The Washington Newspaper, April 2020

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THE WASHINGTON NEWSPAPER

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April 2020

Journal of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association

Pandemic forces statewide shutdown

Some newspapers suspend publication, others layoff staff, change formats to survive The raging coronovirus COVID-19 spread like wildfire across Washington State in late March, forcing Gov. Jay Inslee to shutter all but essential businesses and ordering residents to stay home.

Newspapers were deemed essential and not affected by the closure order, but virtually all of their customers closed. Within a week, advertising revenues evaporated.

Sound Publishing, which owns the largest group of community weeklies in the state, announced furloughs and layoffs and stopped printing nine free community weeklies. Most staffers left on the job shaved their work weeks to 24 hours.

In Spokane, The Inlander laid off eight of its 35 employees, including two editorial staff.

EO Media Group laid off 47 people across its 12 newspapers across Oregon and Washington, including the two Long Beach papers, the Chinook Observer and Coast River Business Journal.

In Ephrata, the Grant County Journal downsized from broadsheet to tabloid, and all across the state publishers eyed relief in the form of Small Business Administration loans.

LOANS & GRANTS The loans are available through local banks. WNPA publishers who have not applied should do so soon. Check with your local banker to find out how to apply. If used to keep employees on the job, the loans will be forgiven.

TIPS, RESOURCES, ADVICE

COVID-19, a nasty and lethal virus, caused the governor to close non-essential businesses across the state.

Some publishers are doing more than cutting expenses to stay afloat. Four WNPA members were recently awarded Facebook grants of $5,000 each to support local journalism.

Beacon Publishing, The Lynden Tribune, Cheney Free Press and the Woodinville Weekly all got grants from the Facebook Journalism Project (FJP) Community Network grant in support of coronavirus news reporting.

In total, $2 million was awarded to 400 newsrooms across the US and Canada.

Another round of grants from the Facebook Journalism Project rolls out next week to help U.S. local news organizations continue serving communities during the coronavirus outbreak.

News organizations can begin applying for relief grants on

Monday, April 13.

A webinar on how to apply will take place on Friday, April 10, 2020. To learn more, go to facebook.com/ journalismproject.

The grants are designed to respond to immediate community needs and offset revenue shortfalls.

CONTACT YOUR REPS At the national level, news organizations continue to lobby for specific relief from the federal government for the newspaper industry.

It is widely expected that another wave of federal cash will be unleashed, and newspapers want to be sure they aren’t forgotten.

Please be in touch with your federal representatives about what you are facing.

Ask for donations: Several publishers aren’t being shy about asking readers to support them and are getting a good response.

Keep publishing: It will be harder once we come out on the other side of this to regain your footing if you stop publishing. In the long run, you also could lose preferential tax advantages and mailing privileges. Reduce pages, change formats and print fewer papers, but keep the presses rolling.

Build partnerships: Michelle Nedved at the Newport Miner is reaching out to banks and others with available cash to help sponsor ads for smaller businesses, like take-out restaurants. That’s good public releations for the bank and helpful to smaller businesses.

America’s Newspapers, one of the largest newspaper associations in America, is putting together a lot of good information for newspaper publishers. You can find their pages at www.newspapers.org.

The Shared Work Program allows staff members to have their hours reduced and get lost pay back though unemployment compensation. This has the advantage of keeping people on your payroll. For additional information on benefits for employees, please visit the Employment Security Department’s COVID-19 website.

Former interim executive director O’Deady passes Mark O’Deady, who served as interim WNPA executive director for four months in 2014, died April 2, 2020 of a heart attack.

O’Deady was hired to fill the position while the WNPA board sought a permanent replacement after General

Manager Bill Will resigned.

Ultimately, Marcia Van Dyke was hired as the permanent executive director and O’Deady returned to his own private business, Fast Forward Strategy Group.

O’Deady’s wife, Peggy Watt, is a journalism professor at Western Washington University and a board member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

Take media survey to aid relief effort

The News Media Alliance and the National Newspaper Assocition are watching the newspaper industry recoil from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They are joining forces to urgently assemble a list of titles that have closed, changed frequencies or enacted furloughs and layoffs.

This list will be used in joint industry efforts to seek economic relief and

reasonable regulation wherever they see an opportunity.

