editor colorado
COOMBS: ONE OF A KIND PRINTER PAGE 3
Official publication of the Colorado Press Association / coloradopressassociation.com / Vol. LXXXVI, No. 10
campus cool
October 2015
‘A step in the right direction’ CPA bylaws amended to allow for more membership types Staff Report For the Editor
photo by Greg Luft
Joanna Bean, left, of the Colorado Springs Gazette, and Matt Lubich, of the Johnstown Breeze talk about the newspaper industry with a group of students during a Colorado Press Association Visit to Colorado State University on Oct. 6. The CPA conducts Campus Visits to five to seven colleges annually, bringing in industry professionals to meet with students about the future of the industry, and to meet with faculty to discuss the programs and preparing students for future jobs in journalism.
Continuing education
SYNC2 U-niversity webinar series debuts By JOSHUA ROBERTS For the Editor When Doug Hay, SYNC2 Media vice president for marketing, began designing a series of webinars for advertising sales reps across the state, he started with the
most logical topic he could think of — the industry's relevance. He concedes the first webinar in the series, hosted earlier this month, could have doubled as a "pep rally for newspapers."
See SYNC2-U Page 8
Finally. That’s what Jerry Healey, of Colorado Community Media, said after the Oct. 23 special meeting of the general membership to amend the Colorado Press Association bylaws, allowing for a wider range of news organizations to attain full membership in the Association “This is the third time I have attended a CPA meeting where we voted on allowing free publications into membership,” Healey said. “It is finally done and was almost unanimous. The key for me is that only news-gathering publications are allowed to join. We can all learn a great deal from each other.” And he only attended three such meetings. For more than three decades, there have been attempts to change the CPA bylaws to allow more members full status — most attempts centering on allowing freedistribution papers full membership — but previous attempts were not approved. With 44 of the 95 CPA members eligible to amend the bylaws represented at the membership
See BYLAWS, Page 5
NEWS YOU CAN USE
CPA into Social promotion
2015 contest packets are out
The 2015 Contest Rules and As part of its advocacy goal, the Guidelines packets are now Colorado Press Association has available on the CPA webstarted creating memes to prosite. mote the newspaper industry. The CPA is planning to produce Other details about the at least one meme — if not more contest: — every two weeks on CPA so• There is an early-bird cial media sites, and will also will One wakes you up make them available for memCoffee & One opens your eyes registration with discounted rates (details in packet). ber’s use. The memes also allow Newspapers #newspapersthrive • Entry period to start subfor member papers to post their mitting is Nov. 9, and closes logos as well. Go to http://www. Dec. 15. coloradopressassociation.com/ • The contest period is from services/advocacy to download Sept. 1, 2014 through Oct. 31, 2015. memes, or check out the CPA’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
House ads, guide created to promote public notices The Colorado Press Association has created a 28-page “Public Notices: Best Practices and Resource Guide,” as well as several white-label house ads, for members to use to promote public notices. To get access to the house ads and public notice guide, go to http://www. coloradopressassociation. com/services/public-notices or contact Jerry Raehal at 720.274.7171 or jraehal@colopress.net.
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colorado editor
October 2015
Colorado Newspapers
colorado editor ISSN #162-0010 USPS # 0122-940 Vol. LXXXVI, Issue 10 October 2015
Colorado Editor is the official publication of the Colorado Press Association and is published monthly at 1120 Lincoln St., Suite 912 Denver, CO 80203 p: 303-571-5117 f: 303-571-1803 coloradopressassociation.com
Subscription rate: $10 per year, $1 single copy Staff Jerry Raehal Chief Executive Officer jraehal@colopress.net Board of Directors OFFICERS Chair Terri House The Pagosa Springs SUN terri@pagosasun.com President Keith Cerny Alamosa Valley Courier krcemail56@gmail.com Vice President Bart Smith The Tribune bsmith@greeleytribune.com Treasurer Matt Lubich The Johnstown Breeze mlubich@johnstownbreeze.com Secretary Larry Ryckman The Denver Post lryckman@denverpost.com DIRECTORS Mike Wiggins Grand Junction Daily Sentinel mike.wiggins@gjsentinel.com Beecher Threatt Ouray County Plaindealer beecher@ouraynews.com Lisa Schlichtman Steamboat Pilot & Today lschlichtman@steamboattoday.com Jason Woodside Bob Hudson The Pueblo Chieftain bhudson@chieftain.com Matt Sandberg The Summit Daily News msandberg@cmnm.com Periodical postage paid at Denver, CO 80202. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Colorado Editor 1120 Lincoln St., Suite 912 Denver, CO 80203
In the News Reporter-Herald updates commenting system
The Reporter-Herald in Loveland has moved to a new online story commenting system called Disqus. Users can now have one account to comment on the newspaper’s mobile applications, media centers and desktop websites. Pronounced “discuss,” the new system is on hundreds of other websites, including those of The Denver Post, The Longmont Times-Call and the Estes Park Trail-Gazette. Disqus handles more than 1 billion unique visitors and 20 million comments per month. Changes with the new system include: faster page loading, as well as reading and posting comments; threaded comments “instead of massive trees of quoted and re-quoted material”; logging in capability with Facebook, Twitter, Google or just an email address and password; multiple anti-spam services in place, as well as Disqus’ own service; and unified commenting across all Prairie Mountain Media products and sites.
