strictest confidence. But the selected publisher should be prepared to be interviewed by Editor & Publisher for the special “Publisher of the Year” issue.
Eligibility: • “Publisher of the Year” recognition is open to all newspaper publishers worldwide, from papers large and small.
Nomination Deadline Sept. 21, 2018
the A section VOLUME 151
FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER 2018
ISSUE 9
> Look Ahead
Read All About It
Reallyread.it is a social media movement promoting news literacy By Rachael Garcia
W
ith the overwhelming amount of information on the internet, people tend to just read headlines, skim the article, and go straight to the bottom. But that’s about to change with Reallyread. it, a social media platform (currently in beta mode) built for readers that actually read an article all the way through. For co-founders Jeff Camera and Bill Loundy, it was a chance to keep out the people commenting on articles they hadn’t read, which Camera and Loundy believe will also fight against misinformation. “Fake news spreads like wildfire on networks like Facebook where people don’t read stuff before they share it,” Loundy said. “People need to take personal responsibility for the info they take in, decide whether or not to trust it, and develop opinions for themselves. For society to function, that’s crucial.” It took the team } Bill Loundy (left) and Jeff Camera a year of trial and 10 |
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error to get the technology right, but they succeeded. The tech can determine whether or not a person has read an article entirely or if that person is just skimming or scanning their way through it. They know this by the use of a combination of variables: scroll speed, behavior on the page, time, etc. Currently, to participate, community members must sign up through the website and then add a Chrome extension—that’s how they keep track of who’s read what. The articles on the homepage are sorted in an easy-to-navigate way, where when an article is read all the way through by someone in the community, it moves up the algorithm. Similarly, when an article gets a comment, it also moves up. At midnight, the top article becomes “Article of the Day” for the following day. The specific mechanics are somewhat secret, Loundy confesses, and they have already filed two provisional patents, but ultimately, the concept is pretty straightforward. “Humans can only read a certain number of words per minute, and if you’re not looking at words on the screen for enough time, we know you didn’t really read it,” said Loundy. He added that on social media platforms, people either “like/upvote” or “share and retweet” articles for all kinds of reasons not even remotely related to having read the story, but because it makes them look smart or signals a particular belief or viewpoint. On reallyread.it, there isn’t any voting, “likes” or “upvotes” or human moderation. “Sometimes, for example, it will take me a while to realize that an article is actually an opinion piece,” he said. “I don’t even always notice right away when something is sponsored by a corporate brand, but we need to be vigilant and read, read, read.” For more information, visit reallyread.it.
“People need to take personal responsibility for the info they take in...”
editorandpublisher.com
8/17/18 1:55 PM
the A section
Positive Influence
McClatchy introduces new series to connect with readers on policy solutions
C
oming out of the 2016 presidential election year, covering politics in the media has often times gone through chaos and disorder. It’s what prompted McClatchy to launch the Influencer series in four of its major markets: California, Florida, Missouri and the Carolinas. Kristin Roberts, regional editor of the McClatchy’s East region, is in charge of leading the series in all four markets. As regional editor, she discovered that having reporters just cover polls during the elections was a bad decision and it didn’t help readers. “We didn’t satisfy the consumer’s desire to understand policies affecting their communities and where candidates stood on those policies,” she said. “Readers want us to force conversation about policy, not personality.” Now, she considers the Influencer series the start of changing the way newsrooms should approach covering politics. } Kristin Roberts
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And it all starts with the reader. In each market, participating newspapers send surveys to their subscribers asking what issues are most important to them during the election year and what questions they might have. The topics that are found to be most important to readers will serve as the framework for the series until Election Day. Then, the team collects reader questions along with policy questions from reporters and sends them to the Influencers, who range from state leaders, senior members of universities and former elected officials. For example, the California Influencers include Govs. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis, current University of California president and former secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Rosalind Hudnell, vice president of HR at Intel Corp and chair and president of Intel Foundation. Questions are then answered and discussed during live public events. Topics covered range from housing affordability and education to healthcare and transportation. Later, the newspapers share the conversations through their various print and digital platforms. Roberts has seen two to three times more participation than expected due to McClatchy’s partnership with Your Voice, where readers can comment at the end of articles related to certain policies. These comments are incorporated in the conversation, and also run in print. “Without Your Voice, the potential would not be what it is, it would be a one-sided conversation—a newsroom having a conversation with influential people,” she said. When policy conversations are translated to the state level, it’s usually discussed as problems that need to be fixed, but the Influencer series elevates the discussion and provides real solutions provided by leaders in the community. “We really are sincere in our desire to produce journalism that matters to the readers,” Roberts said. –RG
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the A section From the Archive OF THE MONTH In order to increase its investment in visual journalism, McClatchy’s New Venture Lab, an extension of the video department, will be experimenting with nonfiction augmented reality experiences for mobile devices with an emphasis on volumetric video and 3D art. The lab aims to showcase the latest video technologies to find a new way for audiences to interact with newspapers. Theresa Poulson, director of the program, said, “We’re looking at what we can scale to our local newsroom today and how we can corroborate on future projects. And also what emerging technology we want to leverage and take advantage of.” The experiment will create a series of AR episodes—not just one experience. The team wants to see whether they can build an audience from episode to episode. Additionally, the standalone AR stories will be put in front of advertisers to see if they can develop business models around a new standalone AR product. As part of a Storytellers-inResidence program, Poulson brought on four professionals with a diverse skillset that will handle all aspects of the AR project for six months. After that, they will share what worked with local newsrooms, which will also guide the team on what to focus on in the second cohort in 2019. “It’s still the early days in AR, and there is a lot of untouched potential to explore,” Poulson said. “We’re excited about learning how audiences will react.” –RG
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John Thurston operates a roller-renovating machine at the Atlanta (Ga.) Newspapers where more than 500 rollers on the presses kept machinists busy. Each ink roller was grounded and polished at least once a year. This photo originally appeared in the July 11, 1959 issue of E&P.
> Wise Advice “What are some of the challenges of implementing micropayments, and what are some lessons you’ve learned in the process?” While micropay had some earlier success via Blendle in other markets, the payas-you-go approach was foreign to a huge swath of our readership in Canada, so Christian Panson we had to educate our readership, and at the same time, we had to justify why we were taking them down a road that now included a toll instead of the long-standing free ride they had enjoyed. Our strategy banked on demonstrating the value of our journalism while simultaneously reducing the payment and commitment friction that can slow success. We established a flat price of 27 cents per article. We made clear there were no other up-front costs or risks. We
even provided a money-back guarantee if they didn’t believe the article was worth the money. At the same time, we set up a 60-day free trial so readers could sample what we produced and decide what payment plan worked best for them. We also leveraged the department that produces our journalism to help make the case for micropay. Our editor, Paul Samyn, wrote a dozen pieces explaining our new paywall and the benefits of micropay. We produced how-to videos, including a tongue-in-cheek music segment (wfp.to/thewall). Three years into this journey, micropay has emerged as a bridge that helps ease customers from small spender to higher-valued subscribers. Today, nearly 30 percent of our all-access monthly subscribers started as micropay readers—a success rate we believe wouldn’t have happened with a typical metered paywall.
Christian Panson is the vice president of digital and technology at the Winnipeg Free Press, the first major newspaper in North America to implement a micro-accounting and post-pay digital paid platform. editorandpublisher.com
8/17/18 12:29 PM
the A section Tornoe’s Corner
“I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” —Capital Gazette reporter Chase Cook in a tweet after a shooting in his newsroom in June left five people dead in Annapolis, Md.
LEGAL BRIEFS North Carolina Newspapers File Lawsuit Over Legal Notice Advertising
According to the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., the newspaper, along with three other Guilford County papers, have filed a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina and Guilford County to reverse a local bill that lawmakers passed last October that would take legal notice advertising away from privately-owned print publications in favor of using the county’s website to post public notices. The other publications in the suit include the High Point Enterprise, Carolina Peacemaker and Jamestown News, all of which obtain significant revenues from printing public notices. Newspaper attorneys asserted that the lawmakers’ intent was to
restrain the plaintiffs in their coverage of and editorializing about members of the General Assembly by slashing the plaintiff’s revenue from the sale of legal advertising. The newspapers are asking that a judge award them damages, including “lost profits and the fair market value of their legal advertising business that they have lost as a result” of the local act. They also seek a court finding that the act violates the North Carolina Constitution, as well as a permanent injunction preventing either level of government from putting the local legal-notices measure into effect.
Texas Newspaper Files Lawsuit Stating Port Authority Broke Open Meetings Law
As reported by the Victoria (Texas) Advocate, the newspaper has filed a lawsuit claiming the Calhoun Port Authority acted illegally when they held a closed meeting when hiring former Congressman Blake Farenthold. The notice for the meeting described that it would be regarding “for the purposes of deliberating the appointment, employment, compensation, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee.” However, it did not specifically mention the congressman’s name, his proposed job title or the $160,000 salary. The newspaeditorandpublisher.com
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per’s attorney asserts that the lawsuit is to vindicate the right to knowledge about how the government spends taxpayer funds and manages the public’s business. Griffin said the port authority should have named Farenthold on the meeting agenda and shared how Farenthold refused to repay taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment claim when he resigned from Congress. The suit seeks to void the port authority’s hiring of Farenthold on the grounds the board acted illegally. The Advocate has requested no monetary award other than court and attorney fees. SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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the A section
A New Day Former Denver Post journalists start news website, the Colorado Sun
} The Colorado Sun will produce local journalism for readers in throughout the state.
F
ed up with ongoing budget cuts and layoffs at the Denver Post, an ambitious group of former Post journalists has created an online news publication called the Colorado Sun. Partnering with Civil, the Sun emerges as a way to serve readers without relying on advertising or a paywall, and instead will seek donors and sponsors interested in supporting local journalism. According to the eight founding journalists— all of which are equal partners in terms of ownership—Civil’s approach resonated the most with the group. “Civil has made it very clear that it intends to be a platform for our journalism—not a publisher,” said co-founder and editor Larry Ryckman, who most recently served as senior editor for news at the Post. “Civil will have no say in the editorial decisions and direction at the Sun.”
The Sun aims to produce that great journalism for local readers in Colorado... } Larry Ryckman
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} Staff of the Colorado Sun announce the news publication at a press conference in June. (Photo by Doug Conarroe)
Ryckman said despite leaving the Post, all of the founders still had aspirations to continue to do great journalism, which is why they wanted to start the Sun. The group began to assemble itself pretty quickly with Civil providing financial backing. “I think perhaps the biggest lesson that we learned about a startup is that all of us have had to wear many different hats in laying the foundation for why we jumped into this in the first place—which, of course, is actually doing great journalism,” Ryckman said. The Sun aims to produce that great journalism for local readers in Colorado, showcasing the kind of news stories that are getting tougher to produce due to cutbacks in a traditional newsroom. The Sun’s website (coloradosun.com) will highlight the group’s strengths: investigative, watchdog, explanatory and long-form narrative journalism that the journalists have been known for throughout their careers. Because the community is interested in supporting strong local journalism, more than $160,000 has been pledged to a Kickstarter campaign (surpassing the goal of $75,000 in just three days). The funds will be used on newsgathering, hiring freelancers and covering fees for public records requests. “Ultimately, our readers and the people of Colorado will help decide how big and how ambitious the Sun can be,” said Ryckman. In Denver, the Sun joins other niche publications like the Denverite and the Colorado Independent, but Ryckman believes they all have a place in the journalism ecosystem. “People ask us about our competition, but as one of our cofounders pointed out, ‘complement is the new competition,’” he said. —RG editorandpublisher.com
8/17/18 1:55 PM
the A section
One-Stop Shop UK news publishers unite to create shared ad network
N
ews UK, the Guardian News and Media and the Telegraph, recently announced that they will form a shared ad network called the Ozone Project. The goal of the
project is to better fund their journalism by providing advertisers with a single site where they can buy digital advertisements across multiple news sites. The digital ad network, currently in Alpha, launches this fall and will only involve digital ad space on the Guardian, the Times, the Sun and the Telegraph. The project will be a standalone business with a combined staff from all three companies. By working together, the companies want to protect brand safety, work on data governance, and address lack of transparency in the supply chain and ad fraud.
They promise marketers a “fraud-free” environment where advertising reaches readers. In addition, they hope to divert money from likes of Facebook and Google to more traditional outlets and help reduce financial losses. To do this, they will leverage first party CRM data with publisher audiences to segment audiences into purchasable groups. In a press release, Dominic Carter, group chief commercial officer of News UK said, “This project has been driven by a shared ethos to create a channel for advertisers to gain direct access to publishers’ audiences at scale via a transparent and effective platform.” –RG
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Ideas that work
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the A section
Building Audience-Driven Journalism Democracy Fund re-launches Engaged Journalism Lab
I
n an effort to gain American’s trust in media again, Democracy Fund is re-launching its Engaged Journalism Lab. The Lab will focus on the organizations and people helping build more meaningful, trusted relationships with their communities using audience-driven storytelling. While there have been previous efforts to improve how news outlets interact with the communities they serve, the Lab strives to showcase new ideas and solutions through original posts, research and content from evaluation reports. Managed by Paul Waters and Lea Trusty, the Lab is still in an experimental phase, but they said they plan to “open up conversations and questions (the) network is dealing with to a broader audience who may have solutions we have not yet explored.” The idea to re-launch the Lab on Medium was inspired by similar work being done by Teresa Gorman at the Local News Lab, also a Democracy Fund project. When the Local News Lab became a standalone website, the Engaged Journalism Lab took over the Medium page. The revamped page was created as a way to create conversations with organizations and to invite colleagues in the field working toward the same goals to publish their findings.
