Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/115209
March 14, 2013 Page 3 Join effort to keep notices in public eye I f you publish public notice advertisements in your publication, please pay attention. Publishers got an email recently from HSPA Executive Director and General Counsel Steve Key regarding a request to prepare their publications to participate in the soon-to-belaunched upgraded statewide public notice advertising website. There's also information on this topic on Page 1 in this issue of The Publisher. This is a major endeavor by HSPA for the benefit of member publications, and we need your support. In fact, each publisher needs the support of every publication in the state that publishes public notice advertising. We're looking for 100 percent participation. Why? Because that's what is needed to help protect your public notice advertising from disappearing from the pages of your newspaper and ending up on government websites. So please read Steve Key's email from March 12 and respond. Please read the article in this issue of The Publisher and react appropriately. Public notice advertising in your newspaper is under attack in Indiana. HSPA identified four anti-public notice bills in this session of the General Assembly. When I went to testify against S.B. 458 at a state Senate committee meeting in February, the opening remarks from the bill's sponsor really caught my attention. State Sen. Jim Banks (R-Columbia City) said fewer adults read the newspaper than in the past, so why should government pay money to place public notice advertising in a medium that fewer people read. This incorrect perception is prevalent in many places around the country. In addition, many politicians completely disregard the importance of having an News Biz By Greg Morris independent third party publish public notices. We're fighting the good fight and attempting to educate politicians and the public about the importance of public notices and why newspapers are the best entity to provide that information. But it's not just print newspapers we're defending anymore. We're talking about print and digital newspapers and how they work together to better inform the public. The goal of public notices is to get information to as many people as possible. When you combine the reach of newspaper readership and a newspaper's website viewers, you've got a massive audience. Statistics point to an overall decline in print newspaper readership. That is a fact, especially in larger markets. However, add the digital viewers of newspaper websites to the print readership and the total audience reach has never been larger. And in smaller communities across the state with less media competition, newspaper readership continues to be steady or even grow. So it's not accurate for elected officials to say that public notice advertisements aren't reaching large numbers of people anymore. But we have to do a better job of promoting all our readership and viewership. We need to promote our public notices on the front page of our newspapers. We need to find more stories to write as alerted to us by public notices and refer readers to the actual public notice advertisement. We need to make sure public notices are easy to find in the print newspaper. We need to make sure public notice advertisements are prominent on our websites. And we need 100 percent participation in HSPA's soon-to-be updated and enhanced statewide public notice website. Our industry needs to be able to show that all newspapers that accept public notice advertisements take their responsibility seriously to disseminate this information. A lot of folks think this fight is simply about saving declining revenue for our publications. Remember that perception is reality, and we must do a better job of educating everyone that this simply is not the truth. As newspapers, we are under attack and we must respond appropriately. The March newsletter from the Public Notice Resource Center alerted me to serious attacks on public notice in newspapers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah, in addition to Indiana. And AOL's Patch wants official newspaper status in California to qualify for public notice advertising. A bill to that effect has been introduced in the California legislature. It's time to wake up, my friends, if you're not awake already. Thanks for doing all the right things to make public notice advertisements prominent in your publications and highly visible on your websites. And thanks in advance for heeding Steve Key's call to prepare and participate in HSPA's soon-to-be-launched upgraded public notice website. It's important and deserves your close attention. Greg Morris, HSPA board of directors president, is presi dent of IBJ Media and publisher of Indianapolis Business Journal. His column appears in the first issue of each month. Watch on mail outcome continues T he U.S. House of Representatives reenacted a six-day mail delivery mandate as part of its decision to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, but the direct implications on the U.S. Postal Service were unclear at press time March 13. The House vote was 267 to 151, with 137 Democrats opposing the bill because of other spending measures included in it, said Tonda Rush, chief executive officer of the National Newspaper Association. The measure now moves to the Senate, which is not likely to vote to eliminate Saturday delivery this fiscal year, Rush said. "This is a good next step, and NNA extends its thanks to several key members of the Congressional Action Team who scrambled to make calls to important leadership Republicans," she said. The U.S. Postal Service, which lost nearly $16 billion in 2012, announced in February that it would end Saturday delivery of first-class mail starting in August, a move that it says would save $2 billion annually. Package delivery on Saturdays would continue. "It is now much more likely – but not certain – that the six-day mail delivery requirement will remain the law through Sept. 30 and part of the Postal Service delivery plan through the end of the calendar year," Rush said. Two things could happen to change that: • Enactment of sweeping postal reform legislation that allows the Postal Service to move forward with its plans. • A decision by the Postal Service to flout the law and move forward anyway, which is certain to prompt a lawsuit, Rush said. News in brief Intern selection committee meets A committee to select the next class of students in the HSPA Foundation's Eugene S. Pulliam internship program met March 7 to review applications from students from 15 different colleges and universities. The committee will match 10 journalism students with 10 Indiana newspapers who applied to host an intern in 2013. HSPA Foundation will announce the winners and the newspapers where they will work in the coming weeks. The selection committee included: • Jim Brown, executive associate dean emeritus, IU School of Journalism at Indianapolis, who evaluated portfolios off site • Tim Ethridge, editor, Evansville Courier & Press • Mike Fender, direc- tor of photography, The Indianapolis Star, who evaluated off site • Bob Hansen, editor, Connersville NewsExaminer • Courtney Linehan, sports editor, The Times (Munster) • Tina McGrady, editor, Journal Review (Crawfordsville) • Lisa Nellessen-Lara, executive editor, The Star Press (Muncie) • Nelson Price, Pulliam internship program writing coach • Cory Schouten, managing editor, Indianapolis Business Journal • Christina Seiler, managing editor, The Rochester Sentinel • Scarlett Syse, group editor, Home News Enterprises • Bob Zaltsberg, editor, The Herald-Times (Bloomington). The Times relocates in Frankfort The Times newspaper has moved to it's new location to make way for Ivy Tech Frankfort. The staff relocated their operation to new office and warehouse spaces in downtown Frankfort. The new building is located at 211 N. Jackson St., just a few blocks from the old site where The Times was housed for decades. The move comes after Clinton County and Frankfort city officials purchased the old building, a deal finalized Feb. 27. The site will house the new Ivy Tech Frankfort campus. Renovations on the building are expected to begin in March. Contractors have already gone through a pre-bid inspection of the building. The community college is slated to open in August with approximately 35 classes being offered to students. – The Times (Frankfort) IBJ reporter named managing ed Incoming Indianapolis Business Journal Editor Greg Andrews announced the appointment of Cory Schouten as manag- Cory Schouten ing editor. Schouten, 31, joined IBJ as a reporter in 2006 after stints at the Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune and the Arizona Republic (Phoenix). The Indianapolis native and Indiana University graduate currently covers the real estate beat, writes the Property Lines real estate blog and appears on business news updates for Fox59, IBJ's newsgathering partner. Schouten also serves as a member of the board of governors of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, treasurer of the Indianapolis Press Club Foundation and an adjunct lecturer at the School of Journalism at IUPUI. Andrews, the newspaper's managing editor since 2005, will succeed Editor Tom Harton. Harton announced plans to step down in March after 22 years on the job. SPJ scholarship worth $2,000 The Indiana Profes sional Chapter of SPJ is now accepting applications for a $2,000 scholarship that will be awarded to an Indiana college journalism student. The winner must be active in student media or an SPJ chapter. The deadline to enter is March 29. All the details and the application are available at http://indyprospj.org. Click on the scholarship tab at the top of the page. Send promotions, announcements, staff changes and other corporate news to mtuley@hspa.com.