Spring Board meeting to be held May 9 at Sea-Tac

The spring meeting of the PNNA board of directors will be held 11 a.m. to 2 p.m on Friday, May 9 in the Seoul Room at the Sea-Tac Airport Conference Center. The agenda and supporting material will be mailed to board members in advance of the meeting.

New, earlier date for annual PNNA meeting 

Mark your calendar for the 88th annual PNA meeting scheduled for Sept. 10-12 at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower in the center of downtown Portland’s business and entertainment districts. The group room rate is $159, single or double occupancy. Members attending the annual meeting held last year in Seattle agreed upon the change of dates from November to September. Programming will be developed in the near future, and the program will be released as the date approaches. Visit www.portland.hilton.com for information on the hotel.

PNNA gives journalism education 
grant to University of Idaho 

The University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media received a $9,000 grant from PNNA to help bring more reporters, editors and photographers from regional newspapers into the classroom. The association’s journalism education committee recommended the grant after receiving a favorable report from a three-editor team that visited the school in April 2007. Team members were Rick Larson, managing editor of the Tri-City Herald; Gary Jasinek, managing editor of The Wenatchee World; and Dick Hughes, editorial-page editor of the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore. They spent two days on campus, touring facilities, reviewing curriculum and meeting with students and faculty members. Kenton Bird, JAMM director, said the grant will be used to support travel by professional journalists from throughout the region to augment the expertise of the school’s faculty. Reporters and editors from regional newspapers, including the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Lewiston Tribune and the Spokesman-Review, are regular guest speakers in University of Idaho journalism classes, Bird said. The grant will bring visitors from papers in Boise, Portland, Seattle and elsewhere to the classroom, Bird said.

Blethen nomination forms are coming soon 

It will soon be time to gather up C.B. Blethen entries for distinguished newspaper reporting. The nomination and entry materials will be mailed at the end of March with June 30 the deadline for entry. The C. B. Blethen Memorial Awards were created in 1977 to honor one of the Northwest’s most distinguished newspapermen. Awards are given for coverage of diversity, deadline reporting, enterprise writing, feature writing and investigative reporting. There is also the Debby Lowman award for distinguished reporting of consumer affairs. First and second place awards are presented in two circulation categories, fewer than 50,000 and more than 50,000. Awards come with a cash prize and will be presented during the annual Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association’s conference in September. For more information, contact Bryan Clark at 916-288-6001.

NEWS:

Election-themed Sunshine Week ads available

This week is Sunshine Week and online and print ads for the Sunshine Campaign open government initiative are available in English and Spanish on the Sunshine Week website. The ads may be used free of charge by any participant. The ads may be used at any time through the November vote, as well. The ads are designed to remind people of the importance of open government during the election season. Two print ads – one with space for participants’ name/logo and one without – are available in English and Spanish, color and black and white. There are four Web ads – a banner, a skyscraper and two buttons, each in English and Spanish – which conform to Internet Advertising Bureau standards. Sunshine Week is a nonpartisan open government initiative led by American Society of Newspaper Editors, with online and broadcast media, public officials, celebrities, civic groups, nonprofits, libraries, schools, religious leaders and others. For information, click here.

E&P names Rowe and Bhatia 
editors of the year 

Editor & Publisher has named The Oregonian’s Editor Sandy Rowe and Executive Peter Bhatia Editors of the Year for 2008. Read the full profile here.

Skagit Valley Herald moves to morning delivery 
March 31

The publisher of the Skagit Valley Herald has announced that the newspaper will become a morning publication seven days a week beginning March 31. The newspaper is currently delivered in the afternoon Mondays through Fridays, and in the morning on weekends and holidays. Publisher L. Stedem Wood said that the change should better position the Skagit Valley Herald, which is Skagit County’s only local daily newspaper, against competition from other morning newspapers, including dailies from Seattle and Everett. The Skagit Valley Herald has remained an afternoon publication throughout its 124-year history.

Deseret Morning News ads Mormon Times section

The Deseret Morning News has added a new section to its newspaper, Mormon Times, because editor Joseph A. Cannon said readers have requested more news and information about the LDS Church and its members. Mormon Times every week contains news stories and features about the church. This new section harkens back to the early history of the Deseret News. Virtually all of the early editors, typesetters and other employees were trained at an earlier LDS Church publication called the Times and Seasons.