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} Engaged Journalism Lab grantees meet at the Democracy Fund offices in 2017.
“We hope to provide original content, research, and analysis alongside posts that highlight the work of others to further this discussion,” said Trusty and Waters. “We also expect to continue going to localities and conferences to raise up important projects and models, like Your Voice Ohio and Listening Post Collective, which push the status quo and expand how outlets think about their journalism.” As their audience grows, the duo looks forward to being able to experiment with other concepts, like the deep listening of Hearken and GroundSource, the more complex understanding of data like Metrics for News, and the authentic interaction with comments like Talk, a platform through the Coral Project. In the future, they plan to follow up on their first report, “Funding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Journalism” that closely examined 990 reports for the 90 and more organizations. Additionally, they are exploring work around ethnic media in
the United States, and the connection between the engagement funnel and revenue. “We’re excited to learn and grow with organizations supporting journalism across } Paul Waters the country, news outlets, and journalists as they work to create coverage that better serves their community,” said Trusty and Waters. “We also expect to continue to play a connecting role with our grantee and partner networks of individuals and institutions interested in creating a more inclusive and authentic journalism.” For more information about the Lab, visit medium.com/the-engaged-journalism-lab.—RG editorandpublisher.com
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critical thinking
If you have a question you would like to see addressed, please send it to rachael@editorandpublisher.com.
J-school students and industry vets tackle the tough questions
“Recently, the news media wasn’t allowed to take photos of detention centers for immigrant children; instead they were issued pictures provided by the government. Should these photos be considered propaganda?”
A:
In May, the Trump administration began to follow through with its campaign promise of “zero tolerance” towards illegal immigration and began the process of separating families at the Mexican-American border. Detainment of immigrants apprehended at the border in holding Madalyn Amato, 20 cells is not a new policy. However, the sophomore, Fullerton (Calif.) separation of children as young as five Junior College years old from their guardian is. Amato is a photojournalist Once news broke of the establishment specializes in topics reof detainment centers, coined “tender-age who lating to social issues, politics facilities” by the administration, journaland human rights. She has more than four years experiists from around the world descended ence in the field of journalism upon the south-Texas housing units, only and photography. to be met with countless obstacles and no answers. Any photo published from inside the detention centers has been provided by the U.S. government. No independent investigative organization has been allowed to document the conditions these children are being forced to live in. Few journalists have been allowed to enter the facilities, but have returned empty handed without any concrete evidence to back up their claims. If everything was just as the administration promised—clean living conditions, ample care for the children, their well-being a top priority—then why will they not allow third-party documentation? When the allies liberated concentration camps across Germany in 1945, the world was shocked. It was known that persons deemed “impure” to live in Adolf Hitler’s Aryan society were being held in camps. However, little was known about the conditions inside of the camps. How could a government entity fool the entire world? Propaganda. Hitler’s government has been accredited as one of the most successful propaganda-producing machines of all time. Now not to say that Trump is the new Hitler, but the stark similarities between how both men carried out their detainment programs cannot be ignored. All channels of information in Germany were controlled by the Nazi party. Images and films depicting life in the ghettos and camps were directed and produced by the government. Fast-forward to 2018, history is repeating itself. Propaganda being produced by the Trump administration has been called “skewed” and inaccurate by those allowed to enter the detainment centers. Publication of these images is wholly irresponsible and potentially dangerous as it promotes the agenda of the administration and denies the truth of what’s really going on inside the walls of these facilities. editorandpublisher.com
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A:
There is nothing to be gained, and it would serve our readers poorly, if news organizations accept those kinds of official photos without protest and run them without context. We have no information about what was happening around the children in those images. Whether they are propaJohn R. Moses, 56 ganda—quite a loaded word but somenews content director, Farmtimes it fits—or simply governmental ington (N.M.) Daily Times public relations is beside the point. Moses joined the Daily Times Their existence illustrates the problem: in 2017. Previously he served The government would not let news as editor of the Jackson (Wyo.) Hole News & Guide. Moses professionals photograph conditions in and his wife were also the those centers. founders of the Alaska Pioneer We should not just accept such Press, a monthly newspaper and website. photos and slap them into our stories. Those photos should only have been used if clearly labeled as what they are: an example of what the federal government wants people to see. They are not news, except in the context that it is news that our photographers can’t get access to do their jobs and document conditions in those centers. The photos must be paired with boots-on-the-ground reporting that describes what the photos do not show. Used in that context (this is what the government has released and not like a staff or wire service photo), they are acceptable for consideration as they illustrate the access problem. It is up to individual editorial teams to decide whether such photos are run or spiked. It is increasingly hard to get information from our federal agencies. (At the Daily Times, we’ve been trying to get information from the Department of the Interior since October. Our FOIA request seems to reside in a deep, dark hole.) Given how hard it can be sometimes to get the most basic information, news organizations cannot reward federal agencies that seek to restrict our access. We also need to push back, and that will take some leadership by our professional organizations as well as editorial boards across the nation.
We should not just accept such photos and slap them into our stories.
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photo of the month
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editorandpublisher.com
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Send us your photos! E&P welcomes reader submissions for our Photo of the Month. rachael@editorandpublisher.com.
BLUE MOON James Neiss/Niagara Gazette (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) A Navy F-18 Super Hornet jets past the setting moon during a morning aerial display at the Niagara Falls Air Show for military personnel, their family and guests. editorandpublisher.com
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data page Minutes Spent Per Day with Media in the U.S. 2011
2012
2013
2014
Year
2015
2016
Internet
85.2
TV
314.2 127.2 313.8 141.1 305.8 154.9 297.8 180 289 189 287.4
2017
217 282.1
2018
239.9 276.8
2019
265.2 271.5
2020
274 266.2 Source: Recode; Zenith
Audience Outreach for Digital-Native News Outlets Based on the audit of 35 digital news outlets with the highest traffic
% of digital-native news outlets with the highest traffic that use‌ 2017
2018
OUTREACH TYPE
97
83
92 86
SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
100 100 75 71
100 100
97 94
92 89
61 63 25
Newsletters
Apple News
Podcasts
Comments
YouTube
14
Snapchat
Source: Pew Research Center, data collected from comScore Media Metrix-platform
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editorandpublisher.com
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How Americans Perceive Misinformation in the News Based on a survey of 1,440 U.S. adults age 18 and older
39% 65%
76%
of the news on TV, read in newspapers or hear on the radio is misinformation
of news on social media is misinformation
FAKE NEWS
70%
say major internet companies have an obligation to identify misinformation that appears on their platforms
or more believes that methods to counteract the spread of misinformation can be somewhat effective
Source: Gallup/Knight Foundation, survey conducted Feb. 5-March 11, 2018
U.S. Foundation Funding for Local and National News Nonprofits Based on 32,422 journalism and media-related grants distributed between 2010 and 2015 by 6,568 foundations
LOCAL TOTAL FUNDING: $80,110,545
$33M
Local/state news org Promote local/state news collaborations Local/state investigative reporting org Deep vertical/subject focused news org Specific beat/subject coverage at local nonprofit Local citizen journalism initiative Local ethnic/minority focused org Homeless/low income focused media Alt weekly/website
$12M $9.8M $9.3M $8.1M $4.9M $1.7M $830K $48K
NATIONAL TOTAL FUNDING: $215,915,604
$84M
Investigative/public affairs news org
$34M $30M
Subject specific deep vertical news org Foreign/international coverage Specific beat/subject coverage Minority/ethnic news org National/international citizen journalism Liberal/left-wing news org Conservative/right wing news org Ideas/knowledge news org Homeless/low income focused media
$18M $14M $13M $12M $6.2M $4.4M $52K
Source: “Funding the News: U.S. Foundations and Nonprofit Media,� Shorenstein Center and Northwestern University editorandpublisher.com
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industry insight
Trusting the News Election is an opportunity for newsrooms to explain vital role By Matt DeRienzo
E
lection season this year will be a critical opportunity for newsrooms to explain the role they play in local communities and a functioning democracy. Publishers and editors should step up to the challenge with an unprecedented level of transparency, ethical rigor and thoughtfulness about the perceptions and misperceptions of readers. Local elections bring more than just additional eyeballs. Readers who might tune out otherwise start to think about the nuts and bolts of local government and civic 22 |
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issues. And especially when it comes to editorial page endorsements of candidates, for example, it’s a peak time for readers thinking and asking questions about the role news organizations play in the process. Studies have shown what most of us would guess—that many readers don’t have a strong grasp on the difference between news articles and opinion pieces. As we approach the first major election since the country and world started coming to grips with an explosion of misinformation and “fake news” campaigns, that problem is exacerbated.
And it’s likely to get worse. Numerous examples have emerged over the past year of homegrown fake news efforts in local political races—candidates, political parties or third party groups mimicking news articles to smear opponents with false accusations. And an investigation into Russia’s attack on the election process in 2016 showed that foreign operatives took advantage of America’s trust in local news by creating social media accounts such as “@Seattle_Post and @CamdenCityNews” that mimicked local news outlets. Legitimate news organizations can no longer assume that the average reader knows to trust their reporting over a random pop-up web page, social media post, YouTube video or meme. They’ve got to explain who they are and the journalistic standards and process that went into each article. And critically, because readers discover content via social media and search, not necessarily in a print edition or on a editorandpublisher.com
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homepage, these kinds of explanations should be attached to individual stories, not just listed on an “About Us” page (although that’s a good start). Most newsrooms focus only on covering the story, and let that work speak for itself. That’s not good enough anymore. At the outset, and probably more frequently than seems necessary over the course of election coverage, news organizations should write about why they cover elections and how they cover elections, invite readers to ask about the process, and then answer those questions while trying not to be defensive. This is especially critical when it comes to endorsement of candidates and publishing opinion pieces related to the elections. For readers confused by misinformation campaigns and partisan sites, how do you explain why a newspaper that claims to be a neutral arbiter of facts is siding with one candidate or issue over another? Maybe every editorial should explain what an
™
editorandpublisher.com
editorial is, who writes them, who is on the newspaper’s editorial board, if there is one, and how it deliberates. If a news organization is publishing opinion pieces alongside straight news articles, how about explaining the difference each time, and maybe even explaining why you chose to run this particular piece? (Hey, if editors asked themselves that question about every op-ed, maybe some of them wouldn’t run in the first place.) News organizations will also have to deal this year, in an unprecedented way, with politicians (and the readers who are loyal to them) crying “fake news” over wellsourced, legitimate news reporting that makes their side look bad. What will be publishers’ answer to this, and will they be bold enough to push back and explain the difference to readers at-large as loudly and frequently as necessary? And finally, beyond explaining the standards their own journalism is held
to, news organizations must explain how partisan propaganda and misinformation campaigns fall short of those standards or wholly reject them. Newsrooms’ role in fact-checking candidates and third party sources of information in this election season is more critical than ever. But even that process—from deciding which fact-checking stories to pursue to the sources used to write them— must be explained to readers.
Matt DeRienzo is executive director of LION Publishers, an organization that supports local independent online news publishers from across the country. He is a longtime former newspaper reporter, editor, publisher and corporate director of news.
FUELING PUBLISHERS AROUND THE WORLD
SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
+1 (706) 750-0016 | info@mirabeltechnologies.com | www.newspapermanager.com
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business of news
Three Subscriptions, Three Lessons What newspapers can learn from digital-only services By Tim Gallagher
M
y bill for a long-subscribed sports magazine was charged to my credit card the other day. $44.95 was my quarterly bill for this periodical I have read since I was a boy. It often is delivered a day or two late (sometimes doesn’t come at all), frequently features a sport or athlete I do not follow on its cover and contains several pages of advertising I must parse through in order to find the table of contents. In the past 30 days I have subscribed to three digital-only services: Medium for $5 a month, The Athletic for $3 a month, and a text-only service that provides 24-7 coverage of my favorite sports team for $3 24 |
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a month. That’s $11 a month for three services. I also pay about $30 per month for a print copy and digital service to my hometown newspaper and $15 a month for a digital subscription to the New York Times. Some friends think I should get more newspaper subscriptions, but there are only so many hours in the day, and there is Twitter and the AP News app on my phone and iPad. My choices have changed, and each choice has an implication for the newspaper business. NYM News is a text-only service about my favorite sports team—the New York Mets. (Yes, I am a glutton for punishment
and you can dispense with the ridicule right now. I have already heard it.) Three sports journalism figures in New York—radio guys Rich Coutinho and Rob Brender, and blogger Michael Baron—offer a textmessage service offering several updates a day, audio commentary and player interviews. I could get most of these services by hunting around the web, but for 10 cents a day it makes sense to have these delivered to my phone. I never miss a note about my favorite team, even if they are out of the pennant chase on the Fourth of July. And—perhaps this is most important—I feel a personal connection to Mike, Rich editorandpublisher.com
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and Rob because I hear their voices talking about a topic I am passionate about. Lesson: These are journalists who did not quit their day jobs but turned their coverage into a business. Medium is on to something very newspaper-like. One of a newspaper’s greatest advantages is its “Serendipity Effect.” A reader strolls through its pages and an article unexpectedly catches their attention. It’s like finding a $10 bill in your pocket. Medium has the same advantage. I linger on the site reading articles I did not expect to find. Many of Medium’s writers are freelancers. They are paid (if they choose to participate in the Partners Program) based on how many readers engage with their stories by applauding it on the site. Medium’s website says 14.3 percent of its writers earn more than $100 per month. At that pay, Medium clearly is built for those who love writing, not those who want a large bank account. Medium vets
D V M & A
the articles before posting. Their topics defy you to move on. In preparation for this column, I visited Medium many times and kept getting stuck by reading such articles as “Five Steps to Changing Your Life (They boil down to one thing),” “Digital Exile: How I Got Banned nb,” and “Homeschooled to Hell by Airb and Back.” Lesson: Build from a newspaper’s strength. Serendipity matters. The Athletic is the greatest threat to my $44.95-a-quarter magazine subscription. Some newspaper people are furious with The Athletic’s founders for poaching newspaper writers and readers, but if you can’t compete, then get better. Launched by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, The Athletic has created more buzz than any subscription-only, ad-free site. The Athletic unbundles the daily newspaper by offering the section they think many people want and want only— sports. The Athletic says it has more than
100,000 subscribers and 120 staff and it is on its third round of investor funding, so it is not yet profitable. But the notion that you should take a specialty where you excel and offer that to customers at a premium is a strategy few newspapers have tried. Lesson: Take your publication’s can’t-livewithout-it specialty and build a business model around it.