Denver Post earns national digital honor
The Denver Post has won a national digital journalism award for “A Year of Legal Marijuana,” its coverage of the legalization of marijuana in 2014. The Online News Association awarded The Post the top prize for Topical Reporting for large news organizations on Sept. 26 at its 15th annual conference in Los Angeles. The other finalists for the award were NPR (“Ebola Outbreak”), National Geographic (“The Future of Food”) and the Los Angeles Times (“Vaccinations in L.A. County”). The Online News Association is a “nonprofit membership organization for digital journalists, connecting journalism, technology and innovation.”
National College Media Convention Oct. 28-Nov. 1
The ACP (Associated Collegiate Press)/ CMA (College Media Association) National College Media Convention will take place Oct. 28-Nov. 1 at the Hilton Austin in Austin, Texas. The event is the largest gathering of college journalists and advisers in the world. The event will include pre-convention workshops, media tours, speakers, recruiter and business booths in the exhibit hall, the ACP Pacemaker Awards, and the CMA Pinnacle Awards Ceremony. Anyone interested or involved in collegiate media is invited to attend, including editors, reporters, designers, photographers, advertising and business managers, sales staffs, webmasters, bloggers, multimedia producers, social media managers, columnists, broadcast journalists, faculty and all journalism/media students. Attendees are not required to be members of either ACP or CMA.
What’s new in Colorado news? The Colorado Editor wants to hear from you. We’re on the lookout for news about your staff, publications and businesses for our all-new columns and features in the Colorado Editor – your monthly membership newspaper from Colorado Press Association. Send us your “breaking news” on: • New Hires • Promotions • People Moving On • Anniversaries • Retirements • Contest or Staff Awards & Honors
• New Building or Equipment Projects or Updates • Meetings, Seminars and Training • Community Projects • College-Related News and Events • Industry news that affects you • And any other personal news your staff members might want to share
Send your news items of 150 words or fewer (photo also welcome) to Cheryl Ghrist – cghrist@colopress.net – using subject line “Colorado Editor News.”
NNA to host spring leadership summit
The National Newspaper Association (NNA) will host its “We Believe in Newspapers Leadership Summit,” March 18-19, 2016, at the Marriott Crystal City, Arlington, Va. NNA members will travel to Capitol Hill to present issues “important to the community newspapers to congressional leaders.”
Digital First Media makes changes under AdTaxi banner
Digital First Media (DFM) announced that the company is restructuring digital sales and operations under the AdTaxi banner. AdTaxi, the digital services arm of DFM, began operations in 2012. Headquarters for AdTaxi is to remain in Denver, but expansion is planned, with new regional offices in the San Francisco Bay area, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Michigan and other locations. With the changes, DFM hopes to better serve advertisers and increase the impact of those advertising dollars.
New digital-media planning platform targets ad revenue
The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) recently reported on a new digitalmedia planning platform that can “help news publishers bring in advertising revenue.” The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute in Columbia, Mo., and LION Digital Media, headquartered in Seattle, recently launched LIONshare. The platform lets publishers “put their products and services in front of advertisers and media planners easily and quickly.” The platform, which NAA reports can be accessed by all digital marketers and publishers that are granted a free license, began as an internal tool for LION Digital Media before being transformed into an open-source platform. Its three main features are local market research (market snapshots), local site research (publisher profiles) and a local media planner (planning wizard).
Chavern new NAA president, CEO
David Chavern has been appointed the new president and CEO of The Newspaper Association of America, effective Oct. 14. He replaced Caroline H. Little, who served four years before announcing her retirement DAVID earlier this year. A CHAVERN well-known public policy and advocacy leader, Chavern last year became president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Advanced Technology & Innovation. Prior to that, he was the chamber’s executive vice president and COO. He is a 1987 graduate of the Villanova University School of Law, and earned his MBA from Georgetown University. He received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
Mobile a second chance for papers?