Seattle Times to lay off 17, make other cuts

The Seattle Times said it will lay off 17 employees at its flagship newspaper and make other cuts aimed at saving $21 million. Vice President Jill Mackie said the newspaper also will:
- Stop publishing a Sunday tabloid news section for Southeast King County readers launched last spring.
- Consolidate some weekday and Sunday features sections.
- Reduce the newspaper’s width by 1 inch in 2009 to save on newsprint.
In addition to the layoffs, Mackie said the newspaper plans to cut 69 more jobs through attrition. Fifty-five of those positions already are unfilled, she said. All but one of the 17 employees to be laid off work in circulation, Mackie said. Seven were let go in February; the rest will be laid off in July. No layoffs are scheduled in the newsroom. Mackie said more cuts could be necessary later in the year depending on several variables, including newsprint costs and staff turnover. The Times started the weekly Southeast King County section after the King County Journal, which had circulated in the area, shut down. The weekly is expected to stop publishing this spring. Mackie said the section was received well by readers, but given the paper’s economic circumstances, it couldn’t be sustained until profitability.

Herald-Republic closes bureau, trims staff to cut costs

The Yakima Herald-Republic laid off five employees, closed its Sunnyside bureau and eliminated its zoned weekly edition for the Lower Valley to trim expenses for 2008. The 38,000-circulation Herald-Republic will discontinue its weekly Lower Valley supplement, Voices of the Valley. The Herald-Republic will leave several open positions unfilled, including one news reporter job. It will revamp its Spanish-language weekly newspaper, El Sol de Yakima, partly by outsourcing some page production to Mexico. It will decrease the width of the newspaper from 12.5 inches to 11.5 inches. On top of that, Herald-Republic managers will face an increase in their health benefit costs, though unionized employees will not.

Columbian cuts 30 jobs, moves to new offices

The Columbian newspaper cut about 30 jobs from its 360-person work force, citing a weakened local economy. Nineteen employees were laid off at the Clark County daily. The remainder of the reductions will come from not filling vacant positions. Publisher Scott Campbell says the company has had trouble meeting revenue projections over the past year because some of its key advertisers are struggling. The Columbian is Washington’s sixth largest daily newspaper and is among the 10 percent of newspapers around the country that remain independently owned. Departing employees are being given a severance package and help finding other work. The Columbian left its home of 53 years in January, completing its transition into the digital age with the move into a new six-story building at 415 W. Sixth St. The newspaper’s printing press, still indispensable in the digital age, will remain at the paper’s old building two blocks away. But the new offices have all the latest technological advances to help collect, compile and share news. The paper had called the white, low-slung building at 701 W. Eighth St. home since Aug. 22, 1955. The paper is putting 22,000 square feet of that building up for lease.

Summer journalism workshop seeks applicants 
from Northwest

The University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media has extended its deadline for applications for a summer workshop for high school students until April 15. The eighth annual Scripps Howard Multicultural Journalism Workshop will be June 22-28, 2008, on the Moscow campus. Twenty high school students from around the Northwest will spend the week learning about the news business from professional journalists and university faculty. During their week on campus, participants will write newspaper stories, produce radio news reports, and conduct interviews for a television news program. The program targets students currently enrolled in grades 10 and 11 in high schools in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Graduating seniors who plan to attend the University of Idaho in Fall 2008 are also eligible. Students from groups traditionally under-represented in newsgathering professions, including members of Northwest Indian tribes, are especially encouraged to apply. The workshop is supported with a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation of Cincinnati, Ohio, with additional support from the Allied Daily Newspapers of Idaho. The grant provides scholarships to cover tuition, room and board for all workshop participants. Students must provide their own transportation to and from Moscow. Applications and additional information are available from the Journalism and Mass Media website. For more information, contact Kenton Bird at (208) 885-4947.

Apply now for NAA diversity fellowships

For 28 years, NAA has offered full-ride training and development fellowships to newspaper professionals of color in the areas of editing, business, leadership, design and production. For the second half of 2008, a new list of courses and programs is included. The fellowships, offered twice a year, cover tuition, lodging, airfare, meals and other necessary expenses for each program. There is NO cost to the fellowship winner or his/her company. Applicants do not have to work at NAA-member newspapers to qualify for fellowships. While the objective of the program is to help more people of color enter or advance in newspaper management, the program also helps newspapers augment their training budget and acts as a great retention tool for their best and brightest. NAA will offer 15 fellowships for classes taking place July-December 2008. Applications can be downloaded and completed in either MS Word or PDF formats. Click here, to download an application. Questions, problems, contact Angela Winters at (571) 366-1003. Completed applications must be mailed or faxed and must be received by April 30. Applications must include updated resumes and cannot be e-mailed.