Tim Gallagher is president of The 20/20 Network, a public relations and strategic communications firm. He is a former Pulitzer Prizewinning editor and publisher at The Albuquerque Tribune and the Ventura County Star newspapers. Reach him at tim@the2020network.com.
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NEW MEDIA INVESTMENT GROUP We are pleased to have represented the Rawlings family in this transaction.
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editorandpublisher.com
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digital publishing
Open Invitation One editor’s hunt for stories leads him to ‘untapped corners of the internet’ By Rob Tornoe
B
y now, chances are good every journalist in your newsroom has written at least one story that involved either embedding a tweet, including an Instagram post or quoting a source on Facebook. Turning to social media for story ideas and reaction from the community has become second nature for most reporters, but the self-promotional nature of public social media platforms means you might only be representing the views of a potentially unrepresentative portion of your online audience. So, how do you reach further into the community you cover and highlight stories that often originate in the shadows of the internet, either hidden on closed chat boards or within peer-to-peer apps? Enter Mark Frankel, a social media editor 26 |
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for BBC News who decided to study how to reach groups and individuals that exist in otherwise untapped corners of the internet. It was a decision he made after becoming tired of hearing colleagues complain about the limited upside of noisy social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, which seem to offer little more these days than a place to promote their own stories and an avenue for individuals to engage in hateful speech and espouse conspiracy theories. “A number of us across mainstream media have been a little bit blindsided when it comes to communities and people who choose to inhabit spaces that are not obvious to us,” Frankel said. “A lot of the more interesting and intriguing conversations are taking place in spaces that journalists spend far too little time.” Frankel recently finished a Knight Visit-
ing Nieman Fellowship at Harvard aimed at better understanding how journalists can identify and report on stories that originate in communities that exist in so-called “dark social” audiences, where they often communicate on direct messaging apps, message boards and other private, information-only platforms. Faced with a nearly unlimited array of social media platforms to report on, Frankel made the conscious decision to limit his research to a handful of platforms that included the popular chat app WhatsApp, Facebook Groups and the subreddit ecosystem on Reddit. “There’s a huge array of fascinating and intriguing conversations that are happening all the time that you just need to have the literacy to know how to find them and to search them out,” Frankel said. He decided to focus his research on answering three key questions from the perspective of a reporter: • How easy and appropriate is it to join groups and communities intent on peer-to-peer online discussion? • What issues or barriers are there to journalists who attempt to build meaningful connections in these online spaces? • How much of what can be observed in these forums would a journalist wish to use or relay to colleagues for publication or broadcast?
Facebook Groups Frankel’s main target was Facebook Groups—closed groups on the world’s largest social media platform brimming with talkative users and generally organized around specific topics, geography or interests. These groups represent a potential gold mine of story ideas for journalists because they are relatively easy to find and most are welcoming to reporters who are transparent about their interest. “The ecosystem is huge, varied and there’s a lot of newsworthy content being discussed all the time,” Frankel said. “And the nature of Facebook means you can actually join a closed Facebook group probably just as easy as you can an open one.” Frankel also discovered with his research editorandpublisher.com
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HOLIDAY Sections That Sell
that equally more rewarding for journalists could be starting their own Facebook Groups around a subject or beat they’re attempting to cover. BBC News had a good amount of success with Teen Mums, a closed group targeting a group the news organization traditionally struggled to reach. “The group needed to be grown and nurtured over several months, and it was clearly inappropriate for some of us on the team to be group admins,” Frankel outlined in his report. “Over time, a number of women in the group have shared very personal stories that we would have been unlikely to have heard via more traditional newsgathering.”
Public Subreddits Reddit, with its barebones content management system and its seemingly unending array of individual subreddits, presents many unique challenges that prevent journalists from penetrating much deeper than following pages that have relevance to their coverage area. Frankel turned to CrowdTangle, a tool owned by Facebook that allows reporters to track how content spreads around the web, to discover over-performing stories in certain subreddits he targeted, such as r/ Boston. Then, he would dive down into the comments on those posts in an attempt to find users who either had direct experience with that particular subject or were advertising closed groups on the same subject elsewhere. “In other words, I would use the CrowdTangle alerts as a jumping-off point to something deeper,” Frankel said. Over the course of the study, Frankel said there were a number of cases where he was able to uncover different angles and an entirely different set of contributors for stories that were being covered by the BBC and the Boston Globe. Frankel said to be successful speaking to commenters on Reddit, reporters must actively participate and establish a foothold on the platform, and that includes understanding its unique grammar and lexicon. As he noted his study, one of the first things a member of Reddit will do when you message them is look at your profile before you editorandpublisher.com
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reply. “It’s a massive treasure trove of people talking about real issues and news organizations would be wise to be more active in the community,” Brock Johnson, the host of the Endless Thread podcast for WBUR, told Frankel. “Not parachuting in to report on individual stories, but actually participating in the conversations there.”
WhatsApp WhatsApp, a chat app owned by Facebook, has long been sought out by journalists thanks to a user base that totals more than 1.5 billion months users. But how do reporters even begin targeting a closed chat app like WhatsApp, where groups are limited to just 256 people? Frankel said he was invited to a number of closed WhatsApp groups by users he met while spending time chatting in Facebook Groups or in discussions on Reddit. Once in, it because pretty clear that there were some really interesting items being shared that he wouldn’t have come across anywhere else. Due to its large user base, false information and the spread of propaganda is a growing problem on WhatsApp. But navigating around that, it’s clear these groups offer journalists a unique perspective on communities notoriously difficult to reach, especially when it comes to reporting on international issues. “There are literally thousands upon thousands of groups that you can join where you can get right down to the village level of a community and listen to the conversations happening there,” Frankel said. For more information, read Frankel’s full report at goo.gl/ze4kR1.
Rob Tornoe is a cartoonist and columnist for Editor and Publisher, where he writes about trends in digital media. He is also a digital editor for Philly.com. Reach him at robtornoe@gmail.com.
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n today’s digital landscape, offering various products to your advertisers is crucial to the growth of the media buying and advertising industry. Site Impact’s Private Label Email Marketing solutions have been powering major media companies for more than 10 years with a purpose to create a targeted and trackable solution to increase advertiser’s revenue and enhance a newspaper’s capabilities from selling a standard print ad in the newspaper. “Email is probably the most powerful and yet most underrated form of marketing. It’s more personal than any other form of marketing except phone calls and text messages, which can be annoying,” explains Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates. “And it’s getting more mindshare than most other forms of media. I’m surprised that more marketers haven’t awakened to its potential, but I’m certain they
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production BY JERRY SIMPKINS
WHEN EVERY MINUTE COUNTS Exploring the best time savers in production 30 |
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P
roduction is truly “a service department.” It’s the responsibility of production to turn over every rock to find operations related solutions that help serve other areas of the organization. With the challenges we all face in advertising and circulation, our organizations are constantly seeking alternative avenues to increase revenue and hold our position in the communities we serve. Giving our newsrooms, advertising departments and circulation departments all the help we can is not only necessary to continue growing our franchises, but it’s the duty of production, plain and simple. Working with other areas of the operation to provide additional time may increase sales, improve coverage of critical news stories and community events, plus help us get papers into the hands of subscribers earlier, providing potential opportunity to grow circulation. Providing extended deadlines by improving operational efficiencies and trimming off minutes here and there can produce positive results and later ad deadlines, expanded coverage of sports and community events, improved home delivery times, and increased single copy sales. Many of my previous articles have focused on the importance of team building, and this one will be no exception. Long gone are the days when production was an island of its own, turning away late ads and filling late news pages with house ads if deadlines weren’t met. It wasn’t fair then, had no value or purpose and from what I’ve seen was just a bullying technique by a small minority. It didn’t help anyone then and wouldn’t help anyone now, but we’ve all seen this iron fist management in the past. I, for one, am happy that there seems to be a renewed understanding today that we’re all on the same team, working for the same purpose and sharing one common goal—putting out the finest product we can in the most efficient manner possible. Hopefully, you are one of the newspapers that constantly assess your operation to ensure efficient production procedures and provide other areas with all available time. I’ve always found it odd that when editorial misses a deadline by 20 minutes on the front end, the press often finishes right on time and operators still hit the door home at their normal time. I do realize that you perhaps can’t (or shouldn’t) run at the absolute
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A deleafer uses suction cups and a vacuum line to separate slipsheets from between plates, depositing plates in a neat pile and dropping loose sheets into the trash.
full-out maximum press speed each and every night. I realize web breaks are going to happen. I realize blankets are going to get smashed. But I also realize that many of us tend to build-in time to the schedule as if these events are going to occur on a daily basis, and I don’t think this “unwritten insurance policy” is necessarily a great plan, nor do I feel it’s fair to other areas of the operation. Let’s take a quick look at some procedures that we can utilize to limit the time spent daily printing the paper and possibly return some of this valuable time to others. It doesn’t always work that way and possibly you’re running things as efficiently 32 |
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as possible right now, but one thing I can guarantee is that if you don’t constantly explore new processes that can possibly improve your operation, nothing will change on its own.
Leafless Plates At some of the smaller papers I’ve worked with, it’s a nightly ritual to have a press operator go through a stack of aluminum printing plates and one-by-one remove each slip-sheet by hand. Not only does this take a ridiculous amount of time and labor, but unless they gently remove the slip-sheets from between the plates, you can actually create scratches in the
plate emulsion that will show up on press and require re-plates, causing unnecessary downtime. Many larger properties have automated systems to remove slip-sheets in which stacks of plates are loaded, and the machine (known as a deleafer) one-by-one lifts a plate, draws off the slip-sheet with vacuuming sucker cups and drops the slipsheets into the trash while stacking plates neatly in another pile. Although these units are automated, they are not trouble free. The challenge I’ve seen with these units are that like any machine they’re not perfect; occasionally crunching plates or missing slip-sheets that don’t pick-up properly,
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obviously creating an issue later in the platemaking process. A single missed slip-sheet in a pile of plates can stop your CTP dead in its tracks. If you’ve ever seen a fried slip-sheet, it’s not a pretty sight and depending on what it wraps around, the damage to your CTP unit may lose you cost quite a bit of time. So, why are there slip-sheets in the first place? Vendors will tell you that these lightweight sheets of paper protect the plates from scratches throughout the shipping process, yet there is one plate manufacturer that has apparently solved this shipping challenge and offers leafless plates to our industry. Southern Lithoplate, Inc. currently sells their Liberty NXP no process newspaper plate and ships very successfully without slip-sheets, thereby eliminating the need for labor and time removing these sheets. As far as I know, they are currently the sole vendor with an established and proven track record for providing leafless plates to our industry. The benefits of a leafless plate are many. First of all, there is a tremendous savings in labor expense on the front end, eliminating the time needed to remove slip-sheets. Also, these plates are normally less expensive than competitor’s plates simply because slip-sheets and packaging costs money and that expense will be passed down to you, the consumer. Perhaps the most significant benefit is the fact that if there are no slip-sheets in the first place, there will be no chance of wrapping
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.
one up in your imaging unit and losing time in the all important deadline process.
Tool-less Lock-ups No-Tool or Tool-less press lock-ups have been around for a long time and are wonderful timesavers. They are available for just about any press and come in single and double plate sizes. As the name implies, these lock-ups fit into your press plate cylinders and allow fast and easy mounting of plates without wrenches typically used to snug-up plates. Different vendors use different systems, but for the most part, thruster mechanisms/clamps snug-up the plates and work with the centrifugal force through the rotation of the cylinder to hold plates firmly in place. Pins located within these lockups correspond with the punches on the platemaking end of your operation to ensure quick and accurate registration on press. As many of you know, working with manual lock-ups can be a time killer. Looking for the lock-up tool (wrench) can be frustrating. It seems to have a mind of its own and often, thanks to other operators on your crew, never ends up being in the same place twice. Tool-less lock-ups are tremendous timesavers. Snap the lead edge of the plate in, inch the press, snap in the tail edge and you’re
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done. The time saved in this operation allows for quicker plate-ups and can shave time off the production process.