Business and marketing expert George N. Root III is touting mobile content as a second chance for newspapers to bring in needed revenue. When the industry first turned to Internet marketing in the 1990s, said Root, publishers were at a loss on how to make it work most effectively. At first, they gave content away, then tried pay walls. But, said Root: “Now that the transition to mobile content is in full swing, publishers get another shot at monetizing their content and they want to do it right this time.” He recently noted that there are upwards of 7.2 billion mobile devices in use around the world. “It is safe to say that there is plenty of traffic for publishers to use to generate traffic,” he added. While mobile content is not as easy to monetize as standard website content, he noted that publishers have learned that they need to create unique content and services for their mobile websites to attract the “right audience,” as well as investing in native advertising if they want to see revenue increase.
colorado editor
October 2015
Q&A
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15 questions with Dean Coombs
‘I would just say that I’m the printer’
By Jerry Raehal & Cheryl Ghrist Colorado Press It’s a summer morning, and Dean Coombs is where he usually is: The Saguache Crescent newspaper office. And by office, we mean a warehouse full of press and parts, which is a mixture of chaos of and order. Just then, two women walk into the building, and ask for Coombs to give them a tour. “I haven’t seen one of these in forever,” one exclaims looking at the press. “Not unless you’ve seen it in a museum,” says the other. These types of visits are not uncommon for Coombs’ small-town paper. And those visits include members of the media, including national TV stations. They come to see history in motion. You see, Coombs is the publisher of the weekly Saguache Crescent, and he has been putting out a “hot-metal type” newspaper in this county seat on the north end of the San Luis Valley in southwestern Colorado for decades. And he is likely the only person in the world putting out a newspaper that way.
Q A
Tell me a bit about the history of the Crescent and the history of you coming into the newspaper:
The paper started out (as) the second paper in Saguache. It already had the Chronicle, which was started in 1874; the Crescent started out as the Advance in about 1882. In about four years it changed its name to the Democrat, and in about another four years it changed its name to the Crescent. My family bought the newspaper in 1917, so we’ve been running it for most of those years. I think those dates are fairly good. We just changed the number of years, because we had a year where they didn’t know their Roman numerals and got off by two years. And of course I changed it immediately, and made another mistake.
Q A
How did you get involved?
It was my mother’s family. When she married my father, he came in. Then I was born, and I have a brother who is 12 years older than me; there’s just the two of us. I started work when I was 12 doing various things, printing mostly. And then my father died suddenly of a heart attack the day after Christmas 1978, so basically from 1979 on I’ve been the publisher. I worked with my mother until she passed away in 2002, but she wasn’t able to work the last couple of years. I just put out my 1902nd newspaper.
Q
Did you always know you were going to do this? Did you have other prospects growing up?
Dean Coombs poses for a photo this summer in his shop. Coombs is still crafting the weekly Saguache Crescent on the last Linotype machine in existence.
A
No. I was typical of some families in that they didn’t feel they needed to pay me, so there wasn’t any real connection. I mean, you have a job to make money, it’s what you do. But when my father passed away, I was here, helping them and of course I had to put the newspaper out, and then just continued on. I’ve never taken any journalism classes.
Q A Q A Q
You had no journalism background coming into it? No, in fact, my focus is printing, it isn’t journalism, at all. I don’t even edit things, other than grammar, and slightly. If it’s really goofed up, then I change it around. So for news coverage, where is the content from, the community? Yes, the community already knows that they need to bring it by. Your press in this area is kind of famous. Can you tell me some of the shows it’s been on and any particu-
lar memory from those that stands out?
A
We were on CBS Evening News in December 1987 and that came about because our football team was playing in the state championship. So CBS Denver came down and were asking questions like, “What does this mean to the community?” They got interested and came back and did their own segment for local, for Denver, but CBS National picked it up and had to do theirs first. We had them in here for three weeks in a row. A crew with Charles Kuralt came in, right before he passed away, and it was also in his book, “Charles Kuralt’s American Moments.” And in February 2014, CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood aired a program they did the first week of October. (http://www. cbsnews.com/news/a-colorado-newspaperthats-also-a-time-machine/) And there’s been all of the local TV, probably all of the Denver stations, a couple of times some of them, and Colorado Springs and Pueblo, and then a lot of print.
Q
This may be obvious, but why do you think there’s such a fascination with your press?
A
Well, this is the last hot-metal newspaper in the world. Unless there’s one hiding. Possibly Russia could have one, but I’m sure they’ve never bought any equipment from the United States. I don’t know if they had a typesetting machine, I suppose they did. But it’s so easy to do newspapers with computers that, even for me sometimes, if I knew how to run a computer very, very well, I might be off this too. It’s a lot of maintenance.
