NewsBeat

2 NewsBeat January 2018 NewsBeat A NEWSLETTER FOR NEW YORK'S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS Published by the New York Press Association 621 Columbia Street Ext., Suite 100, Cohoes, NY 12047 518.464.6483 • 518.464.6489 fax • www.nynewspapers.com Executive Editor — Michelle K. Rea Layout & Design — Rich Hotaling PA NY Mark your calendar Tuesday, January 9, 2018 NYPA Better Newspaper Contest Deadline Thursday, April 12, 2018 NYPA/NYPS Boards of Directors Meetings NYPA Foundation Board of Directors Meeting Gideon Putnam Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY Friday & Saturday, April 13 & 14, 2018 NYPA Spring Convention and Tradeshow Gideon Putnam Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY Friday, June 15, 2018 NYPA/NYPS Board of Directors Meetings NYPA Foundation Board of Directors Meeting Straus News, 333 Seventh Ave. (6th flr.), NYC Thursday, September 14, 2017 NYPA/NYPS Boards of Directors Meetings NYPA Foundation Board of Directors Meeting Montréal Marriott Château Champlain Friday & Saturday, September 15 & 16, 2017 NYPA Fall Conference Montréal Marriott Château Champlain C L I P & S A V E By MARK VINCIGUERRA — NYPA President hank you to the board, to Michelle and most of all to the mebership of this organization for allowing me with the opportunity to serve it and you. For a young man growing up in a lower middle class neighborhood in liverpool, NY, achieving the position of publisher was beyond my wildest dreams as a youngster; my non-college educated parents worked hard to send me to college and try to suceed beyond their working class jobs. Now, having the opportunity to lead this historic, large and vitally important organization at a crucial period in this nations history for the next two years is truly a career highlight and one in which i wish my parents were here to see. As you all know, NYPA is the largest and oldest press association in the united states. With roots dating to 1853 (let that sink in for a moment). In assuming this post, with my love for history as a background, I researched some past presidents histories to get a sense for the position I now assume. To say it was an esteemed group would be a considerable understatement. John F. Phelps, the organizations first president, of Mayville in Chataqua county. His Sentinel newspaper dated back from the 1830's, and is credited with helping this village grow and prosper. There's D D T Moore of the Rural New Yorker — who later became mayor of Rochester, after leading NYPA in 1858 and 1865. And hart I seeley of the Waverly Sun, who was killed tragically in an auto accident in 1938; he founded the Penn Yan Rotary Club. And then there is Sharon Fulmer, who was the head of nypa in 1994. I grew up reading sharon each week in my hometown paper — the Liverpool/Salina Review. She was honored by the Syracuse Press Club with a lifetime achievement award in 1996. If you grew up in Liverpool as I did, everyone knew Sharon! But you didn't elect me to be historian of this organization, you have asked me to lead it into the future. To that end, Michelle, Dave Tyler and I have worked hard on a transition plan and laying out goals/objectives for the organization's next two years. Among the plans we have, I plan to accompany Michelle on a 'listening tour' to various locations throughout the state and get feedback directly from our membership about what they want from the organization. We know through recent surveys and board activity that streamlining operations and audience growth are at the top of the list of wants/needs and we will be developing specific plans in depth. To start, we have contracted with a national circulation consultant, Joseph Kraus, to work on a program to winback former subscribers to our publications through a variety of methods… earning much needed revenue and volume. We also plan to pursue further the recently launched news to share program, by forming a team of editors from various organizations to brainstorm on how best to increase adoption of this fantastic platform. All of this comes at a time in this nation's history that is crucial in so many ways — with a president more fixated on fighting the press than apparenly Nazi's or White Supremacists, with a public increasingly skeptical of 'fake news', and with a chief white house leader, Jared Kushner — himself a former member of our organization This is a great time to revisit NYPA's mission statement — which reads, in part, "to promote and encourage higher standards of journalism… to support and defend the first ammendment, realizing that only as long as the press is successful, will the other rights, privileges and freedoms of NY's citizens be preserved." Leading this organziation of over 750 member newspapers is a daunting task, but with the best ceo in the press association business, Michelle Rea, and her team of professionals, it is obviously something I won't be doing alone. Thank you for electing me and entrusting me to lead the NY Press Association! T NY Press Association Presidency Speech Given in Buffalo, NY on September 16, 2017

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