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How do your Route Trax apps help newspapers with their home delivery and single copy routes? Route Trax Home Delivery and Route Trax Single Copy are technologies that help make deliveries easier and worry free. Both apps provide visibility into real-time deliveries to determine if the news is getting out on time. They record time stamps when each delivery is made so management can track deliveries every step of the way. Route Trax uses advanced ArcGIS for routing to realign districts and consolidate and optimize routes. Our Route Trax Home Delivery app gives carriers access to detailed delivery information including driving directions, detailed customer information, and complaint resolution. Our app provides turn by turn directions through integration with Google Maps. Detailed customer information, including delivery days and publications to be delivered, can be viewed right on the carrier’s smartphone. Vacations, starts, and stops are also seamlessly integrated in our system. Drivers can rectify missed deliveries in minutes with the help of our push notification system. Our Route Trax Single Copy app removes the guesswork from the carrier by optionally giving the circulation manager the ability to set delivery information. Our invoicing features eliminate mistakes in calculation, providing an accurate, detailed invoice every time. Drivers can even capture signatures and print right from their device using a mobile Bluetooth printer. Both apps come with access to our online user interfaces. This is where managers can track all of their contractors including days off. Home Delivery web reports lets managers view and modify detailed customer information including delivery days and publications to be delivered. Our advanced push notification system facilitates constant contact with contractors by allowing push notifications to be sent by individual route or district. Designed to increase sales and reduce sellouts, Single Copy web reports also allows managers to track the condition of their racks with detailed rack maintenance, see detailed invoice information including signatures, and see delivery totals by sales, deliveries, returns or sellouts. James Vaught is president and chief technology officer of Envision Delivery Systems. He started his career in newspapers with the Dallas Morning News.
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Most press operators have used a large putty knife many times in their career to scoop ink out kits and fill ink fountains. It’s a slow and messy process that when done several times throughout the run takes time away from other more productive things you could be doing on press. Setting up a system of totes and purchasing a few good used Lincoln ink pumps is a great alternative to manually scooping ink, and if you have someone in-house who can run pipe can be done on a budget. Running ink directly to the ink fountains for all your ink can save a tremendous amount of time, money and effort. At the very least, black ink should be something you never have to scoop from a kit. Once you figure out the correct pipe layout, valves/cutoffs, etc. setting up your system isn’t rocket science and depending on the number of units you’re plumbing can usually be done over a weekend. Bring ink right up to the fountain with a faucet and system of valves to control flow, then run ink into the fountain and smooth out with that reliable old putty knife. The time you save can then go back to other areas of the operation. And then there’s automated press systems/registration and ink setting. Obviously all of us can’t have the latest and greatest equipment on press. But for those who do, take full advantage of these systems, keep them tuned and fully operational at all times, and maximize the time savings wherever possible.
Solid Management Some common and simple practices that can shave minutes off of your press run, like making sure the CTP units are full of plates; staging rolls; presetting paster patterns on rolls (don’t do this too far in advance or your tape can dry out); keeping up on maintenance to minimize breakdowns; keeping a clean area void of tripping or slip hazards; staging plates for the next run by units; pre-webbing the press when possible; management of labor through common good practices like staggering lunches; staggering crew start times; start-ups with all hands on deck; starting with full rolls when practical; washing blankets prior to each start-up; running press tests in off time to ensure faster start-ups and minimize waste; setting presets—the list goes on, but that’s just some of the things you can accomplish in the pressroom. In the distribution area, you should set-up inserts prior to each run. If you have zoning software, the zoning
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should be set-up and headers ready. Sure this may sound like a no-brainer, but how many times have you seen an operator who likes to get the actual product in hand and set up the machine? If the mainsheet is 24 pages, grab a few old 24 page papers from another day and set the machine up. Have each inserter head set, tested and ready. Confirm the correct inserts are staged, open boxes, cut strapping, prepare skids, etc. Just as soon as you think all this is common sense, someone will prove you wrong. Strappers should be warmed up with a backup roll of strap close by, underwrap machines the same, and stackers set-up and counts confirmed. I’ve seen numerous times when drivers leave the prior night without filling their delivery vans and end up losing 15 minutes at the start of their shift, filling up before they can leave for their route. Manage the
entire process and take absolutely nothing for granted. Hopefully you’re way ahead of things and not only have all the equipment running like a finely tuned Swiss watch but also have your processes in place and working equally well. If you do, congratulations! If you don’t, have the operation perfectly aligned. Each one of the things mentioned in this article can save you a minute or two and when combined, it can make a significant difference on deadlines. Fifteen minutes on the front end can extend that ad deadline just enough to bring in a few more classified liners or maybe even squeeze in a last minute display ad. Fifteen minutes can help the newsroom to get in that last update on a trending story, or sports to hold for one last late score. On the back end, a carrier getting papers 15 minutes earlier might just get that drop to the convenience store to sell a few more
copies or even get into the hands of a home delivery customer as they head out the door to work. Some of the things we used to do simply don’t work anymore. Competition with other media is fierce and late deliveries, incomplete coverage and poor results for advertisers isn’t going to get us anywhere fast. We’re losing customers and losing advertisers and spending more time whining about how unfair it all is rather than shaping up and doing something about it. While 15 minutes here and there may not sound like a lot to you, I see it as a small move forward, and any move forward sure beats laying down and accepting the status quo. Jerry Simpkins is vice president of the West Texas Printing Center, LLC in Lubbock, Texas. Contact him on LinkedIn.com or at simpkins@tds.net.
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Real estate advertising revenue blasts off thanks to digital advances By Sharon Knolle
D
oes it still pay to advertise real estate in your local paper? Maybe not in the print edition. According to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) report, in 1981, 22 percent of home buyers read newspaper ads to find a home. In 2016, 44 percent looked for properties online first. In today’s increasingly digital world, real estate advertising has moved online with digital ads now being tailored to meet client needs and track ad clicks and impressions. In addition, newspapers have to compete with sites like Zillow, Redfin, and Craigslist that cut out the middleman.
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And when buyers can simply ask “Alexa, search for threebedroom homes in Santa Fe,” thanks to new voice technology like Voiceter Pro, newspapers need to learn how to keep up with the latest digital advances. Some of them already are taking those first steps. E&P talked to media companies and real estate agents about how they’re leveraging social media, creating their own custom solutions, crafting key partnerships and finding valuable new uses for real estate data.
Moving Beyond Print Less than 1 percent of buyers found their homes through a print and 51 percent started their home search online, according to the NAR. Real estate agent Melissa Farley of Long and Foster in Washington D.C. said, “I’ve only been in real estate for about three years, and as part of the newer generation, newspapers aren’t something that we really use. It seems like only older agents use it for listings and open houses.” Los Angeles-based Keller Williams realtor Star Jasper agrees that newspaper listings are considered old hat. “Newspaper listings can be effective depending on your demographic. For instance, in senior living communities, most of the homeowners read the newspaper everyday, and it would be well worth the investment for a realtor to advertise in the local papers.” But print ads do still serve a Rodolfo Schwanz, digital purpose, according to Rodolfo sales director, Amplified Schwanz, former digital and Digital print classified advertising director at the Napa Valley Register in Napa, Calif. Schwanz now serves as digital sales director for Amplified Digital. He pointed out that print ads help build a brand and adds name recognition for real estate firms and agents. “The brokers still use the traditional print media more as a branding tool,” he explained. “Most still feel the need to see their listings in print. The sellers always have the pressure on the agents and brokers to have their listings in print.” The upside to brand-building, even if it doesn’t lead directly to home sales? Most people still want to work with an agent. According to another NAR report, 87 percent of buyers used a real estate agent or broker in 2017, as did 89 percent of sellers.
Beneficial Partnerships In 2015, 91 percent of realtors were using social media, but only 9 percent of realtors used social media to market their listings or 38 |
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GateHouse Media uses Facebook Real Estate ads to target buyers.
Doug Hitchcock, AdWriter, vice president of business development
Star Jasper, Keller Williams realtor
“Newspaper listings can be effective depending on your demographic.” even themselves, according to a Contactually study. “My main source advertising is social media,” Jasper said. “Facebook has been a great way to keep me ‘front of mind’ to friends and clients who have real estate needs.” editorandpublisher.com
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As featured on the Enclosure app: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website (left) and a content integration example from the Napa Valley Register.
Farley primarily promotes herself through Instagram and Media, director of online Facebook ads. “I don’t spend verticals a lot on ads. I’m somewhat strategic and frequent with my content. I keep it light and fun with a ‘day in the life of a realtor’ vibe. The goal is to get a glimpse of what it’s like to work with me by looking at my page. And we try to post frequently enough so people remember us when real estate needs comes up in their lives.” GateHouse Media has achieved “premium level access status” with Google, Facebook and other leading digital providers by partnering with ThriveHive, a digital marketing agency. Bob Birkentall, director of online verticals at GateHouse Media, said of the partnership: “This enables us to exceed the expectations of our clients with effective marketing solutions that extend beyond traditional print advertising. For print and digital, we’ve expanded our self-serve platforms to better service the transactional advertising needs of realtors.” He explains one of their newest innovations is Facebook Real Estate ads. “Very simply put, this is a solution that is optimized for Bob Birkentall, GateHouse
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‘lead generation.’ To accomplish this, we bid for audience traffic differently and more selectively to favor qualified buyer and seller leads versus raw impressions. Since most markets are experiencing a listing shortage, most brokers and agents are looking for a lead solution. Clients can make individual or transactional purchases through our e-commerce platform for only $99 per three-day campaign.” Real estate isn’t just about selling homes: It’s about the whole neighborhood, an angle used by GateHouse Media in a recent successful partnership with Coldwell Banker Schmidt at the Holland (Mich.) Sentinel. In a “Salute to Amazing Teachers,” the Sentinel asked readers to nominate a teacher who made a difference in their child’s life. “One of the more powerful drivers for moving into a new home is to live in a better school district for your family,” Birkentall said. “What better way for a real estate company to associate themselves with this powerful motivator than by sponsoring a local salute to the area’s best teachers? Coldwell Banker Schmidt purchased the sponsorship and generated significant engagement from the community.”
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Data Leads to Automated or Custom Content For decades, Sweden’s leading local media company, Mittmedia, published details and listings about home sales in its newspapers, but now that the property data provided by Sweden’s Land Registration Authority is in digital form, it was a smart leap to start using that data to generate automated articles. As a result, the Homeowners Bot was created. Mittmedia partnered with United Robots to develop a simple text automation platform. For the articles, the bot finds a particular angle, such as a record-setting sale price, writes a headline, and tracks down the best image from Google Street View via custom algorithms. Voila—custom content. Subscriptions are up, and so are ad sales, according to Mittmedia’s chief digital officer, Robin Govik. “We have seen a dramatic increase (more than 28 percent) in overall ad revenue the first half of 2018 compared to the same period 2017. There are many reasons for this, of course. But
} Pictured is an article written by the Homeowners Bot. The article is translated from Swedish to English.
Creating Your Own Campaign There are a variety of online tools available to track ad impressions and clicks, including Google tools and URL tagging. Now the Napa Valley Register has also adopted the brand new real estate ad platform Enclosure (enclosure.io). Other newspapers using Enclosure include the San Francisco Chronicle, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Buffalo News in New York. One of Enclosure’s strengths is its patented “fuzzy search” technology, according to Enclosure vice president of sales Connie Chen. She demonstrated the same fourbedroom, four-bath search on Enclosure versus Zillow to show its unique searching ability, which will always give “near miss” results to any search. With Zillow, she said, 40 |
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a too-specific search can result in zero hits. Other advantages over Zillow, according to Chen: a “reset” button for searches, the ability to search by school district, and a dropdown list that shows the number of hits your search yielded before you started scrolling. At the Chronicle, Chen said the project was completed in less than two weeks and has doubled traffic in the two months since its launch. So far, agents love the “fuzzy search,” and its ability to help them find more homes for customers, Chen said. And audience engagement is good: with eight to 15 page views/user views and “almost double that” on mobile apps. She added they’re seeing “increasingly high usage on mobile devices of all kinds, with most implementations at over 50 percent usage.”
“By making content that is relevant for our loyal readers, like our Homeowners Bot, we strengthen the ad business.” editorandpublisher.com
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5 Tips on How Newspapers Can Stay on the Cutting Edge of Real Estate Advertising 1. Sales, product and news teams should regularly brainstorm and work together to develop ideas around various platforms for real estate information and news to improve current products and generate new ideas. 2. Survey audiences (and non-customers) to learn how they consume real estate news and information. What kind of real estate information do they want from their local news organization? 3. Contact the local real estate board and explore what partnerships might be possible, even if it’s just around one product or a seasonal one. 4. Don’t give up and just cede this space to competition. Sometimes there is an opportunity to craft a limited partnership with a competitor around one product. Partnering with competitors is not always a death wish. 5. Get comfortable with technology and don’t be afraid to test it out. Ebony Reed is the director of innovation and Futures Lab at Reynolds Journalism Institute and an associate professor at Missouri School of Journalism. In her role, Reed collaborates with RJI staff and the Missouri School of Journalism to research and test new platforms for journalism.