Q A
How big is your average paper and how long does it take to put out?
The paper is almost always a fourpage modified broadsheet, and I work every day. It takes about an hour to set a galley of type unless you have some kind of mechanical problem. And I’m setting anywhere from a minimum of six, and if I’m up to 12 that’s quite a bit of setting. And out of that 12, I would want to make some money. I don’t want to just be setting somebody’s life story. Mechanical typesetting is fairly tedious and requires a lot of extraneous maintenance.
See 15 QUESTIONS, Page 7
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colorado editor
October 2015
No need for Superman when you have real superheroes I’m a 40-year-old man, and I’m not ashamed to say, I like superheroes. I loved them in comic books as a kid. And in recent years, I’ve enjoyed watching them in movies. And the industry’s best known heroes — Superman and Spiderman —have had alter egos as journalists. Truth be told, I was never a fan of Superman. He had all those powers, and he seemed to lack … something. I just never thought he had to struggle, which makes life and a comic book storyline so interesting. So when I recently found out that SuperJerry man’s alter ego, Clark Kent, quit his job at Raehal the newspaper, the Daily Planet, I wasn’t CPA, SYNC2 Media surprised. (To be clear, CEO I recently found out, but apparently, he quit three years ago.) But I did wonder, why did he leave? The answer: “Rather than Clark be this clownish suit that Superman puts on, we’re going to really see Clark come into his own in the next few years as far as being a guy who takes to the Internet and to the airwaves and starts speaking an unvarnished truth,” Superman writer Scott Lobdell said in a 2012 USA Today article. Taking to the Internet and speaking what he believes is to be the “unvarnished truth?” Sounds like a million other people with a Facebook account, who are looking more for their own truth instead of reporting. I have no idea where the Superman storyline has led, or if he came back to the Daily Planet. I hope he didn’t come back to work for a newspaper. Superman may have almost unlimited power, but he lacks the power the best reporters have — the ability to set aside their own beliefs and find stories that matter and/or change their communities. And this October, we celebrated National Newspaper Week with the tagline, “Power of the Press.” I think it’s important to not forget where a lot of that power comes from — our journalists. They’re the reason why other media outlets constantly show our front pages, quote our stories, and aggregate our content. In short, newspapers have the best reporters, which makes for the best reporting. The content our editors and reporters produce is the vehicle that drives the advertising and circulation machines. Without good content, you have a car without an engine. And like many great superheroes, our journalists today are adapting, and doing everything the so-called “new media” is doing and more, but doing it with integrity, and not trying to push their own “unvarnished truth.” So Superman can take his powers elsewhere. It doesn’t matter to me. Because in either the fictional or real world, I love superheroes. And I happen to be in an industry full of them.
Metro Image
Use the right ad tool You may have heard the story about the man who asked the clerk at the hardware store for a wrench. “What kind of wrench?” the clerk asked. “Just show me what you’ve got,” the man replied. Not quite knowing what to do, the clerk pulled a socket wrench from the shelf. “I think I’ll try it,” the man said. About an hour later, the man came back to the store and said, “This wrench didn’t work. Do you have a different kind?” The clerk put a crescent wrench on the counter, and the man said he would try that one. After another hour passed, the man returned to the store and said, “This one didn’t work, either. Do you have a bigger one?” The clerk went to the last shelf and found the biggest pipe wrench in inventory. “How about this one?” he asked. The man broke into a big smile. “I know that one will work. I’m just going to use it as a hammer.” Ridiculous, isn’t it? But how many times have we seen advertisers do something similar? They insist on using the wrong tool and then get frustrated when it doesn’t meet their expectations – even when their expectations are way off base. Generally speaking, there are two types of advertising – image and response. Image advertising – or institutional advertising,
as some people know it – is designed to give consumers a positive feeling about the advertiser. The car dealer that runs ads claiming to be “the friendly dealership” is presenting itself as a nice place to do busiJohn ness. There’s no Foust specific call for action. The appeal is indirect: “If you like us enough, maybe you’ll decide to buy a car from us.” While image advertising can pay big dividends, it’s a longer cycle. Powerful brands like Apple, FedEx and Coca-Cola didn’t win their market share overnight. Their overall growth has been gradual – not necessarily snail-paced, but step-by-step in an upward direction. On the other hand, response advertising is designed to create urgency. “Buy now,” an ad might say, “because we’re having a sale”...
