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Some 276 people attended the Texas Press 2010 Midwinter Conference and Trade Show, Jan. 21-23, at luxurious Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston.
The trade show brought in exhibitors representing companies and organizations from coast to coast. All are identified in the new 2010 Buyer’s Guide at this link: http://tinyurl.com/ygymesn.
Attendees participated in a silent auction that raised nearly $6,000 benefiting the Texas Newspaper Foundation, a 501c(3) non-profit that helps fund journalism education programs through TCU’s Texas Center for Community Journalism and other educational institutions.
Four were inducted into the Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame: George Bannerman Dealey, publisher of The Dallas Morning News from 1885 to 1946; Lyndell N. Williams, executive vice president of Texas Press Association from 1974 to 1998; Rigby Owen Sr., long-time owner of the Conroe Courier and president of Texas Press Association, 1970-71; and Sarah L. Greene, the only living inductee among this year’s class of honorees. Greene, publisher emerita of The Gilmer Mirror, was full-time publisher of the newspaper from 1974 to 2006. Visit the Foundation’s home page at www.tnf.net.
The conference featured entertaining speeches and programs addressing subjects affecting newspapers’ everyday operations.
Keck: Inspiration to surge onward
At the Hall of Fame dinner, Randy Keck, publisher of The Community News in Aledo, delivered a moving tribute to members of his community whose stories inspire him daily.
The routine but sometimes overwhelming frustrations publishers face week in and week out are brought back into perspective by those who face extraordinary struggles on a daily basis. Keck convincingly showed how it helps to remind one’s self of that in the most challenging moments.
Marling: Pulse of America Survey
John Marling, chief executive of Oregon-based Pulse Research, showed how data from his nationwide, ongoing survey of newspaper readers’ buying habits, interfaced with census information, reveals efficiencies that can greatly benefit newspapers.
For example, Marling said, there’s a better way serve advertisers than to call on them and tout your newspaper’s circulation as a chief reason to buy an ad. It is more meaningful and helpful, he said, to be able to give a furniture business an accurate estimate of how many people in the market area will buy a new mattress in the coming year.
Marling’s Pulse of America Survey provides users, no matter what their newspaper’s size or location, with that kind of information.
Viers: Potential of Web awaits you
Software, hardware and workflow processes trainer Russell Viers summarized his presentation in three points.
• Capitalize on the opportunities a website gives you over print: Especially as a weekly paper, there are some real advantages a website has over print and that’s immediacy, Viers said.
When someone in the community dies, you can report the news immediately instead of waiting until Wednesday when the paper comes out. Other advantages include unlimited space, community input, a medium readers are becoming comfortable with and more.
With unlimited space, a paper can upload 100 or more photos from the school play, instead of just the best one that goes with the story.
With community input, an obituary can be more than just the facts that are often reported by the paper. Friends and family can add comments and build a story about the deceased. “This is something I see done now on Facebook when family members ‘converse’ about a loved one who has died,” Viers observed.
“If a paper can take advantage of the technology, it can turn that into a sellable product through advertising and possibly subscriptions.”
• Don’t try to do it yourself: “Too often I see papers trying to build a news website like a traditional ‘information’ website. The cost is greater than looking for a service that has already built the templates and incorporated the necessary technology. In addition to the cost a paper should look at the time it takes to build and update a site. That time could be spent gathering more and better content so readers have more to see when going online.”
• Your product is your content, not the delivery method: “More pictures, better pictures, more stories and better stories is what newspapers should be focusing on. Since we know our paper is only going to be about 12 pages, for example, we tend to only gather enough content for that space. With the web, we have the opportunity to report stories and deliver photos that would normally never make the paper.
“The more good content we can deliver, in both print and online, the more there is for readers to see and talk about. The more there is for your readers to see and talk about, the more opportunity there is for growth, and that translates into subscriptions and ad sales.
“If a newspaper can eliminate lost time in production of both the print and online product, that leaves more time to gather the news — our real product.
“And if readers have learned to turn to your paper for the news, whether online or print, then if the day ever comes where print is dead, that doesn’t have to mean death to the paper. Our product is the content we deliver, not the method in which it’s delivered.”
Copyright at core of business model
Sheri Hunter, an attorney with the Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold law firm in Austin, discussed copyright issues that tie to the newspaper industry’s viability.
The market’s desire for instant news poses a challenge to printed newspapers. News aggregators, feeding that desire, copy or link to a newspaper’s headlines, stories or chunks of stories, often without permission, and then sell advertising to package with that content. So, your content enables parasitic aggregators to make a profit while you continue to pay high overhead costs and suffer from decreasing revenue in a down market.
Hunter said the majority of media experts and academics agree that the traditional newspaper is worth saving. Suggestions have emerged since mid-May, when the issue was explored in a U.S. Congressional subcommittee hearing led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
One idea, Hunter said, is to amend the federal copyright law so that original content producers, such as newspapers, would have a brief monopoly on their news. For a specific period, 24 hours for example, aggregators would have to reimburse the newspaper for any use that occurs during the period.
Another idea is to adopt a statute similar to the one used by the recording industry, in which a performer pays a songwriter an industry standard percentage or a negotiated rate to play or perform any given material.
And, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., suggested creating a non-profit status for newspapers, but it’s not clear how well Cardin’s idea is catching on.
In any case, Hunter said, it’s a good idea for newspapers to protect what they’ve created and well-known legal mechanisms still work, such as the cease-and-desist letter and the filing of a temporary injunction to stop unauthorized use.
Richards: Legal status counts big
Don R. Richards, media attorney and publisher of the Hale Center American, dug into the mysteries that surround a newspapers’ status as a legal publication and followed with a lively question-and-answer period.
He explained the difference between a legal notice and a public notice, talked about the loss of both kinds of notice to newspapers that don’t meet the definition of a legal newspaper in Texas, and he gave thorough airing to ways newspapers can fight for notices they have lost for one reason or another.
Richards briefed members on four particular Texas attorney general opinions that are critical to understanding the mechanics of public notice: H-1081 (1977) second-class permit; JM-268 (1984) legal publications, JC-0223 (2000) general circulation and GA-0380 (2005), selection of a newspaper.
And, Richards led the audience through Texas Government Code Chapter 2051, where key elements and requirements of legal publications reside.
Lieber’s personal story wows crowd
Award-winning columnist Dave Lieber of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram induced tears and laughter from the closing brunch audience.
He shared anecdotes from 1993, his early days in Texas. It was rough training in Cow Town, where he received coaching on the nomenclature and wearing of boots, hat, belt and jeans.
Lieber warmed the room with the touching story of how he met the woman who would become his wife, her children, and dog, Sadie, who turned out to be the unlikely key to making all of the pieces for a happy life fall into place.
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