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OUTPUT our ad strategy is pretty clear: Our business is built on loyalty. So by making content that is relevant for our loyal readers, like our Homeowners Bot, we strengthen the ad business.” And the bot goes beyond articles. “We have also started specific real estate websites for some of our brands,” said Govik. “The Homeowners Bot makes it easy to start a website and fill it with content and sell ads.” But there are a few downsides of the bot. “There have been some data errors that made the bot write articles with wrong information. We get the data directly from Sweden’s Land Registration Authority so when they are wrong, we are wrong,” said Govik. He added that they’ve received only a “handful” of complaints from people who weren’t comfortable with having the sale of their house editorandpublisher.com
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C R E AT I V E C A M PA I G N
PRINT DESIGN
IMAGING
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Where Buyers Found the Home They Purchased
51%
Internet
30% 7%
Yard sign/open house sign
6% 5% 2%
Real estate agent
Friend, relative or neighbor
Home builder or their agent
Directly from seller or knew seller
<1%
Print newspaper advertisement
Source: 2017 Profile of Buyers and Sellers, National Association of Realtors
published. Govik said reactions have been overwhelmingly positive though. “The readers enjoy the service and the advertisers likes that we set focus on house sales in our different geographical areas.” And according to a user survey, 68 percent of readers didn’t realize they had just read an article written by a bot. Enclosures’s Chen also stressed the value of making real estate listings work twice as hard. “This extremely hyperlocal data can be used in the traditional way, such as to search homes or feature homes. But it can also be used to create content—evergreen content on specific areas that the paper covers, or newsletter content that can give insight into who would opt-in for that content.”
Crafting Custom Ads AdWriter has been around for more than 30 years, but it has evolved to keep up with the latest needs of publishers as well as from brokers, according to Doug Hitchcock, vice president of business development. 42 |
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“This extremely hyperlocal data can be used in the traditional way, such as to search homes or feature homes.”
“In some markets, the news media publisher is the direct customer of AdWriter and provides this as a service to their real estate advertisers,” Hitchcock said of the system, which is used by more than 40 nationwide and regional real estate brokerages and news media publishers. Larry West, real estate advertising manager at the Tampa Bay Times, has been using AdWriter for about 10 years. “AdWriter provides a seamless production solution with great accuracy, excellent turnaround, and a very pleasant and helpful staff that are all so easy to work with,” he said. “We feel we get great service and value for the services they provide for both our weekly newspaper features and our monthly real estate publications.” The AdVantage system lets a broker select which properties they want advertised in each publication, whether it’s the latest listings, a particular neighborhood or its highest-producing agent. Recent improvements include the ability to generate listing ads that can be posted on social media sites. “All of our pre-press PDF documents are now electronicallylinked so that a publisher can use the same document on their own website with live links to the property listing and the agent’s phone number for mobile device browsing,” said Hitchcock. He described it as a “one-stop curb-to-contract” solution for real estate advertising that allows the publisher and advertisers to have the listing data, print-ready photographs, agent headshot and phone numbers all in one place.
Making a Comeback From bots to digital data, the heyday of splashy print real estate ads may be coming to an end, but GateHouse’s Birkentall is confident real estate advertising will live on digitally. “Around 2013-2014, we started to see a shift or return of our customers back to our local online solutions,” he said. “We will never be the only game in town again as we were in print up to the early 2000s. But as we expand our online offerings and achieve premium partner status, we are better positioned to compete with the many talented digital marketing agencies.” editorandpublisher.com
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EPPYFPad18.qxp_Layout 1 8/17/18 12:20 PM Page 1
2018 CALL 3 1 . t p e S FOR ENTRIES
2018
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videos, webcasts, advertising/marketing, photography and community service. Entries to the EPPYTM Awards are judged by a panel of notable figures in the media industry, chosen by the staff of Editor & Publisher.
For more information, please contact: Entry deadline: Sept. 13, 2018 Martha McIntosh at martha@editorandpublisher.com eppyawards.com
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To Protect…and Block? How newspapers are dealing with the EU’s general data protection regulations By Peter Suciu
I
n May, the General Data Protection Regulations—or GDPR—went into effect in the European Union. First approved in April 2016, this new legislation has radically changed how companies can do business online. European authorities gave companies two years to comply with the new sweeping measures that replaced the previous Data Protection Directive in the 28-nation EU bloc.
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To Protect… and Block?
} Eric Hodge, director of solutions, Cyberscout
} Ryan Radia, research fellow and regulatory counsel, Competitive Enterprise Institute
The goal of the law was to give consumers greater control of their respective personal data that is collected by companies online. This includes organizations that are located within the EU, but also applies to any companies outside the region if they offer goods or services, or even have a digital footprint with consumers in the EU bloc. Even with two years to understand—and prepare for—the new regulations, the response by some American newspaper publishers was to block all content from the eyes of those in the EU. This included Americans traveling for work and vacation as well as expats. Other publishers offered a special version for those readers in the EU. “USA TODAY NETWORK is serving a version of its products to IP addresses in the EU that limits the data processing on the site,” a spokesperson told E&P via email. “The USA TODAY NETWORK EU experience will not include any advertising that collects personal data from EU residents, allowing our European audience to continue to access our award-winning content.” The reason for this due diligence on the part of publishers is simple. Under GDPR, those companies that are not compliant face serious fines of up to 4 percent of annual global revenue or 20 million euros ($24.6 million), whichever is larger. “We are going to be watching very closely how this plays out,” said Eric Hodge, director of solutions for security research firm Cyberscout. “That is a hefty fine, and while it is aimed at major tech brands, it could still be used against a small Indiana-based company that might have four European customers in its database.” This is something businesses in all sectors will have to deal with as well. 46 |
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} Bart Lazr, partner, Seyfarth Shaw
“The first thought is something aimed at large tech companies or banking, but this affects all industries,” Hodge said. “Publishing is an interesting part of this because it has become so global. It will be interesting to see how smaller, regional papers may get caught up in this.” A key part of GDPR is based on companies ensuring that users consent to how their data is used. Companies can’t use vague or confusing statements, nor can consent be bundled within other
A key part of GDPR is based on companies ensuring that users consent to how their data is used. use agreements. Consumers in the EU will also be entitled to access the personal data that is stored by companies, and most importantly find out how it is being used. “There will be a sea change in publishing where 80 percent of revenue comes from online advertising and ad-related tracking is editorandpublisher.com
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part of how organizations make money,” said Alex Calic, strategic technology partnerships officer for digital vendor risk management firm The Media Trust. This could be bad for the bottom line for those businesses that depend on targeted marketing or advertising.
When in Doubt, Block It The approach from many publishers has been to completely “geoblock” all users with IP addresses in Europe. This has cut off those traveling as well as expats from their hometown papers, and at best it is a short term solution to what could remain a long term problem. “Several U.S. news outlets including tronc have geoblocked users because there is the fear they aren’t compliant with GDPR,” said Ryan Radia, research fellow and regulatory counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “This hasn’t affected regional papers as much, but the larger publishers have taken notice.” This doesn’t mean it is impossible to see the blocked content, and tech-savvy users could get around the geoblocking via proxy servers or virtual private networks (VPNs). The question is how the use of such tools still relates to GDPR. “This could result in a game of cat and mouse, where publishers try even harder to block the VPNs because it isn’t clear if a news
“There will be a sea change in publishing where 80 percent of revenue comes from online advertising and ad-related tracking is part of how organizations make money.” outlet or publishers could be at risk of violating GDPR if someone went to such measures by using a VPN,” said Radia. “The idea of GDPR is to provide these protections, but if an individual went to such measures it could be argued they (the user of a VPN) are opting out of the very protections that the EU put in place.” However, publishers that are not yet GDPR compliant could still face issues if a reader were to use a VPN or other tool to access
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To Protect… and Block?
} Alex Calic, strategic technology partnerships officer, The Media Trust
geoblocked content. “It would come down to how much they know this is happening and what steps are being taken to stop it,” said Bart Lazr, a partner in the Chicago-based Seyfarth Shaw law firm. “Another point to consider is that if you get email from a Gmail account it isn’t actually clear what citizenship that person is, so this puts a lot of responsibility on those receiving the emails.”
Getting Compliant
} Michael Priem, CEO, Modern Impact
Those that don’t comply could be expected to face hefty fines, and the EU has a track record for imposing large fines on businesses.
While the short term solution for some has been to either block the content or provide an EU-specific version of the site, the long term goal for any company will be meeting and addressing—and when possible exceeding—the privacy concerns of GDPR. “We’re already seen a massive cascade with many companies changing the privacy settings, and this includes many consumer-focused brands,” said Michael Priem, CEO of Modern Impact, a firm that utilizes real-time analytics and machine learning to improve the performance and ROI of all programmatic advertising. “The thing to remember is that this isn’t about just accessing a site from Europe. As we understand it, even if someone comes to the United States and uses a site and they are an EU citizen, it is expected that GDPR still applies.” However, the question is if and then how the EU could actually enforce GDPR. “It would be challenging but not necessarily impossible for a 48 |
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small U.S.-based business to get a fine,” Radia said. “It would probably entail the enforcement agency to go to the United States to work to obtain a judgment, so the more likely response would be to go after business partners in Europe. For the majority of companies that have a major presence in Europe, it will likely mean that they’ll behave accordingly.” Those that don’t comply could be expected to face hefty fines, and the EU has a track record for imposing large fines on businesses. Between 2013 and 2017, the European Union Commission imposed fines totaling 8.472 billion euros ($9.54 billion). That doesn’t include the 1.06 billion euro fine imposed on Intel in May 2009 for abusing its market dominance on central processing editorandpublisher.com
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Beyond the issue of consumer privacy, GDPR and similar regulations could change the way reporters do their job.
This could also change the way ads—and the revenue that comes with it—are served to users online. “Do not panic, we’ve seen in the past decade how rapidly revenue has evolved through programmatic ads,” Priem said. “Media budgets won’t stop growing and the technology leaders won’t stop innovating. Ad revenue will not go away because of GDPR.” The industry will just have to adapt accordingly. “Maybe in a way this is putting the costs back to where it belongs,” Hodge said. “There is no free lunch, and if money is being made from viewing of the ads, those companies should be held accountable for what they are doing with a person’s private information. But if anything now, the ad companies will have to handle the way these are served more responsibly. You will get to agree to it, and there will be great transparency in what is being done with your data. This could change the whole thing for the better.”
GDPR Won’t Go Away units (CPUs), or the 900 million euro fine imposed on Microsoft in February 2008 for “unreasonable” royalty fees. “We see that the penalties are very stiff, but it is unclear if the EU could actually impose those fines to businesses that are based in the U.S. and accessed outside of Europe,” Priem said. “What this really puts the spotlight on is how data is reaching a level of becoming much like a currency or natural resource. In either case, GDPR is putting restrictions on this resource.” At the same time, GDPR shouldn’t be seen as something that could be technological evolution or even innovation. As the EU has stated, it is actually a matter of returning the value of one’s data back to the individual and ensuring that privacy is protected. “In that regard this is simply controlling how ‘big data’ can be leveraged via new technologies such as machine learning, which can be used for such things as more specific ad targeting,” Priem said. “This is about giving the consumer the right to opt in instead of just automatically handing over control of their data to others, and not getting anything for it. So really GDPR is providing the way for users to understand in simple language how their data is used. Past efforts to do this haven’t been done with due diligence and GDPR simply sets the new standard.” What is also important to note is that for children under 16, a person holding “parental responsibility” must op in to data collection on the minor’s behalf. An additional rule also made it mandatory for companies to notify any respective data protection authority about a data breach within 72 hours of first being made aware of its occurring. Customers must be then notified “without undue delay” following any known breach. Beyond the issue of consumer privacy, GDPR and similar regulations could change the way reporters do their job. “Newspapers are still trying to deal with that ‘right to be forgotten’ and with big stories that is difficult enough,” Lazar said. “Then there is the fact that businesses like to contact journalists, so will American journalists object to receiving media pitches from companies based in Europe if it means the journalist needs to worry about GDPR?” editorandpublisher.com
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Europe may not be the largest continent in actual size, but apart from India and China, it has the largest collection of internet users in the world. “The EU has far more internet users than the United States, and it is also the wealthiest block of users worldwide,” Radia said. “This makes the EU market so large that the truly global companies can’t ignore it. For some companies, the plan may be to step back, but that is a market that can’t be ignored, and if you’re an international company in any way, you ‘can’t not do business’ in Europe and hence you can’t ignore GDPR.” If anything, GDPR should be seen as portent for other regulations to come. “For most publishers, the key is to understand what compliance solutions will work so they can serve the EU, as well as other markets like Canada, which will introduce the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) in November, and Japan, whose APPI (Act on the Protection of Personal Information of 2003) tightened up previous privacy laws, or South Korea, whose PIPA is one of the world’s strictest privacy laws,” said Calic. “As consumers around the world rely on their mobile devices for transactions, other markets will follow suit.” Instead of going away, it is already making headway into America. In June, California enacted what has been seen as one of the most far-reaching consumer protection privacy laws in the nation. The California Consumer Privacy Act, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, will require data privacy protections and requirements that are already being compared to GDPR. Where it could be different is in enforcement. “The FTC tends to fine companies and do it in a private way,” Lazar said. “The EU has been more public and has issued huge fines, which the current law allows for. The EU will have to resist the urge to go for the jugular in enforcing GDPR, and we can expect that in the United States regulators would likely take a more measured approach. The utopian in me asks why we can’t have a global privacy standard that could be locally enforced, but that isn’t going to happen.” SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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COVERING TRAUMA Are newsrooms doing enough to take care of their journalists’ health and safety? By Nu Yang
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n April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 260. Although five years have passed, for Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki, it “seems like yesterday.”