or “because this offer expires on Saturday.” There is a faster payoff and results are easier to measure. When an advertiser has a sale, you’ll find out immediately if it’s a success. Either it works or it doesn’t. Repetition often forms a strong bond between image and response advertising. A business that runs a strong image campaign – one that resonates with its target audience – will eventually make sales. And an advertiser who runs a lot of response ads – ads that get results – will establish a strong image in consumers’ minds. Some of the best campaigns deliberately combine image and response. They project a carefully crafted image and ask for specific action – all at the same time. (“We’re the friendly car dealer. That’s why we’re offering you these weekend specials.”) If you take this approach, make sure it’s a consistent strategy, not a one-and-done experiment. It’s all about using the right tool. (c) Copyright 2015 by John Foust. All rights reserved. John Foust has conducted training programs for thousands of newspaper advertising professionals. Many ad departments are using his training videos to save time and get quick results from in-house training. E-mail for information: john@johnfoust.com
Singleton Legacy Grant awarded to Judi’s House The Denver Post Community Foundation this month presented its Second Annual Dean Singleton Legacy Grant for $50,000 to Judi’s House. The grant will provide 38 children with the Pathfinders program for a year. The program is a research-based, 10-week curriculum developed at Judi’s House to meet the needs of bereaved children and families. Judi’s House is the only free-standing organization in the metro Denver area devoted solely to supporting grieving children and families. Since 2002, Judi’s House has supported
more than 7,400 children and caregivers. “Judi’s House is honored to receive this year’s Dean Singleton Legacy Grant,” said Judi’s House founders Brook and Brian Griese. “We are grateful for our longstanding partnership with The Denver Post Community Foundation and the many ways it has supported our critical services for grieving children and families. We consider Dean not only one of our biggest advocates in the community, but also a dear friend.” Said Singleton: “I couldn’t be happier with the selection of Judi’s House as the
2015 Legacy Grant recipient. Brook and Brian’s dedication to the children in our community is next to none. They have built such a valuable resource here in Denver and we are grateful that this money will help many children learn to cope with tremendous loss in their lives.” Singleton retired as chairman of MediaNews Group Inc., owner of The Denver Post, in 2013. He currently serves as non-executive chairman of The Post and sits on the board of directors for the Denver Post Community Foundation.
colorado editor
October 2015
BYLAWS Continued from page 1 meeting — either in person or by proxy at the Denver Athletic Club — the motion to amend the bylaws for a more open membership passed 43-1, with the lone nay vote citing concerns about online news websites as members. Legal publications — meaning they meet the standards to produce legals according to Post Office regulations and legislative requirements — were the only newspapers allowed to be full CPA members, and were the only papers allowed to vote at the meeting. That will be different in the future, since the amended bylaws allow for a variety of different organizations to be full members, or as the amended bylaws calls them, Voting Members. Silos for full membership include: • Legal-Designated Newspaper • Free Distribution & Paid, NonLegal Designated Newspaper • Online News Website • Monthly/Alternative Publication “The approval of these changes is a step in the right direction for the future of our organization,” said Greeley Tribune General Manager Bryce Jacobson, who chaired the membership committee. “The membership committee worked diligently to propose these measures, and I am glad to see that the membership agreed with their work.”
No more Associate Level The amended bylaws also changed what used to be the Associate Level to Non-Voting Members. Most of the previous categories listed in the Associate Level were moved to Non-Voting Membership status with one notable exception: Associate Newspapers.
Newspapers that had been part of the Associate Level are moved to full, or Voting Member, status, and there is no option for newspapers to join as a non-voting member. “People are either members or they are not,” Vincent Laboy, a membership committee member and Montrose Daily Press publisher, said in a previous interview. “There were so many discussions about what benefits each tier gets and what they shouldn’t. In the end most everyone on our committee was in agreement that membership has to have commitment.” Non-voting members receive the social privileges of the Association, but shall not be entitled to vote or serve on the Board of Directors. Other changes made in the switch from Associate to NonVoting membership titles include renaming the Associate Business Membership to Allied Associate. Non-voting members in the Association shall be one of five classes: • Individual • Student Newspaper • Retired Executive • Honorary • Allied Associate
Up next: Dues
With the membership criteria amended at the Oct. 23 general membership meeting, the Colorado Press Association membership committee now has another long-term issue to address: coming up with a new members’ dues structure. The committee will begin meeting in January 2016, led by Montrose Daily Press Publisher Vincent Laboy, who was named the new committee chair after Greeley Tribune General Manger Bryce Jacobson stepped down. If interested in joining the membership committee, contact CPA CEO Jerry Raehal at jraehal@colopress.net or at 720-274-7171. The committee is scheduled to meet once a month until a dues structure is agreed upon by both the committee and the CPA Board of Directors. Most meetings can be attended by webinar.