They are asking for your urgent help. Please share information about your organization as well as any you are aware of in your markets or states. they need to make this list as comprehensive as possible. You can participate by taking the survey at: https://www. surveymonkey.com/r/ c19impact

Banaszynski latest guest on WNPA podcast site Jacqui Banaszynski is the latest journalist to share her story on the WNPA Banaszynski podcast website.

She won the Pulitzer

Prize for a feature writing for a story about gay farmers with AIDS in the 1980s.

In the podcast, she talks about winning trust and the importance of storytelling.

You can find the podcast at: wnpapodcasts. buzzsprout.com.

Officers: Patrick Grubb, President; Caralyn Bess, First Vice President; Steve Powell, Second Vice President.

Trustees: Roger Harnack, Scott Hunter, Teresa Myers, Pili Linares, Eric LaFontaine and Michelle Nedved.

THE WASHINGTON NEWSPAPER is the offical publication of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association. It is published monthly

by WNPA, PO Box 389, Port Townsend, WA 98368.

Staff Fred Obee: Executive Director: 360-344-2938 Email: fredobee@wnpa.com Janay Collins, Member Services Director: 360-344-2938. Email: ads@wnpa.com 2 The Washington Newspaper April 2020

FROM THE PRESIDENT

In this health crisis, people need more straight talk & precise data

By Patrick Grubb In an article published on March 28, the New York Times examined the lack of information being given to the public by most health authorities across the U.S. Glenn Cohen, an Grubb expert in bioethics at Harvard Law School, says the guiding principle during this crisis should be sharing more rather than less.

“Public health depends a lot on public trust,” he said. “If the public feels as though they are being misled or misinformed their willingness to make sacrifices — in this case social distancing — is reduced.”

“That’s a strong argument for sharing as much information as you can,” he said.

Despite being engaged in the toughest economic battle most of our member newspapers have ever faced, our communities are looking at us to provide up-to-date, accurate local information on the

coronavirus pandemic. To do that, we have to keep hammering at our local health departments and demanding that they give us the information we need to properly inform our readers.

To date, our health authorities have trotted out a few reasons for limiting the dissemination of information. The first usually is restrictions imposed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If HIPAA’s privacy rules are the reason, why do health departments tell the public about cases in senior homes? The public is much more likely to figure out someone’s identity in a care facility than if they are simply told the town where someone infected with COVID-19 lives.

Our health authorities say location information isn’t important because of community spread. Everyone has to assume that the virus is in their community and behave accordingly.

We get that, but the fact is, it does matter to the public where these cases are located. There are hundreds of small population pockets where people are under the impression that they are safe. Residents

are much more likely to take social distancing and stay-home guidelines seriously if they know the disease is close to hand.

Finally, the authorities say not providing this information prevents stigmatization of COVID-19 sufferers. This is nonsense – there’s no stigma in contracting this particular virus. Knowing roughly where the cases are located will lead to avoidance behaviors and this, our health overlords say, is a good thing.

In Whatcom County, the health department has provided extremely limited case information.

The website lists deaths, the number of negative and positive results and a breakdown by age. It gives no breakdown by gender and, most importantly, provides no location. As of April 9, 22.8 percent of people being tested in this county are coming up positive. That compares to 8.7 percent for Washington state. Experts say a 10 percent positive rate indicates a sufficient level of testing. Our county figures indicate that not enough testing is being done and/ or the county has a far higher rate of infection than what’s known. Both

conclusions are likely to be correct.

Our readers want answers and it’s up to us to get them. This is what we should be asking: How much testing is being done? Who is being tested? How many tests are available? How long is it taking to get results back? What’s the breakdown in those succumbing to the disease? Age and gender and race? Where are the cases located?

What percentage of cases are in the hospital? How many are in the ICU? How many have recovered?

When this pandemic is over, the people will be looking for answers. How did our country do such a lousy job in preparing for this disaster? Who was responsible? Did so many people need to die? Was the government transparent? Were we told the truth? The people won’t just be looking at the folks at the top. They’ll also be looking at their counties.

And they’ll be looking at their newspaper and judging them, too.

Patrick Grubb is the Publisher of The Northern Light in Blaine and this year’s WNPA President.

Better Newspaper contest delayed; board to discuss options WNPA’s annual Better Newspaper Contest is delayed while member newspapers are struggling to manage affairs during the coronavirus crisis.

The Board of Directors meets next week to discuss next steps for the contest and the convention to follow this fall.