Before the explosions, Tlumacki described the day as “normal, like any other April day.” A staff photographer for 30 years, Tlumacki had been covering the marathon for two decades, which usually averages around 30,000 participants a year. He knew the best spot for photos was at the finish line. That’s where he was on that “normal” April day when he heard the first explosion. Tlumacki ran toward the sound, thinking perhaps a manhole cover had blown off. But when a second explosion went off seconds later, he knew something bad was happening. As he made it to the sidewalk, Tlumacki saw he was right. On the ground were dozens of bloody and injured spectators, many editorandpublisher.com
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of them missing body parts. A police officer yelled at him to leave the area in case another bomb detonated but he didn’t move. For 15 minutes, he didn’t take his eye off the camera, documenting the chaos and confusion, but also snapping photos of people helping others. Looking back, Tlumacki said it was probably foolish of him to stay, but he feels he did the right thing. “I had an obligation to stay there as a journalist,” he said, “to stay there and take photos.” Tlumacki isn’t alone. For many journalists covering traumatic events, it’s that sense of obligation to do their job that makes them run toward danger rather than away from it. Along with police, firefighters and paramedics, journalists are often the
first responders to a scene. And like first responders working traumatic events, they are at risk of showing psychological problems, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and substance abuse. From natural disasters to mass shootings, journalists are reporting from disturbing situations that can take a massive physical and emotional toll on their health. But are newsrooms doing enough to take care of their journalists, or are we in danger of seeing them burn out and fade away?
Taking Care of Our Own When Tlumacki returned to the newsroom and began looking through his photos, he was in disbelief. There are some photos, he said, that will never see the light SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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} Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki became close with Celeste Corcoran and her daughter, Sydney, after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. He spent a year documenting their recovery process. (Photos courtesy of John Tlumacki)
of the day. These graphic images still appear in his dreams years later. Although the Globe offered counseling, Tlumacki said he didn’t go, but he admits he could have benefitted from some PTSD counseling. “I felt like since I was not injured and I didn’t lose anything, I didn’t have PTSD,” he said. “Now I know that was foolish of me to think. It was still difficult for me. For a few years, I refused to take pictures at the finish line. One time I was getting ready to give a lecture and someone had left a backpack in the back of the hall, and I started to get really sweaty. Sometimes I had feelings like that.” What helped Tlumacki heal was spending a year photographing Celeste Corcoran and her daughter, Sydney, during their recovery process. Both women were hit with shrapnel during the explosions; Celeste lost both of her legs. “That was the best thing I did,” Tlumacki said. “I think we both benefited from each other. It was remarkable watching them get better. Following them became a way for me to deal with what happened.” As Tlumacki’s story shows us, there are some things journalists simply cannot anticipate. Such as the night of Oct. 1, 2017 when a gunman opened fire into a crowd at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. According to Las Vegas Review-Journal 52 |
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deputy managing editor Peter Johnson, there were no journalists on scene covering the festival that night, and there was only a small crew working in the newsroom. That changed when Johnson heard on his police scanner at home that there was an active shooter on the Strip. “Our police reporter was dispatched, along with ten other reporters, and some photographers headed there on their own,” he said. “We didn’t really know what was happening since there were reports of multiple shooters at multiple locations.
pletely numbing number.” At the scene, photographers transmitted hundreds of photos back to the newsroom. “Very disturbing photos,” Johnson said. “It was upsetting for everyone.” When it was over, the Las Vegas incident became the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history with 58 people killed and more than 500 others wounded. “We’re not a very large newsroom,” Johnson said. “So everyone was involved with covering it, and everyone was affected by it in some way. This was our community.” Johnson said a therapist came into the newsroom that first week and journalists were encouraged to go in and talk. Several of them did, according to Johnson. Therapy dogs were also brought in to help. Nearly a year later, the newsroom continues to report on the shooting’s aftermath. Recently, the paper released several batches of videos from that night captured on police body cams and surveillance cameras. But Johnson knew for some reporters, it would be troubling to relive it. “We asked for volunteers to watch them,” Johnson said. “And if you were uncomfortable, you didn’t have to.” He said several staff members are still
“Because you’re running on adrenaline, you’re not thinking of yourself, you’re living and breathing the story. Sooner or later, it’s going to hit you.” But we knew we were sending them into a potentially dangerous situation, which weighs heavily on you. These are our friends and colleagues and we care about them. We hoped they’d get the story and prayed they’d come back safe.” Johnson described the night as “surreal.” “The first word was that there were two dead, then 20 dead, then 50 dead,” he said. “Suddenly your jaw drops. It was a com-
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Dr. Kevin Becker PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and senior partner with ORI Consulting, a global crisis consulting firm. Often, when journalists immerse themselves in covering traumatic events, the work will “stick with (them),” he said. “You can’t jump into water without getting wet.” Becker said those journalists often show signs of anger, isolation, insomnia, and even spacing out and losing time. The important thing is “to not be surprised by it. Be aware and educate your newsrooms about these symptoms. Make it okay to talk about it and tell them it’s not a weakness; it’s a normal reaction to an abnormal event.” When journalists get PTSD, they feel a loss of “safety, predictability and control.” But newsrooms can help reestablish them, said Becker. “First of all, trust. They need to feel like their environment is safe, and they won’t be pulled from their job if they ask for help or need time off,” he said. “Next, they need balance especially with their workload. And then connection. Make sure they’re not isolating themselves from coworkers and loved ones.” In the past, people in the industry may have been afraid to speak up due to shame, but PTSD “is a real thing,” said Becker. “There are studies about trauma. It’s a science now. It’s time to set aside the shame and stigma. The goal is to show empathy and let them know their reaction is normal, that talking about it is acceptable. But first, you have to start the conversation.” -NY
haunted by what they saw that night, but what Johnson has learned is “we need to take care of our own, look after our people and realize the impact that happens to them when they’re reporting on mayhem.” Julie Anderson also knows what it’s like to report on mayhem. Two weeks after a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 14, Anderson started as editor-in-chief at the South Florida Sun Sentinel. She previously served as senior vice president of content and business development for the Orlando Sentinel Media Group, where she oversaw coverage of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. Coming into her new position, Anderson said the first thing she wondered about was how everyone was going to handle the situation. “Because you’re running on adrenaline, you’re not thinking of yourself, you’re living and breathing the story,” Anderson said. “Sooner or later, it’s going to hit you.” Not only the fatigue and stress from working long hours, but the emotional turmoil that follows after speaking with editorandpublisher.com
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survivors and the loved ones of victims. “In Orlando, we had to write forty-nine obits,” Anderson said. She said free mental assistance was offered, therapy dogs were brought in and employees were encouraged to take time off. The abundance of support from newsrooms around the country also helped. Newsrooms in Boston, San Bernardino and Charleston (cities who experienced their own tragedies) sent notes and meals to them, said Anderson. And when the next school shooting occurred in May in Santa Fe, Texas, the Sun Sentinel paid it forward and reached out to the local newspaper, the Galveston County Daily News, right away. For some journalists in Orlando, it was their second time covering a massacre. “They had covered either Sandy Hook or Aurora,” Anderson said. “Some of them have left the business because they don’t want to be sad anymore. I worry about that.” For Colleen Wright, it was the destruction of Mother Nature that sent her newsroom into high alert. Wright was a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times when SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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Bruce Shapiro, Dart Center executive director
Julie Anderson, South Florida Sun Sentinel editor-in-chief
Peter Johnson, Las Vegas Review-Journal deputy managing editor
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Hurricane Irma struck last September. Irma, a Category 5 storm, was the most intense hurricane to hit the U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Although Wright was born and raised in Miami (where she is currently the Miami Herald education reporter), it was her first time covering a storm; it was also her first time taking shelter. Wright spent two nights at St. Petersburg High School, but that didn’t stop her from doing her job. Since she covered schools, she wrote about life from inside the shelters, and spent time driving around talking to people preparing to evacuate. “We were on hurricane watch a week before the storm even hit,” Wright said, calling it one of the longest weeks ever. “It was all hands on deck.” Although the damage to the area wasn’t as severe as other parts of the state, Wright said it was still physically exhausting to work those long hours, but she was proud of the work her paper did. “It was okay to relax and say good job,” Wright said. “There will be another storm, and we will always be prepared.” A month later on the other side of the country, the Tubbs fire became one of the deadliest wildfire in California history. The fire affected Sonoma and Napa counties in Northern California, destroying more than 5,000 structures and claiming 40 lives. Like Wright, Santa Rosa Press Democrat photographer Kent Porter spent a week monitoring the weather with “one eye open.” The night the fires started, he heard reports on his police scanner at home and immediately grabbed his equipment to go do his job. When he arrived on scene to take photos, a firefighter told him, “This is the kind of fire that kills people.” But this wasn’t Porter’s “first rodeo” as he put it. Porter quickly sent pictures and videos back to the newsroom and warned his managing editor, Ted Appel, that the fire was heading to Santa Rosa. Appel updated the paper’s website shortly, and thanks to the work of reporters and Porter’s photos and videos, they were able to keep the public up to date. Their coverage landed them a Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting this year. But Porter wasn’t looking for awards
that night he set out with his camera. “You lay yourself out there on the line because no one else can tell the story,” he said. Although Porter didn’t lose his home, many of his friends did. “It was hard to comprehend that this was happening in our own backyard.” There was also an “overwhelming sense of anger, grief, depression and anxiety” for the photographer. He recalled taking a helicopter ride after the fire to take photos of the destruction. What he saw below made him “lose it.” Afterward, the company allowed reporters to take time off, but Porter recommended newsrooms gather together after covering a traumatic event to debrief. “Sit as group and just talk about your experiences,” he said. To help him slow down, he turns off his police scanner at home, listens to music and spends time with his wife. But when the next round of fires comes, Porter said he will be ready because it’s his job to show people what he sees. “They need to know,” he said. “They deserve to know.”
Support and Solutions When a gunman killed five employees at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md. on June 28, it became the deadliest assault on journalists in the United States since 9/11. Immediately, newsrooms around the country began to reassess their safety and security. GJS (Global Journalists Security) was created in 2012. The company (gjs-security. com) specializes in safety training for journalists, NGO professionals and other civilians operating in moderate and high-risk environments. Training programs include sexual assault awareness, emotional selfcare and digital safety. GJS executive director Frank Smyth believes safety training is critical for newsrooms, but he acknowledges most local news organizations cannot afford them. To those newsrooms, he offered these tips instead. “Install bullet-resistant doors and windows. Put in security cameras. Control access on who comes in and out of your building. Train your employees to be aware editorandpublisher.com
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of their surroundings when they’re walking to their vehicles on the street or in a parking lot. Create a culture where everyone looks out for each other. The notion is to be smart.” When the Dart Center (dartcenter. org) started in 1999, the concept of PTSD among journalists was still relatively new. Journalists are known as a resilient group, said executive director Bruce Shapiro, but newsrooms began to realize reporters needed a better toolkit. The “steady diet” of traumatic events like mass shootings, hurricanes and the loss of colleagues has made it “overwhelming,” said Shaprio. “We’ve reached a point where the industry is willing to have conversations about mental health and PTSD,” he said. “Local reporters and photographers are now on the frontline, and they need training because they’re not exempt from the trauma.” Burnout and stress also factor into a journalist’s well-being; fortunately, there
is a shift in newsroom culture. Shapiro considers it a generational turning point, where today’s younger reporters are much more open about talking trauma and its impact. He encouraged more journalists to form peer supported groups for community and help. An example is the closed Facebook group Journalists Covering Trauma started by Orlando Sentinel reporter Naseem Miller and San Antonio Express-News reporter Silvia Foster-Frau. Miller, who had covered Pulse, reached out to Foster-Frau after the deadly church shooting last November in Sutherland Springs, Texas that killed 26 people. After connecting, they decided to create a support group on Facebook for other journalists and editors who had gone through traumatic events. The group currently has almost 400 members. “Here, you can give advice on how you coped from the secondhand grief, ask how
to approach a source on a sensitive topic, and share tips on follow-up stories in the months and years ahead,” according to the page’s description. Foster-Frau said many journalists are looking for answers on how to mobilize if and when their community experiences a mass shooting. “They want to find information about what the process is like, what resources are available, and what to expect professionally and emotionally.” The group has started a document (tinyurl.com/yat9ueuh), collecting tips, story ideas, links and words of encouragement for covering mass shootings. For Miller, the Facebook group has been a “very gratifying project,” but seeing the number of members grow so quickly indicates there is a huge need for journalists seeking help. As for the future of the group and its members, she said, “We just take it one day at a time. ”
News Industry Summit October 10-12 | Nashville, Tenn. KEY TOPICS:
• Opportunities for growth and strategies to pay for good journalism. • Drawing the transformation roadmap. • How to be a transformative leader.
• Lessons learned by a digital agency. • What the public expects from the press. • What Americans know — and don’t know — about journalism. • Best ideas (revenue,
cost reduction, staff organization) from SNPA’s publisher-to-publisher conferences. • Recruiting the nextgeneration sales team. • Digital disruption in the music industry: what
newspapers need to know. • Why hyper-local news is selling lots of newspapers in Tennessee. • New avenues for content distribution, video content for YouTube, and more.
HERE’S THE IMPORTANT DATE: SEPTEMBER 19 • Why? It’s the last day to register before rates increase. Visit SNPA.org/summit.html • It’s also the reservation deadline at the Nashville Hilton. Rate: $254 (single or double occupancy). Call (615) 620-1000 (M-F, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or 1-800-HILTONS. To be honest, we expect rooms to sell out before September 19, so don’t delay!
SNPA
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SOUTHERN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Learn more, register and become a sponsor or exhibitor at: www.snpa.org/summit.html
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THE TRUTH IS
FACTS
TRUMP
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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 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; touting the importance of ethical journalism and its value to democracy.