Other bylaw changes Two other sections of the bylaws were amended during the Oct. 23 meeting. The vision and mission in the charter had a couple of tweaks and was amended to be more up-to-date to today’s industry. It now reads, “The vision of the Colorado Press Association is to be the leader that unites the Colorado news media in the relentless pursuit of journalism excellence, innovation and a sustainable news experience. “Our mission is to be a champion for our members’ success through education, advocacy and revenue enhancement.” The other amendment officially changed the timeframe of the annual meeting from February to May, which was needed with the new timeframe of the annual convention. Both those amended bylaws were approved 44-0. CPA bylaws can only be amended by a two-thirds vote of members present at either a special meeting, which needs a 30day notice, or at the annual meeting. Between voting and non-voting members, the CPA represents more than 300 organizations and individuals, but it has been a number that has been decreasing. With the changes, the hope is it will allow the CPA to once again grow with new members, and provide increased benefits to its current members. “The Colorado Press Association plays an important role in the future of our industry,” said Jacobson. “And while the hard work isn’t complete, I believe these changes are the first steps toward ensuring the sustainability of the services they provide.”
www.coloradopressassociation.com
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colorado editor
obituaries Donald Seawell
Former Denver Post publisher Former Denver Post publisher Donald Seawell died Sept. 30, 2015, in Denver at the age of 103. His time at The Post from 1966-1981 included the role of publisher, but during his lifetime he did many successful jobs, including that DONALD of a theater impresario SEAWELL in New York City. That led to his founding of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, for which many Coloradans probably know him best. A North Carolina native, he was born Aug. 1, 1912, in Jonesboro, then raised in Raleigh. His father, Aaron A.F. Seawell, was a state attorney general and later a state Supreme Court justice. Seawell attended the University of North Carolina, where he met his wife, Eugenia Rawls – a poet, playwright and actress who died in 2000 after the couple had been married 59 years. Out of college, Seawell traveled to Oxford, England, where he used his skills as a national forensics champion to debate Winston Churchill prior to the latter’s becoming prime minister. After earning a law degree, Seawell joined the relatively new Securities and Exchange Commission in 1941, hired by Joseph Kennedy. Once the United States joined World War II, he was assigned to the Allied High Command, serving as liaison between Great Britain’s MI5 and MI6 intelligence service
October 2015 and the Office of Strategic Services, which was headed by William Donovan and a precursor to the CIA. He also worked with the French Resistance. After the war, Seawell lived and worked in New York with a law practice that brought him many theatrical clients. He became interested enough in theater to eventually produce 65 plays on Broadway and in London. He also represented Helen Bonfils, who was prominent in the theater industry and also an heiress to The Denver Post though her father, Frederick Bonfils, co-founder of the newspaper. Seawell moved to Denver in 1966 when Bonfils asked for his help to get through an ongoing hostile takeover attempt of The Post by the Newhouse chain, which owned 15 percent of the stock. The battle raged on for 12 years, from 1960-1972, just after Bonfils’ death. During that time, she appointed Seawell as the newspaper’s president and CEO. He soon became chairman and publisher of The Post. Her will and ownership of The Post became the center of litigation that ended with Seawell in control of the newspaper. By 1981, The Post revenues were down amid a faltering economy. Seawell sold the newspaper to Times-Mirror of California for $95 million, with proceeds going to the Bonfils Foundation, securing the future of DCPA. Times-Mirror, the first out-of-state owner of The Post, changed from afternoon to morning delivery and eventually lost 200,000 circulation. While he was publisher of The Post, Seawell founded what was first called the Denver Center for the Performing Arts or DCPA (the site itself is now called the Denver Performing Arts Complex) in the 1970s, in part to relieve what he considered urban decay in the area of 14th and Curtis streets in 1974. He targeted four city blocks for a performing arts complex, and soon got approval from then-Mayor Bill McNichols and the Bonfils
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Foundation board, whose primary asset was control of The Denver Post. The DCPA opened in 1978 with Boettcher Concert Hall, followed in later years by a renovated Auditorium Theatre and six new theaters. In 2006, Seawell resigned as chairman and CEO of DCPA, replaced by University of Denver Chancellor Daniel L. Ritchie. Seawell remained active with DCPA in an emeritus position until just a few months prior to his death. He is quoted as saying, “The day I retire is the day they take me out of here in a box.” Seawell lived in the LoDo area of downtown Denver in recent years. Among his many friends was William Dean Singleton, who eventually bought The Post, and who was quoted in a recent Post article as saying: “Don was one of the handful of great people who built Denver. He came here from New York and saved The Denver Post from family friction and vultures trying to take it over. And he used The Post’s resources and those of Helen Bonfils and created a performing arts facility no one believed could happen.” The article also quoted Seawell himself: “Three years ago, Seawell was asked how he would like to be remembered. ‘Oh, I don’t care if I am or not,’ he said. ‘I’d like to be remembered for what I’ve done.’”