We are obviously mindful of the crisis all our members are currently experiencing. The board will look at appropriate options for both the contest and the fall convention, measuring the need to carry on and preserve traditions while acknowleging the unprecedented events now affecting our

industry.

There’s little doubt the contest will go on, as it has for decades, and we hope WNPA members will be more than ready this fall to recognize some of the great work we’ve done in the last year, and gather once again to acknowledge the best among us.

Public notice threat real in pandemic response The town of Glastonbury, Connecticut announced last week it would begin publishing public notices on its website in lieu of newspaper notice, which is normally required by law, according to Manchester’s Journal Inquirer.

In a statement on its website, Glastonbury cited an emergency order issued March 21 by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) that “suspended and modified” the state’s public notice laws to allow notices “to be published electronically on a municipal or agency website.”

The announcement also mentioned parenthetically that “The

Glastonbury Citizen has temporarily stopped publishing during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

A statement on the Citizen’s website explains that the “family-owned and operated” weekly newspaper was “forced to temporarily suspend publication” due to the public health crisis.

An observer in Connecticut speculated that the Governor’s executive order was inspired by a request from public officials in Glastonbury, who realized they may need to purchase public notice ads in the more expensive Hartford Courant now that their local newspaper was

shutting down for the duration of the crisis.

Regardless of how it transpired, the situation in Connecticut demonstrates the primary risk when newspapers suspend publication as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

First, it runs counter to the efforts of the many state and national press associations that have lobbied governor’s offices to declare newspapers essential businesses that must be allowed to continue to operate during the pandemic.

Second, it may require local officials to seek an alternative when they no longer have a newspaper in which to publish their notices.

And they are unlikely to forget it when the crisis passes.

This is an issue that many state press associations have faced as their members search for answers about how to continue publishing when there’s little revenue coming in to sustain operations. Most associations have counseled caution, patience and persistence.

Wisconsin Newspaper Association Executive Director Beth Bennett wrote to her members on March 25, warning “it is vitally important that any change to content or frequency not impact the ‘legal’ status of your newspaper(s).”

The Michigan Press Association wrote to its members the following day, telling them the state’s public notice law requires newspapers to publish “not less than weekly intervals in the same community without interruption for at least 2 years.”

In Washington State, a newspaper must be published at least twice monthly to maintain its status as a legal newspaper.

While most experts think it is unlikely newspapers would lose their legal status as newsapapers if they altered their publication for a short time in this emergency, the risk becomes greater the longer a publication

no longer fits the legal definition.

This can be especially true in places where governments want to remove legals from print publications.

Across the nation, some papers have already been permanently shuttered. Many others have furloughed employees or reduced print publication frequency by one or two issues per week, while continuing to publish news on their websites.

Far fewer have completely suspended publication, with good reason.

Newspapers are essential in a time of crisis. Our communities need us now more than ever.

WITH OVER 60 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE, WE KNOW JOURNALISM. From public records to protecting journalists, from defamation claims to business needs, large and small Washington publishers turn to us.

DWT.COM Anchorage | Bellevue | Los Angeles | New York | Portland San Francisco | Seattle | Shanghai | Washington, D.C.

The Washington Newspaper April 2020 3

Look to WNPA Impact Ads for 2021 tourism Selling statewide or regional 2x2 or 2x4 Impact Ads is a big part of what helps fund your Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, and it’s a great option for advertisers seeking broader reach for their messages.

It also is a perfect match for hotel-motel tax funds distributed annually by cities and counties to local non-profit groups. If you have not already, you should ask your city and county governments (each has separate funds) for a report on where the hotelmotel tax money is going.

In most cases, the non-profit organizations that receive this money are supposed to spend it in outside markets that will draw people to your town.

Although most of us are quarantined right now, at some point we will get back to community gatherings. If anything, people will be itching to get out next spring and summer and these ad dollars are often planned a year ahead of time. It’s not too early to check on plans for 2021.

WNPA ads are a perfect match for boosting community events because you can choose to advertise regionally or

statewide.

Here’s how it works: • You sell the ad to a local non-profit organization to bolster tourism.

• You charge your client for the full cost of the ad, and send an insertion order to WNPA. WNPA then invoices you for half the cost of the ad, splitting the revenue on the ad sale. The advertising sales person gets their regular commission on the sale.

• WNPA uses our share of the money to provide your legal hotline, professional services, Legislative Day, the Better Newspaper Contest and the annual convention.

• We keep the cost to the client affordable by asking all member newspapers to publish the ads sold by other newspapers without cost.