By Rachael Garcia rachael@editorandpublisher.com
Fatemah Farag has been voted onto the Board and Executive Committee of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. She is the founder and CEO of Welad Elbalad Media Services LTD in Egypt. Farag is the first Arab woman and first Egyptian to join the EC and Board and has led WAN-IFRA’s Women in News program for the Middle East and North Africa for the past two years. Kimi Yoshino has been named deputy managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. In her new role, Yoshino will oversee sports, business, arts, entertainment and lifestyle coverage. Previously, she served as business editor, as editor in Metro news and as reporter for the paper’s Orange County edition. Additionally, she helped develop the Times’ blog, L.A. Now. Nick Johnson has been named head of advertising at McClatchy. Most recently, Johnson served as senior vice president of digital ad sales strategy for Turner Ad Sales, where he led digital sales strategy and editorandpublisher.com
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business growth across the company’s portfolio of brands. Before joining Turner, Johnson served as senior vice president of digital media sales for NBCUniversal Sports. Prior to that, he was the senior vice president of digital media sales, where he oversaw strategy, sales and sales marketing for the NBCUniversal TV and cable digital portfolio. Andy Cross/Denver Post
Rod Hicks has been named the Society of Professional Journalists’ first Journalist on Call, a three-year position developed and funded by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. In this new role, Hicks will help journalists re-earn trust from readers. He will also spend time with the general public, local officials and community groups to help explain the important role ethical journalism plays in society. Hicks previously served as editor for the Associated Press at its Philadelphia-based East Regional Desk, where he managed news coverage in 10 states. He also managed the St. Louis Post-Dispatch news operation at night and served as suburban editor for the Detroit News.
NewsPeople
Megan Schrader has been named editorial page editor for the Denver Post. She replaces Chuck Plunkett, who resigned. Schrader recently served as editorial writer for the Post, and prior to that, she covered Colorado politics for four years at the Colorado Springs Gazette. Schrader also worked at newspapers in Florida and Oklahoma as a reporter.
was director of student media. She served as the adviser to the school paper, the O’Colly, and an adjunct professor teaching courses in multimedia reporting, digital communications and public affairs writing. Prior to that, Allen was a writer and editor at Tulsa World, where she covered police, courts and features. Terry Kroeger is stepping down as chairman and chief executive officer of BH Media Group as a result of a new management agreement with Lee Enterprises, ending a 33-year career with the Omaha World-Herald. He joined the World-Herald as an assistant buyer in 1985 and was promoted to president and chief operating officer of the paper in 2005. He became chairman and CEO in 2007.
Patrick DeLany has been named editor of the York (Pa.) Dispatch, succeeding Allison Frisch. Prior to working at the Dispatch, Frisch served as managing editor and regional editor for Messenger Post Media in upstate New York. Delany has been managing editor for the Dispatch for the last four years. He started as a staff writer for the Dispatch in 1992 before being promoted to assistant city editor and then city editor. Delaney left the paper to work at the Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune but returned to the Dispatch in 2008 as editorial page editor.
Scott Kraft has been named managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he served as deputy managing editor and prior to that, he was front page editor and national editor. Kraft has also served as bureau chief in Kenya, South Africa and Paris. He joined the Times in its Chicago bureau in 1984 after working at the Associated Press. Barbara Allen has been named Poynter.org managing editor. Allen comes to Poynter from Oklahoma State University, where she
The Associated Press has named Sara Gillesby news director for all formats in the U.S. East region and Karin Laub as Middle East news director. Gillesby joined the AP in 2005 as an editorial assistant, working her way up to video journalist, senior producer and later, assignment desk manager, where she oversaw AP’s video teams. In her new role, Gillesby will lead a group of journalists in 10 states. SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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NewsPeople ACQUISITIONS Loyal and Charlotte Baker has purchased the East Washingtonian (Pomeroy, Wash.) a weekly newspaper from Mike Tom, who is retiring from publishing. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. The Bakers also published the Dayton (Wash.) Chronicle. The Bakers plan to maintain offices in both communities. Loyal spent six years as field editor with Cowles Publishing in Spokane prior to returning as publisher of his parents’ weekly newspaper there. Ogden Newspapers Inc. has acquired the Loudon (Va.) Times-Mirror from Peter Arundel. The purchase includes LoudonTimes.com and Loudouner, a quarterly lifestyle magazine. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Arundel will remain the publisher and the paper will continue to operate out of the Leesburg Junction co-working space in downtown Leesburg, Va. Ogden is focused on this region having purchased Frederick (Md.) News-Post and acquired the Winchester (Va.) Star earlier this year. American Hometown Publishing Inc. has purchased the Osceola News-Gazette in Kissimmee, Fla. from Lakeway Publishers, Inc. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. The News-Gazette publishes twice weekly and has a circulation of 40,000. Reade Brower has purchased two weekly papers in Maine, the Ellsworth American and the Mount Desert Islander, from Alan Baker. Brower currently owns six of Maine’s seven daily newspapers and many weeklies. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Both papers will continue to operate independently and will not become part of MaineToday Media, which publishes the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal, the Morning Sentinel and the Coastal Journal. Laub has reported extensively on violence in Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. She most recently served as bureau chief in Jordan. She has also served as Jerusalem news editor and chief correspondent for the Palestinian territories. Keven Zepezauer has been named president and publisher of the Wilson (N.C.) Times. Most recently, he served as the paper’s general manager. Since joining the Times in 2016, Zepezauer helped launch a coupon smartphone app, regional auto sales website and an online event ticketing service. He also led the Times’ purchase of the Spring Hope (N.C.) Enterprise. He also serves as executive director of the MidAtlantic Circulation Managers Association and on the boards of directors for the North Carolina Press Association and Eastern North Carolina Press Association.
transformation editor and creative director for the Los Angeles Times. In this newly created position, she will be in charge of the digital report, audience engagement, data desk, design, video and newsletters. Viesselman recently served as editor in chief of the Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call in Washington D.C. She started her career at the Sacramento Bee and previously held positions at the Times, Orange County Register and San Diego Union-Tribune.
Sarah Farnell has been named editor of the Santa Clarita (Calif.) Gazette. She replaces Martha Michael, who has stepped down, but she will continue to serve as editor of Canyon Country Magazine and Pet Me! Magazine. Farnell started at the Gazette as an intern in high school and was offered a position before starting college. She served in many roles with the paper and also served as a graphic designer for the Santa Clarita Valley Signal. Mireya “Mia” Navarro has been appointed executive director of the Community Reporting Alliance. Navarro started her career at the San Francisco Examiner, covering courts, government and Bay Area politics. For the last 27 years, she served as staff writer for the Metro news section at the New York Times. Michael Bauer, a restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, has retired. Bauer’s journalism career began in 1975 as a features writer at the Kansas City Star; he covered human behavior and mental health issues before becoming editor of the Star’s food section. He then served as restaurant critic and wine editor for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald. Additionally, he wrote a column on food and wine pairings. At the Chronicle, Bauer launched a stand-
Mark Katches has been named executive editor of the Tampa Bay Times. He succeeds Neil Brown, who is now president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Most recently, Katches served as vice president of content and editor of the Oregonian. He began his career as a reporter at the Peninsula Times Tribune in Palo Alto, Calif., and has also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register. Katches was named assistant managing editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2006 and became the paper’s deputy managing editor in 2008. He helped launch California Watch at the Center for Investigative Reporting and was later named editorial director at CIR.
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NewsPeople alone wine section and the blog, Inside Scoop. Ellysa Harris has been named editor of the Plainview (Texas) Herald. She succeeds Doug McDonough, who has retired. Harris started out by interning at the Herald while pursuing a degree in print journalism. She transferred to Texas Tech University and started work at the Lubbock (Texas) Avalanche-Journal, where she worked for more than six years. Brian Williams has been named editor of both the Paso Robles (Calif.) Press and Atascadero (Calif.) News. In addition to those papers, he will oversee their niche publications: Morro Bay Life, Vino Magazine and Equine Enthusiast. Williams held the editor position from 2013 to 2016. Most recently, he served as managing editor of the Porterville (Calif.) Recorder. Williams began his career as a sports writer for the Recorder and over the years has worked with community newspapers across the country in various different beats. Doris Truong has been named Poynter’s director of training and diversity. She recently served as the Washington Post’s homepage editor and is the former Asian American Journalists Association president. Truong has also served on the board of UNITY: Journalists for Diversity, including as the organization’s vice president. In her new role, she will focus on developing content that elevates journalism about under covered communities and examine cultural issues in society, in addition to recruiting more diverse participants and instructors for all Poynter programs. Kurt G. Franck has been named vice president of newspaper operations for Block editorandpublisher.com
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Elite Truong has been named deputy editor for strategic initiatives for the Washington Post. In this newly created role, she will experiment with technology-driven editorial projects working with the Post’s journalism, technology and advertising teams. Before joining the Post, Truong spent four years at Vox Media, where she served as the product manager for off-platform storytelling. She led the launch of nine editorial networks on new platforms including Apple News, AMP and AMP Stories, Facebook Instant Articles, liveblogs and newsletters.
Communications Inc. Franck is the president, general manager and executive editor of the Toledo (Ohio) Blade. In his new role, he will oversee operations for both the Blade and its sister newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Prior to joining the Blade in 2000, Franck served as deputy managing editor and executive news editor at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, where he spent 16 years in various editing and design positions. He also spent six years at United Press International. Fred Scheller has been named publisher of the Daily Item and Danville News, both located in Sunbury, Pa. He replaces Frank Leto, who was appointed publisher of the Joplin (Mo.) Globe. Scheller began his career at the Item in 1976 as a part-time employee and moved his way up to be the paper’s general manager. He is also publisher of the Daily Star in Oneonta, N.Y. and of the weekly Cooperstown (N.Y.) Crier and will retain those roles. Joe Tarica has been named executive editor of California’s San Luis Obispo Tribune and its website. He succeeds Sandra Duerr, who has retired. Tarica has been with the paper for 25 years. He started his career in the newsroom as an intern in 1991, and since then worked in a variety of roles: copy editor, page designer, assigning editor, reporter and photo editor, and most recently, senior editor. After 26 years, Catherine Stortz Ripley
has resigned as news editor of Chillicothe (Mo.) Constitution-Tribune to spend more time with her family. Prior to serving as the paper’s news editor, Ripley served as editor of the Marceline Press and then managing editor at the Waynesville (Mo.) Daily Guide. Sara Gregory has been named assistant editor of the Greenville (Tenn.) Sun. She has been with the paper for seven years, most recently as the Lifestyles and Accent editor. In her new role, she will continue editing the section, but her duties will expand to editing local news content and managing operations in the newsroom. Gregory started her career as a board operator and disc jockey for Radio Greenville Inc. and shortly began reporting and writing local news stories for Greenville stations. She joined the Sun in 2011 and has served as classified advisor, staff writer, education editor and lifestyles editor. Dave Boden has been named general manager of the Preston County News & Journal in Kingwood, W.Va. He replaces Carol Peters, who has left the paper. Boden will continue his duties as general manager of the Garrett County Republican along with his new responsibilities managing Preston newspapers’ operations, business development and marketing. Previously, he served as the advertising director of the Cumberland (Md.) Times-News and as publisher of the Mineral Daily News & Tribune in Keyser, W. Va. He has also served as group publisher for West Penn Media. SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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MAGAZINE FOR SALE: Well-established, upscale, regional, life-style magazine focused on the Active Adult, (55+). Located in premier area outside of Washington D.C. with impressive network of contributors. Printing 18 -19K, bimonthly (6xs per year). Eleven years in business, great potential for growth, expansion and regionalizing into other areas. Complimentary copies widely distributed as well as mailed to targeted upper income households. In home business with no overhead. Publisher/editor retiring but willing to participate for smooth transition. For more information contact Pub3000@aol.com or call 410-849-3000. FOR SALE BY KAMENGROUP.COM: Equine magazines(NY, PA, TX) SC Maps, Tourist Guides & Women’s Magazine, Sierra County, NM weekly newspaper, National medical, holistic and fishing/hunting/outdoors magazines, NC Regional title, Washington eatery publication, NYC weekly newspapers (3). San Francisco niche magazines (2) and Oklahoma, Chicago, Wisconsin and Iowa cultural titles. Oregon, Louisiana and Alabama daily newspapers. Need to sell? Order your print and digital media financial valuation now! Confidential, accurate and comprehensive reports for all purposes. Kamen & Co Group Services - Media Appraisers, Accountants, Contract Negotiators, Brokers & Advisors. 516-242-2857 / info@kamengroup.com
Help Wanted
Help Wanted
CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER: We are looking for an innovative and experienced sales leader that has extensive and proven success to lead The Day Publishing Company’s sales organization to the next level of performance. The successful candidate will have an entrepreneurial mindset and the energy and passion to develop, lead and execute The Day’s revenue generation strategy. The Chief Revenue Officer will work to drive best in class performance across sales teams, marketing, creative, audience development, and agency services. The CRO is a vital member of The Day executive team and will collaborate with the president and publisher to generate additional revenue streams via digital marketing solutions, special events, advertising and marketing agency services, magazines, digital subscriptions and new e-commerce opportunities. The Day Publishing Company, established in 1881, publishes The Day, a daily newspaper known for its quality, award-winning journalism. The newspaper, which covers a 20-town region in eastern Connecticut, has a daily circulation of 22,000, Sunday circulation of 25,000 and produces theday.com, visited by more than 400,000 people a month. The company also produces a variety of print and online feature and tourism magazines blanketing the Connecticut shoreline. An additional asset is D2 Media Solutions, an advertising and marketing agency that consults with and creates marketing strategies for small to midsized organizations. D2 specializes in media strategy, advertising securement, branding, website development, search engine optimization and video production. The for-profit Day Publishing Company is owned by a nonprofit, The Day Trust. The trust’s sole mission is to support the Bodenwein Public Benevolent Foundation, a philanthropic organization that distributes grant funds to area nonprofits and performing arts organizations. This ownership arrangement ensures that the company remains independent and locally-owned and that profits from the newspaper are distributed to charitable organizations in The Day’s market area. Qualified candidates should apply with a resume and cover letter to: p.richardson@theday.com. No phone calls please. For additional questions please email p.richardson@theday.com. The Day Publishing Company is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity. EDITOR: The Valley News, part of the Newspapers of New England group, is one of New England’s most distinguished small dailies, located in the heart of the beautiful Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. Our current editor is retiring in January 2019 and we are looking for an energetic, seasoned, hands-on editor to lead our 25+ person newsroom and build on a long tradition of journalistic excellence. The right candidate will have the ability and vision to help us navigate through the challenging world of print and online journalism. We are a 13,000, seven day publication with dedicated, discerning and demanding readers who know good journalism when they see it; the staff has the ability and the ambition to make it happen. If this sounds like the right situation for you, email a cover letter, resume, salary requirements and any samples you would like to submit to: dmcclory@vnews.com (Dan McClory), Publisher.