Bill Jackson
Former Greeley Tribune agriculture editor Bill Jackson – who worked for The Tribune in Greeley for 33 years and was well-known as that newspaper’s agriculture editor – died Sep. 27, 2015, at age 71. Jackson and his wife Cheryl had traveled to Montrose for a weekend 4-H golf event and were returning home to Greeley when he suffered a massive coronary that resulted in a car accident a few miles east of Montrose on U.S. Hwy. 50. The Montrose County coroner told family mem-
bers that Jackson likely died before his car ran off the road, and Jackson’s son, TW Jackson, said an autopsy showed evidence of the heart attack. Cheryl was not seriously injured in the accident; she suffered a back inBILL jury and was hospitalJACKSON ized in Montrose. Jackson retired in 2011 from The Tribune, but was often still seen at local water board and 4-H meetings. And just days prior to his death, he visited Tribune Editor Randy Bangert, who is quoted in an article in The Tribune as saying they talked about Jackson’s six grandchildren, travel and golf. “He was so enjoying his retirement,” said Bangert. “It’s a shock for all of us … a sad day for everybody at The Tribune. I know there are farmers, ranchers, water experts, Colorado Extension agents and 4-Hers all across the state who will join us in expressing our sadness at Bill’s death and extending our sympathies and prayers to Bill’s wife, Cheryl, and their extended family.” Well-regarded for his professionalism and writing talent, Jackson was the only member of print media to be inducted into the Colorado Agriculture Hall of Fame. An article in the High Plains Journal quoted a statement from Colorado Corn Executive Director Mark Sponsler, who noted that: “While covering the often controversial topics of water and agriculture for The Greeley Tribune … Bill was not only successful in relaying mountains of important information to the public, but also in earning respect from representatives on all sides of the issues.” A memorial service will likely be held in November.
colorado editor
October 2015
15 QUESTIONS
marketplace
Continued from page 3
FOR SALE: WEST CENTRAL COLORADO REGIONAL ONLINE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Q A
You’ve had several Linotypes, and lots of parts?
We have the two, and then I have two for parts. In 1979, the handwriting was on the wall that newspapers were all going to offset. I was 26, so I wasn’t done printing the Crescent with letterpress. So I just started buying parts every time I saw them advertised. Everybody wanted them to go somewhere, and I just bought everything so they were very amiable; the price was cheap, all they wanted really was the shipping. They didn’t want to pay for shipping. And finally, the last parts buy I made was in Indianapolis. It was 4,200 pounds, and we just got lucky in that my girlfriend at that time had a pen pal in Illinois, who went over and got the parts and shipped them to us, or we would never have gotten those. It was parts for both the Linotype and the Intertype (a similar typecasting machine) and probably other things, because they just shipped everything they had. It came from machinists who repaired typesetters…just millions of dollars’ worth of parts, and almost all of them that I wouldn’t need.
Q A Q A
And it was $1,000 for the parts? Yes, $1,000 for the parts and $1,200 for shipping. And the boxes were pretty rounded out because they were just full of metal. There’d be parts running out in the UPS van. What’s been your favorite part of running a newspaper?
I actually do like keeping the machines running. It’s the hardest (work)…and when you accomplish something it’s the most rewarding. Of course, I enjoy running things for people, acknowledging their accomplishments and the things that really are important for a little town and its paper and its people. Persistence, I guess that’s all. We’ve put out a newspaper every week for 1902 weeks, that’s being there.
Q A
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Is there anything that people probably wouldn’t know? What is a question that you wish someone would have asked?
I don’t know that there’s a specific question. What I know is that what I find, because I’ve lived with the Linotype all my life, I’m not quite sure I understand what they don’t know. I know that the machine is complicated-looking. But I’ve always thought that the basic, that it makes type, ought to be…well, it just makes type…but nobody completely understands it. Even if you’ve explained it to them, they still don’t quite understand it. One of the funniest comments is “Where does the paper come out?” – which is kind of funny because paper doesn’t come out of a computer, it comes out of a printer. Even if you have a computer, the paper doesn’t come out of that. But if you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s a fairly simple misconception.
