Board votes no on allowing online news sites as members in WNPA

papers have chronicled life, death and politics in the region’s Asian communities, with punchy columns by the publisher holding the whole city to account.

“People thought I was the least likely person to be able to tackle a newspaper,” said Ng. “They all underestimated me.”

Ng said she thinks the

See NG, Page 3

The WNPA Board of Directors at its January meeting voted not to pursue a bylaws change that would allow online-only news sites to join the association.

The discussion on the proposal began in mid-2022, when the board discussed putting the measure to a vote of the membership.

During that process, several members said they were opposed to the idea.

Concerns were raised about giving online sites more credibility and some voiced worries that online sites might move to win the right to publish legals. At its board meeting last October at the annual convention, board members discussed tax advantages that only newspapers have, and expressed concern that allowing onlineonly news sites might muddy the waters in discussions with the state Legislature.

Suggestions were made to limit membership to an Associate Member level without voting rights and without the ability to serve on the board.

Similar restrictions have been put in place among newspaper associations across the country where online membership is allowed.

The issue was discussed during the annual business meeting at the annual convention in Bellingham

Again, some members voiced opposition while others said they thought perhaps the idea should be on the back burner for future consideration.

The board vote in January was not divided. All voted in favor of not pursuing the issue this year.

WNPA partnership with SmallTownPapers hits 15th anniversary

This year marks the 15th year in a row that SmallTownPapers has provided WNPA with the Better Newspaper Contest website for free. It remains one of the largest annual contributions made by anyone to WNPA.

“I believe in 2006-07, we worked with Mae Waldron and Bill Will to figure out how to put the WNPA BNC online,” said Paul Jeffco. “When they first mentioned it, my response was: ‘You have a contest?’ I was way out of the loop.”

The first year, a very rudimentary system was built with entries still mailed in. Waldron organized everything. Tearsheets were scanned and correlated in an online spreadsheet that the judges could access. Some judges responded very favorably. Others definitely did not like it, mostly because they were accustomed to holding an entry as a real piece of a newspaper.

Jeffco said when the contest first moved online, many said it would never be accepted simply because part of the judging was the look and feel, the ink on paper, the unpredictable print quality on newsprint -- all of that influenced the judges. Others said publishers did not have to keep PDF files of their editions, or that it would take too long, or cost too much.

“Now the most heard comment is, ‘how did we ever do this manually?’” Jeffco said.

“If it were not for Bill Will explaining what the BNC means for a publishers association, and that dozens of others would follow, I would have never even known about it, let alone built such an enterprise. So I credit him 100% for the idea and motivation to ultimately create what is now BetterBNC,” Jeffco said.