Potential customers include festivals, fairs, resorts, real estate offices, state agencies, statewide or regional political candidates – anyone who desires a cost effective regional or statewide campaign.

Because member newspapers publish these ads for free, we can only promise that they will run as black and white ads. If you include a color version, many papers will use it instead,

The map above shows the regions for Impact Ads. Sell the whole state, or choose a region.

4 The Washington Newspaper April 2020

but there is no guarantee of this.

The ads are small – just two columns wide by either two or four inches tall. One column by four or eight inches are also OK. They

need to be produced in two different widths, to accommodate different column widths.

So talk with local chambers or festival organizers or others who receive hotel-

motel tax money from local governments, and let’s start planning our comeback.

The WNPA 2x2 ad program is an important arrow in your sales quiver and a great way for advertisers in

your area to reach a broader audience at a very affordable price. Questions? Call Member Services Director Janay Collins at 360-3442938 or email ads@wnpa. com.

WNPA JOB BOARD NEWS EDITORS Free Press Publishing is looking for editors to lead two of our publications in rural Eastern Washington.

Each will be part of a larger news team that covers four counties, while still overseeing their own local coverage. As a growing community newspaper company, we’re looking for go-getters who can handle reporting, writing, photography, editing and pagination. Social media, time management and organizational skills are a must. Our communities don’t have coffee on every corner, shopping malls or fancy dining. They do have readers and advertisers who care about their schools, businesses and neighbors.

If you’re a journalist who enjoys life in small towns, where crime is minimal and residents are still neighborly, we’d like to hear from you. Email cover letter, resume and clips/links to Publisher Roger Harnack at Roger@cheneyfreepress. com. No telephone calls, please.

Bulletin is a vital community newspaper serving the people of Walla Walla and Columbia counties in Washington and northern Umatilla County in Oregon. We take pride in the cultures of our small communities and encourage energetic writers to apply. Please email a letter of interest, resume and story clips to: hr@wwub. com.

JOURNALIST PRODUCT MANAGER No, the job title is not a typo. (If you don’t know what a typo is, stop reading now.) Wick Communications is launching a primarily Google-funded initiative called NABUR to combine good old-fashioned community journalism with neighborhood engagement via social media.

In other words, there will be aspects of investigative reporting/feel-good local news combined on a site something like Nextdoor. We are hiring for two positions, one in Green Valley, Arizona, and one in Wenatchee, REPORTER The Walla Walla Union- Washington.

As a journalist prodBulletin is seeking a fulluct manager in either the time, enterprising reporter skilled at writing tight, com- Green Valley NABUR pelling stories to cover local project or Wenatchee NABUR project, you will news in the greater Walla be coordinating online Walla Valley of Southeastern Washington. Applicants discussions, conducting experiments in news should have experience coverage and organizing taking photos and know events (after the coronavihow to use social media to grow an audience. A degree rus is gone) in these two communities. in journalism or related We believe these field and previous experijournalist product managence at a daily newspaper ers should reside in these or other professional news communities but will conorganization are preferred. sider applicants who have Bilingual candidates who speak Spanish are especially histories in those markets encouraged to apply. This is but might live elsewhere at the moment. a permanent position with Our NABUR sites will excellent benefits includprovide support for our ing medical/dental/vision, traditional newspapers in 401(k) and paid time off.

The Walla Walla Union- those markets (print/digi-

tal) and community outreach efforts, not replace them. By allowing trained journalists to lead the platform and technology decisions, we will ensure the values of trust, accountability, and accuracy are leading the conversation, and not being limited by the platform features.

Interested? As you can

see, we have devoted serious thought to the project, but like any new venture, we expect to learn on the fly. The journalist product manager position is guaranteed for six months, and you might have helped create a cutting-edge role in future communication (or our hopes don’t pan out and the position disap-

pears).

Wick Communications is a family-owned media company nearly 100 years old that has print/digital presence in about a dozen nationwide markets. Base pay will be in the $450$550/week range. The application deadline is April 13. Each of these two prototype markets will do its

own hiring, so send your resume, cover letter and salary history to Editorial Director Dan Shearer at dshearer@gvnews. com, Digital Director Sean Fitzpatrick at sean. fitzpatrick@wickcommunications.com and Digital Audience Editor Reilly Kneedler at kneedler@ wenatcheeworld.com.

The Washington Newspaper April 2020 5