Q A Q A
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Speaking of being there, your parents ran it, you’re running it, is there a plan for the future?
No, that’s probably the most-asked question I get from people, and it’s probably the hardest thing to say, but there just isn’t any future in letterpress. Even in a little bitty paper like this, other than maybe a novelty. But to try to keep up a real, progressive newspaper, this wouldn’t be the way to do it. It’s just so much easier to do with offset and computerized papers. I mean, they’ve made unbelievable strides. If your paper was offset in 1963, you wouldn’t recognize it at all. It would be prehistoric offset. I think letterpress actually remained because early offset wasn’t really all that good-looking. Kind of like mimeograph.
Q A
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Oh, messy, you’ve gotta have a messy desk. There used to be a thing on the desk that my mother cut out of some newspaper that said “If my desk was clean, they would think me neat, but I’d rather they think me hard-working.” And maybe they’re fooled by that. What is your official title? Well, my favorite joke is…right now of course I’m the publisher and editor and the janitor…and at a certain point I came to the realization that if I’m the janitor, then the janitor needs to be fired. I would just say that I’m the printer.
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colorado editor
October 2015
SYNC2-U Continued from page 1 "If you're a print newspaper sales rep, you probably make 15 to 20 face-to-face calls in a day," said Hay, who's worked in newspapers for 15 years. "A number of those retailers may be saying, 'Nah, print's dead, nobody reads a newspaper.' And if you hear that enough, you kind of start to believe it, right? I feel like the newspaper industry as a whole needs to have some cheerleaders out there who are saying, 'Now wait a minute …'" Hay backed up his sentiments with hard facts and figures, citing the Newspaper Association of America’s 2015 Circulation Facts, Figures & Logic edition. A sampling of the information Hay presented to his web audience: • Three of four adults with households incomes of $100,000 or more read a newspaper in print or online in an average week. • Forty-nine percent of adults ages 18 to 34 read at least one print edition of the daily newspaper in week. • The median age of an adult who read the newspaper in a typical week is lower than the median age of adult viewers of Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. And on it went, emphasizing Hay's primary point, with the numbers to back it up. "It's not dead by any stretch of the imagination," he said of print newspapers. "I felt that first session needed to be kind of a fire-up, get people pumped and ready to go sell print." Within its 2016 strategic plan, the Press Association identified training webinars — the new program is dubbed SYNC2 U-niversity — as a new online service members could utilize. The goal is to offer one webinar, lasting 30 minutes to an hour each, in advertising and editorial per month.
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CPA/SYNC2 CEO Jerry Raehal said the online seminars would be conducted by a mix of CPA/SYNC2 staffers, representatives from member outlets, and industry experts. "We're looking at our own expertise, we are looking for our members' expertise, and we are looking for outside expertise," Raehal said. The second SYNC2 University session took place Oct. 22. Led by Nic Garcia, deputy bureau chief of Chalkbeat Colorado, the webinar centered on education reporting, particularly when analyzing increasingly-scrutinized test scores. Garcia covers education in Aurora and Jefferson County. Raehal said the webinars are a response to members who were concerned about the costs associated with physically sending employees to training sessions, particularly those from smaller staffs. The webinars are also available through CPA for people to review later, at their convenience. Hay’s first webinar had nine participants, representing six Colorado newspapers, numbers he hopes will gradually increase as the program
evolves. The advertising-themed webinars will take place at noon on the second Thursday of each month. Upcoming topics include: prospecting and preparation; meeting and presentation; and overcoming objections/closing. Raehal said a future editorial webinar would focus on alternative story formats, including in areas like design and photography. He encourages members to "find the time" for the webinars, a seemingly small investment that will result in improved skills and performance. "It's a half hour to an hour once a month to make yourself a better journalist or a better salesperson," he said. Costs to attend the webinars will range depending on speaker expenses, but CPA members will always get a discount. The first couple of webinars have been free for CPA members to attend, while the cost for non-members has been $75. Raehal encouraged people to look at the Colorado e-Editor and CPA website to keep up-todate on future offerings.
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Editorial sessions Nov. 12 Alternative Story Formats Advertising sessions Nov. 12 Prospecting and Preparation Dec. 10 Ask for the Meeting/Presentation Jan. 14 Overcoming Objections To learn more, check out the CPA website or sign-up for the Colorado e-Editor, the CPA’s e-publication by emailing coloradopress@ colopress.net
KEEP CALM AND
PRESS ON
COLORADO PRESS ASSOCIATION 138TH ANNUAL CONVENTION • MAY 13-14, 2016 DENVER WEST SHERATON
Upcoming webinars