Pacific Northwest community college 
newspapers dying out, paper reports

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that due to low budgets and a lack of interest, community college papers around the state of Washington are shutting down. North Seattle Community College’s late publication, The Polaris, like a handful of others before it, took a summertime break from publishing and never returned to news bins last September. And fewer community college newspapers could eventually mean fewer prepared transfer students at four-year schools, including the University of Washington. Read the full article here.

NNA: 83 percent of adults read America's community newspapers each week

In a follow-up to the National Newspaper Association’s 2005 research on readership patterns for community newspapers, NNA found that readership of community newspapers increased slightly (from 81 percent in 2005 to 83 percent in 2007). This is in stark contrast to news reports purporting to chronicle the decline, if not demise, of newspapers. NNA is making plans and seeking funding to update the research annually, according to NNA Executive Director Brian Steffens. Results of a 2008 update are expected to be unveiled in September during the Missouri School of Journalism’s Centennial celebration. Read more here.

AJR: Why major news outlets are giving 
up on charging for online content

Barb Palser, director of digital media for McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Co., writes that the most common reason for dropping the pay wall is that an ad-supported model simply pays better. At the end of its two-year run, TimesSelect had 227,000 paying subscribers and was generating $10 million a year in revenue. According to comScore, which measures Internet data, NYTimes.com’s total page views surged 52 percent from the end of August through the end of October; unique visitors jumped 64 percent. Likewise, CNN.com portrayed the end of Pipeline not as a failure but an evolution. In a June 25 note to subscribers, the site’s management explained that “it became clear to us that reaching true scale was going to be impossible if the product remained a pay service.” Subscribers were promised that CNN’s new free video service would be even better than Pipeline. Read the full article here.

Five ways to cut costs and eight trends 
to watch in '08

The Newspaper Association of America reports in its Presstime magazine that by cutting back on consumables and maintaining existing equipment, operations departments at newspapers can reduce costs. The rising price of consumables, particularly newsprint and ink, has put more pressure on production departments to cut costs. Click here for five ways that newspapers’ operations departments can cut costs while maintaining quality in 2008. NAA also reported on “Eight Trends to Track in ’08” from measuring total audience to hyperlocal news coverage.

PEOPLE:

Dickey to succeed Gannett's Clark-Johnson when she retires in May

Sue Clark-Johnson, president of Gannett’s Newspaper Division, which includes the Statesman-Journal in Salem and the Great Falls Tribune, announced she will retire in May after 40 years as a reporter, editor, publisher and senior executive. Robert J. Dickey will succeed Clark-Johnson. Dickey was previously a senior group president of Gannett’s Pacific Group and chairman of Phoenix Newspapers, Inc. Dickey started his newspaper career in 1981 at The Daily Tidings in Ashland, Ore. He joined Gannett in 1989 as manager of retail advertising and director of advertising at the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal. He became president and publisher of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., eventually adding group vice president to his title. In 2005 he was appointed senior group president of the Pacific Group. Clark-Johnson has been president of the Newspaper Division, the largest by circulation in the nation, since September 2005. Prior to that, she was chairman and CEO of Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., which publishes The Arizona Republic, and senior group president of Gannett’s Pacific Newspaper Group. Clark-Johnson began her career as women’s editor and family news reporter for the Press & Sun Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y., eventually rising to the publisher role after several years at the Niagara Gazette in Niagara Falls, N.Y. From Binghamton, she was promoted to senior group president/Pacific Group, and president and publisher of the Reno Gazette-Journal. Clark-Johnson’s term as president of the Newspaper Association of America ends in April. Gannett is renaming its newspaper division as U.S. Community Publishing. Clark-Johnson will serve as chair of the newly named group. 

Wiens begins duties as Daily Triplicate editor

The Daily Triplicate in Crescent City, Calif. last month hired Richard Wiens as its new editor. Wiens, who grew up in Salem, Ore., had been deputy city editor at The Gazette in Colorado Springs since 2004. Wiens graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1979. His first job as a reporter at the Hillsboro Argus in Hillsboro, Ore., had him covering everything from city government to the police. He became managing editor there in 1983. After seven years with The Argus, he took a job with the Daily News-Los Angeles, starting as a copy editor and left as assistant news editor. His longest newspaper stint was at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, where he worked for 14 years. There he moved from the copy desk to assistant city editor and coordinated coverage of local and state government and politics.

CALL TO READERS : Send stories to the editor Kristen Lowrey.

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