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8/17/18 1:33 PM
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Help Wanted
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Help Wanted
EDITOR: 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 seeking an experienced, digitally savvy editor to lead our newsroom and continue our long tradition of excellence. In this position, you will be responsible for all of our content in print, online, and in our special publications. You will supervise the newsroom and you will work closely with our production hub to ensure the highest quality products for our readers. Successful candidates will have strong journalism skills, particularly news judgment, copyediting and accuracy on deadline. You’ll have presentation skills, using words, graphics and multimedia to convey information and engage users. And you’ll have technical skills, particularly proficiency with WordPress and HTML. Idaho Business Review is a part of BridgeTower Media, provider of business and law news and information in markets across the country. We offer competitive pay, great benefits and a great team atmosphere. If you are interested in this position and meet the qualifications please send your resume along with cover letter to apply-a2n5qetb0ki9@applicantstack.com. BridgeTower Media and all subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and value diversity in our workplace.
MANAGING EDITOR IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST: The Yakima Herald-Republic has an immediate opening for managing editor, the top position in a 25-person newsroom. The managing editor has the primary role of fostering a digital-first environment and socialization of content, while improving a print product held in high regard by loyal subscribers and in need of attracting new readers. Local news coverage is our franchise, and explanatory and authoritative reporting is crucial to fulfilling our role as the leading information source in Central Washington. The managing editor reports to the publisher and works closely with an executive team to accomplish company goals of journalistic excellence, business innovation and community leadership. The 20,000-circulation Herald-Republic is located in a leading agricultural area with a diversified fruit industry, the nation’s largest producer of hops with a corresponding growth in craft breweries, and a growing wine industry that has gained attention worldwide. The Yakima Valley is also immersed in contentious issues involving immigration, politics and natural resources. The Valley’s population is increasingly Latino, and its history is rooted in the American Indian tribes that make up the Yakama Nation. The fabric of the people and their cultures provide rich territory for content. The Herald-Republic is owned by The Seattle Times, an Equal Opportunity Employer whose small family of newspapers is fiercely independent and values diversity in our workforce. Our low cost of living, true four-season weather and abundant sunshine make Yakima an ideal place to live and work. Applicants from the Western U.S. are preferred. Job requirements include a reporting background, line editing, track record in digital journalism and experience in managing a daily newspaper’s newsroom as the No. 1 or No. 2 editor. To apply, submit a résumé and letter explaining why you’re the person we should hire to Human Resources Director Maria Barajas, mbarajas@yakimaherald.com. Put MANAGING EDITOR in the subject line. Or, you may submit your application by snail mail to: Editorial Page Editor, c/o Maria Barajas, Yakima Herald-Republic, P.O. Box 9668, Yakima, WA 98909.
MANAGING EDITOR: NJBIZ, New Jersey’s leading business journal, has an opening for an experienced managing editor to help with the day-to-day editorial operations at the company’s Somerset, N.J., office. We’re looking for someone with at least three years of managerial experience at a highly productive newsroom and five years of reporting experience. The perfect candidate must have solid editing skills and know AP style inside and out. The right candidate will have had experience working in a digital-first environment in which breaking news throughout the day is as much a priority as developing solid B2B stories for a highly respected weekly print product. Preferred candidates will have had some business journal experience and knowledge of the New Jersey market. Attending industry events as a representative of NJBIZ is also a key requirement of the position. NJBIZ covers the breaking business news in the state, everything from economic development to health care, real estate to politics, professional services to manufacturing, and everything else that makes the economy work. Good, solid journalism that has impact and influence. Please provide a resume, cover letter and at least three professional references. To apply, email: apply-a2n5qetpjcdb@applicantstack.com
Help Wanted
Help Wanted PRESS OPERATORS: The Berkshire Eagle, a locally owned newspaper group in Western Massachusetts is seeking experienced press operators. Our current equipment includes a 13-unit Goss Urbanite and 12-unit Goss Community. We require pre-employment drug screen. EOE.
To apply, please visit www.berkshireeagle.com, email aswanton@berkshireeagle.com or call 413-496-6140 for more information. PRODUCTION MANAGER: Bristol Herald Courier is looking for a Production Manager to lead a fast-paced production environment in Bristol, Tennessee. Position is accountable for the all production operations. This include Imaging, Pressroom, Packaging, and Building Maintenance. Responsible for maintaining a safe working environment, training, maintenance, and control of an annual budget. • Oversee and plan daily production operations. This includes direct involvement with Advertising, News, and Circulation to ensure all deadlines and page requirements are met. • Troubleshoot major and minor technical issues. These range from electronic pagination problems to press and packaging equipment. Tasks to be assessed and corrected on a timely basis at any time day or night. • Plan and maintain budget for all production departments. Responsible for the annual budgeting of the operation along with purchases of material, equipment, and employee payroll. • Train, schedule, and motivate staff. Time spent with the employees finding what is needed for them to reach both their goals and the goals of the company. • Quality improvement and system planning. Plan and coordinate new ways of building a stronger operation and higher quality product. • Oversee building maintenance. Facilitate all major and minor projects involved with the normal and abnormal building issues. Repairs, safety, construction environment. • Prepare weekly employee scheduling utilize personnel in the most efficient manner to accomplish the work needed on a daily basis. DIRECT REPORTS: • Pressroom Supervisor • Packaging/Mailroom Manager • Building Maintenance employees • Shipping and Receiving employees To apply online go to: bhmginc.com/careers or contact James E. Maxwell, Publisher at 276-645-2552 or jmaxwell@bristolnews.com PUBLISHER NEEDED: We are looking for a community minded leader with the ability to drive profitable revenue for The Sea Coast Echo, a twice-weekly paid community newspaper on the beautiful gulf coast of Mississippi in Bay St. Louis. This individual must be an innovator who is ready to take this multi-media operation to the next level, realizing the opportunity we have through print, digital, and a commercial print operation. The new publisher would report directly to the owners of the company, a family-owned community media group with 18 companies in seven states. This family has owned community newspapers since the 1960s, and is firmly focused on the future. Operations are in the states of Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas, Missouri, Iowa and Arkansas. Bay St. Louis is the perfect mix of southern charm and gulf coast living. The city was named one of America’s 25 favorite beach towns in July of 2018 by Fodor’s. In addition to boating, fishing, and casinos, there is also a vibrant art community. There is ample opportunity for growth in this market situated only 58 miles east of New Orleans. In addition to the newspaper, we also publish a variety of magazines and special sections. There is great opportunity with new digital platforms and a strong website and social media following. The new publisher will earn a competitive salary along with a bonus tied directly to operating profit. Other benefits such as free family health insurance, vehicle allowance, vacation, life insurance, etc. are all in the employment package. The owners wish to fill this important position quickly. Please apply online to John Lancaster, Vice President, Lancaster Management, Inc., at john@lminews.com. Be sure to include your resume, references, salary requirements and your goals for the future.
BridgeTower Media and all subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and value diversity in our workplace.
Call & ask about our 3, 6 and 12 insertion advertising packages, 1-800-887-1615.
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“I’m extremely pleased with the fantastic results we receive from advertising in E&P.” - Kevin B. Kamen, Kamen & Co. Group Services SEPTEMBER 2018 | E & P
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LEADERS RESPECT
PRESS
DICTATORS DESPISE
PRESS
DEMOCRACY DEPENDS ON
PRESS
PRESS
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 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; touting the importance of ethical journalism and its value to democracy.
shoptalk /commentary The Perils of Carpetbaggers Managing Local Newspapers By Eric Starkman
W
hen the Toronto Star announced in June that Irene Gentle had been named editor, it duly noted that she was the first woman to oversee the 126-yearold newspaper. Even more noteworthy is Gentle’s experience: She’s been with the newspaper for seven years and her entire career is steeped in community journalism in neighboring cities. The Star has long commanded the most readers in the greater Toronto area, a highly competitive market with four credible dailies. Its success is attributable to deeply embedded principles requiring community “engagement” drafted by former publisher Joseph Atkinson well before the advent of social media. The Atkinson and Honderich families, who have driven the Star’s social mindedness, are actively involved with the Star’s corporate parent; John Honderich, the newspaper’s former editor and publisher, is chair. Most U.S. local newspapers have been in a decline for nearly two decades, a trend New York Times editor Dean Baquet has declared is the “biggest crisis” in journalism. The culprits typically blamed are the internet and social media, which have provided alternative sources of news and entertainment. But also contributing mightily to the decline are consolidation, bad management and lack of innovation. Most local newspapers today are managed by individuals with no meaningful ties or understanding of the communities they serve. The Los Angeles Times is a case study of the perils of carpetbaggers managing local newspapers. The Tribune Co. in 2000 installed John Carroll, a former editor of The Baltimore Sun, and Baquet, then the New York Times’ national editor, to oversee the newspaper. Carroll and Baquet immediately eliminated the Times’ once extensive “cops and courts” coverage in favor of Pulitzer Prize winning investigative stories and
staffed the newspaper with editors from the East Coast. “We still haven’t mastered making the paper feel like it is edited in Los Angeles,” Baquet admitted five years into his tenure. Angelenos noticed: The Times lost 10 percent of its readers. The Minneapolis Star Tribune exemplifies the benefits of a newspaper management with strong local ties. In 2010, a private equity firm rescued the Star Tribune from bankruptcy and installed Michael Klingensmith, a former Time Inc. executive with an MBA from the University of Chicago, as publisher. Under Klingensmith’s leadership, the Star Tribune’s circulation declines have been far below the industry average and circulation revenues have increased every year. Based on Sunday circulation, the Star Tribune is the fifth largest newspaper in the country, an impressive feat given that Minneapolis is the 16th largest metropolitan area. Klingensmith is a Minneapolis native, and his management team and top editors are Minnesota lifers or have lived in the state for more than a decade. Being from Minneapolis has been critical to Klingensmith’s success. “I never would have tried to do the same thing in Kansas City,” Klingensmith told the New York Times. Much coverage has been given to the Denver Post’s daring newsroom protests of its private equity owner’s draconian budget cuts. The background of the Post’s top editor is telling: Lee Ann Colacioppo is a Denver native and has worked at the paper for nearly 20 years. Former editorial page editor Chuck Plunkett, who published an editorial urging the sale of the newspaper, joined the Post in 2003. In New Jersey, where Gannett has implemented a bloodbath of layoffs, not a peep of protest has been publicly sounded by the company’s masthead editors. Richard Green, who has overseen Gannett’s Garden State editorial operations since 2016, is from
Ohio. The only material innovation from a newspaper company in the past half century was the creation of USA Today by former Gannett CEO Al Neuharth, which radically altered how news stories were written and presented. Bloomberg, Business Insider, and Politico, among the few publishing success stories, were started by Wall Street entrepreneurs or journalists who understood the internet’s potential before their company’s managements. Many newspaper executives once thought getting into bed with Facebook was prudent, but New York Times CEO Mark Thompson has accused the social media company of supporting “the enemies of high quality journalism.” A curious comment given that a Facebook executive (Rebecca Van Dyck) sits on his company’s board. Pressures on local newspapers are mounting. Nextdoor, a collection of shlocky hyperlocal websites that was last valued at $1.5 billion, began accepting advertising last year; the CEO predicts the company will achieve $1 billion in revenues by 2020. Local television stations increasingly pose a threat: Detroit’s WDIV has branded its site “Click on Detroit” and is earning meaningful digital revenues from local advertisers. The station has launched a hyperlocal Ann Arbor site and assigned an experienced reporter and two associates to oversee the city’s coverage. More hyperlocal sites are planned. Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press, the second biggest local Gannett newspaper, moved its copy editing and design functions to Kentucky. Eric Starkman managed Starkman & Associates, a New York-based crisis and public relations firm, for 25 years. Earlier, he was a business reporter with major newspapers in the U.S. and Canada, including the Detroit News and the Toronto Star.
Printed in the USA. Vol. 151, No 9, 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 2018, Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Subscription Price: U.S. and its possessions, $99.00 per year, additional postage for Canada & foreign countries $20.00 per year. Single copy price $8.95 in the U.S. only; Back issues, $12.95 (in the U.S. only) includes postage and handling. Canada Post: Publication Mail Agreement No. 40612608. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 682. Subscriber Services (888) 732-7323; Customer Service Email: circulation@editorandpublisher.com.
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