Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/614013
Page 4 December 10, 2015 News in brief Send promotions, announcements, staff changes and other corporate news to mtuley@hspa.com. Access climate reporting guide Reporter joins Greensburg staff The Donald W. Rey nolds Journalism Insti tute launched a digital Reporter's Guide to Cli mate Adaptation, featuring an extensive resource database and a series of backgrounders to help improve coverage of society's preparation for the impacts of climate change. The heart of the guide is an annotated collec tion of more than 200 key adaptation resources that reporters can quickly use to identify organizations and sources central to the adaptation story. The guide can be found at www.ReportingOn ClimateAdaptation.org or www.ROCA.news. "Climate adaptation is an emerging and impor tant story not just for environmental reporters, but for those covering business, politics, local news, even sports," said RJI Executive Director Randy Picht. Each resource features an overview of the source and detailed information on how journalists can use it. The resources are cat egorized by climate risk and policy response and can be sorted by location, timeliness and whether from government, aca demic, advocacy or media. The backgrounder also features several dozen suggested story angles for beats ranging from health and consumer to religion and military, as well as briefs on exemplary adap tation coverage by other news organizations. For journalists who are newer to the climate adaptation issue, the proj ect provides an animated explainer and an exten sive backgrounder cover ing the basics of the issue, such as definitions and infographics illustrating climate impacts. The Greensburg Daily News welcomes Joshua Heath to the editorial staff this week. Heath, an IUPUI grad, will cover news and community events. Heath, a native of Indianapolis, has been involved with the media since his junior year at Ben Davis High School, where he worked as a disc jockey and sports com mentator for the school's awardwinning radio sta tion, WBDG. Following his gradu ation in 2010, Heath became a student in the IU School of Journalism. In the spring of 2014, he would go on to work with Indy Racing League as a public relations and com munications intern during the Indianapolis 500. Heath worked in non profits for the better part of 2015 with the Ronald McDonald House of Indiana and Bohlsen Group. Heath also wrote for a newspaper in the Noblesville area as a sports writer. I 've been training and advising newspapers for 21 years, ever since Larry Smith asked me to come look over his operation in LaFollette, Tennessee, back in 1994. I worked with more than 100 papers in my travels this year, not counting the thousands of papers that attended conferences and training events I led. That's a lot of years and a lot of papers, and in that time I've come to recognize the traits that correlate with newspaper success. I don't have to spend long at a newspaper office to tell you how they're doing in terms of circulation, reader ship, ad sales and profits. No one has to tell me. There are qualities that lead to success ful newspapers, and without them it's a good bet that there are some problems. I'd like to tell you about them through the lense of some papers I've worked with. I could have listed 50 newspapers in this column, because I ran into a lot of papers that are doing things right in 2015. And it's show ing in their numbers. Due to space limitations, here are a few that stood out: The Community News & The Wellington Advertiser Fergus, Ontario I spent two days with the staff of this community paper located 45 minutes from Toronto. It didn't take me long to realize that this group does a lot right. Dave Adsett is one of my heroes. Cutting isn't in his vocabulary, and while other papers in his area have cut pages and staff, leading to decreasing circulation, Dave's papers have done the oppo site, with the opposite results. Here's what Dave told me: "We make a good living and are interested in the long game, rather than managing by a month or quarter. We have also continued to hire staff and grow our business, as opposed to making cuts to achieve bottom line results." The Standard Banner Jefferson City, Tennessee "The work ethic of our staff and their dedication to excel lence are the two keys to our success," Dale Gentry told me as we discussed the secrets to his newspaper's success. "We work hard to cover, and serve, our community well, whether it's in the quality of our writing and photog raphy, the effectiveness of our ads, the excellence of our final printed product, or the service we provide to readers and customers." The Piedmont Shopper Danville, Virginia I got to know the folks in Danville after receiving a frantic call about ads printing wrong. It took a little geo graphic magic, but I made the sixhour journey to Danville on my way to Minneapolis, where I was speaking the next day at a convention. Kathy Crumpton is the publisher of The Piedmont Shopper. She explains their success like this: "Over the past 15 years, we've been blessed to establish relation ships with our readers and advertisers that go beyond newsprint. That relationship with our community led us to see the need for our other publications: a monthly paper delivered to all public and private schools, free to the students and staff, and Red Bird Times, which serves the other end of our readership spectrum, and is enjoyed by seniors 50 and 'wiser.' No matter which of our publica tions you pick up, you'll find the same commitment to serving our community." Hmm. I'm starting to notice a trend among successful newspapers with that "serv ing community" thing. Sauk Centre Herald Sauk Centre, Minnesota I considered several news papers in Minnesota for this column, but limited myself to two. One is the Sauk Centre Herald. Publisher Dave Simpkins had this to say about the Herald: "Respect is a key word for us: Respect for read ers, advertisers, staff and competitors. We've always embraced technology and innovation. We try to tell the human drama, which can be many things from tragic deaths to losing the state high school basketball game to funny stories from an old timer or a hog that escaped the meat packing plant and ran down Main Street." Dave's staff is larger than many daily papers I visit, and the payoff is in seen in the paper's success – large read ership base, quality journal ism and success in the bottom line. That seems to be another quality that correlates with success at newspapers: Rather than cutting staff to the bone, they maintain their staffs, leading to greater readership and ad sales. Hood County News Granbury, Texas Every so often, I'm invited to visit Granbury, Texas, a town of roughly 10,000 folks located just southwest of Fort Worth. It was in Granbury that I trained the first news papers outside of Tennessee to use the PDF method to print their pages 20 years ago. It's no surprise that news papers like Hood County News are successful. As you walk around the building, you sense the pride the staff takes in putting out a good newspa per. It's local. All local. Publisher Jerry Tidwell has always believed in qual ity and brings in trainers and experts on a regular basis. It shows. Unlike some papers, the building isn't nearempty. There's a lot going on. And it all starts with the publisher. Interesting. That's another quality that seems to corre late with successful papers: An engaged publisher who knows and cares about his or her community and staff. Kanabec County Times Mora, Minnesota I've liked Wade Weber, pub lisher, since I first met him years ago, when he invited me to train the staffs of his papers in central Minnesota. Since then, his papers have grown, and so have his staffs. In addition to his paper in Mora, Wade has publications in Pine City, Cambridge, White Bear Lake and Grantsburg, as well as the Amery Free Press in north western Wisconsin. There's no feel of central ization in Wade's papers. He told me, "Even though we are a group of newspa pers, each location focuses on its own community. We are very focused on being local, in both advertising and in news content." Hmm. There's that "local" thing again. I'm starting to believe that really does make a difference. I could have mentioned so many other papers. The Akron (Iowa) Hometowner, for example, or the Cresco (Iowa) Shopper. I wouldn't normally men tion a pure shopper in my list, but Peggy and John Loveless keep a real com munity focus to their publica tion. As John told me about a major national newspaper group that offered him a tidy sum for his publication, I was so inspired when he said, "I didn't want it to lose the com munity feel." I was also inspired in 2015 by a new generation of pub lishers and newspapers. Mark Fortune comes to mind, start ing a successful new weekly in Ohio. There's Michelle Van Hee, who publishes a news paper in Madelia, Minnesota. The list could go on. There are a lot of newspa pers out there doing things right – keeping instead of cutting staff, focusing on local content and services, and retaining committed leader ship. Kevin Slimp works as a newspaper industry trainer, speaker, writer and consul- tant. News Guru Kevin Slimp Accountability database launches Regional sales director added The Donald W. Rey nolds Journalism Insti tute and the Ethical Journalism Network launched the Accountable Journalism database. It includes more than 400 media ethics codes from across the globe, as well as information about various press councils in a userfriendly and search able Web application. Journalists can access the site at http:// accountablejournalism.org. Within the database, users can search for media codes based on country, as well as by topic, type of organization, region and date of cre ation/update. In addition to improv ing the technology and interface, the revamped Accountable Journalism database also includes additional codes of ethics and links to hate speech, which is problematic both online and offline. CNHI and the Greens- burg Daily News, Rush- ville Repub lican and Bates ville Herald-Tribune welcomed a new regional director of sales. Les Patterson, a veteran and experienced digital media and advertis ing professional, will be responsible for ad revenue of print, digital and mobile sectors. An Indianapolis native, Patterson joined the Air Force after high school. He would later go on to work with The Indianapolis Star, RTV6 in Indianapolis, WTAP TV in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and WAFFTV in Huntsville, Alabama. At The Star, Patterson worked in national online sales and was responsible for the development of new web products. To stay successful, staff size matters