PNNA Daily Connection progress report
On June 1 last year, PNNA began selling classified ads into the newly created PNNA Daily Connection. Sales into the network are averaging more than $5,000 per month for the first nine months or a projected $60,000 for the year. These funds will allow the board of directors to fund additional staff training, college and university grants and any other funding requests deemed beneficial to the membership at large. Currently half of the member newspapers run the Daily Connection ads. If more papers signed up, the rate could be raised and more profit would flow to the association. If your newspaper is not involved, please contact Jack Bates at (888) 344-7662 to learn about the network and how to join.

PNNA NIE Conference will be July 17-18
Newspaper in Education professionals have announced plans for the 2008 PNNA NIE Conference, July 17-18 at The Gibson House Event Center in Centralia, WA. The conference will begin at 1 p.m. on July 17 and conclude at noon on July 18. The registration fee of $25 per person will include all conference materials and the following meals: afternoon refreshments, buffet dinner and continental breakfast. A special room rate is being finalized at a nearby conference hotel. The agenda and registration details are being finalized by the conference co-chairs: Paul Crowner, The Chronicle, Centralia, WA; Jim Henderson, The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA; and Eileen Woods, Skagit Valley Herald, Mount Vernon, WA.

PNNA Board to meet May 9 via conference call
The PNNA board of directors will meet via conference call from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, May 9. Among the agenda items are discussion of the program for PNNA’s 88th annual meeting, scheduled for Sept. 10-12 in Portland. The agenda and supporting materials have been mailed to board members.

Reminder: Annual PNNA meeting Sept. 10-12
Mark your calendar for the 88th annual PNNA meeting 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.

Blethen, Connelly award details in mail
Watch your mailboxes, PNNA members, for information on two journalism contests.
The first is the annual C. B. Blethen memorial awards, created in 1977 in honor of C. B. Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times from 1915 until 1941. Newspapers must be members of PNNA to enter. Entries may be single stories or series with two circulation divisions, under 50,000 circulation and more than 50,000 circulation. First and second place awards in each circulation division are given for Coverage of Diversity, Deadline Reporting, Enterprise Reporting, Feature Reporting and Investigative Reporting. Also included in this contest is the Debby Lowman Award for distinguished reporting of consumer affairs. First place awards in each category earn a $500 prize and second place earn a $250 prize.
The second is the Dolly Connelly Award. This annual competition is named in honor of the mother of Joel Connelly, columnist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Those at medium- and small-size dailies will be encouraged by the rule that PNNA’s three largest dailies are ineligible. Entries are not accepted from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Times or The Oregonian.
Newspapers must be members of PNNA to enter the contest. Entries may be single stories or a series. First place earns $750 prize (a second place award of $250 may be given at the judges’ discretion).
Last years Dolly Connelly Award winners were:
First Place: The Daily Astorian for its series of articles on how global warming stands to impact the Pacific Northwest and its living creatures – two-legged, four-legged and those with wings and fins.
Second Place: The News Tribune in Tacoma for a series of articles by Susan Gordon. The lead piece was “Breathing in a Problem: Tacoma on Pace to Violate Revised Federal Standards for Air Quality.

Second Payne Award for Spokesman-Review
The Spokesman-Review will receive its second Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism on Thursday May 8 at the University of Oregon. The Spokane newspaper wins for initiating and publishing an independent audit by the Washington News Council of 10 years of the paper’s coverage and role in a controversial local redevelopment project. “A newspaper publisher is a major institution in a community — sometimes having other interests,” judges wrote. “To open up the paper to an objective analysis of that coverage and to publish without fear or favor what they found is courageous; the level of independence and control they were willing to give up is significant; and having an organization such as a news council investigate is unprecedented.” The Spokesman-Review won in 2005 for its work during the investigation of Mayor Jim West. The Payne Awards, billed as the only university-based awards in the United States dedicated specifically to journalism ethics, “honor the journalist of integrity and character who reports with insight and clarity in the face of political or economic pressures and to reward performance that inspires public trust in the media.”

Deseret News drops ‘Morning’ from flag
In April, The Deseret Morning News dropped the word ‘Morning’ from its name, noting that in a world of 24-7 news updates happen morning, noon and night. “Since our founding in 1850, this newspaper has been known as the Deseret Semi-Weekly News, the Deseret Evening News and the Deseret News & Salt Lake Telegram,” an item read. “Yet to many over the past few years, in casual conversation and among newscasters referring to our stories, we've always been simply the Deseret News — or the News.”

Only 25 percent see Web ads 'below the fold'
Mediapost.com reports that the Warren, R.I.-based new marketing research and consulting firm MarketingSherpa commissioned Eyetools to run an eye-tracking study in February with the goal of finding out how and whether on-page Web ad placement affected overall calculations of return on investment and return on ad spend (ROI and ROAS). The study found that while an ad placed above the fold is visible to 100 percent of site visitors, only about 60 percent of them actually see it. At best, below-the-fold units are visible to roughly 70 percent of viewers, but only about a quarter of them actually see the ads. The ratios continue to trend downward as the ad units move from center placements to columns and spots on the far left side of the page. Read more about the study here.

Commission to study whether people are getting the local news they need
The Associated Press reports that as people turn increasingly to the Internet for their news, there is concern whether they are learning enough about what goes on in their communities. With “the thinning down of newspapers and local television in America, there is measurably less local, civic information available,” said Alberto Ibarguen, president and chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  “So what are the consequences of that?” The foundation and the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, hope to find out. They are setting up a commission, funded by the foundation, to analyze whether people are getting the local news they need to make decisions in their communities. The panel will make recommendations that might include actions by the Federal Communications Commission or tax policies aimed at helping communities better meet their information needs, said Ibarguen, former publisher of The Miami Herald.

NAA Foundation study: Positive link between high school journalism programs and academic performance
A Newspaper Association of America Foundation study  found that high school journalism programs have a positive impact on standardized test performance, and high school and college GPAs. High school students who participate in school journalism programs earn significantly higher grade point averages, score better on college entrance exams and demonstrate better writing and grammar skills in college compared with students who had no involvement with their school’s newspaper or yearbook, according to a study of more than 31,000 students released by the NAA Foundation. The research, “High School Journalism Matters,” confirms findings from a study conducted by the Journalism Education Association and ACT in 1987, which also showed positive academic performance among students involved in journalism programs. In both the 1987 and 2008 studies, students with journalism experience had higher scores than non-journalism students in these areas: High school overall grade point average, ACT Composite score, ACT English, college freshman GPA and college freshman first English course grade. Of the 31,175 respondents in the study, nearly 20 percent or 6,137 students – were on the staff of their high school newspaper or their high school yearbook.

Salt Lake Tribune work wins IRE prize
Loretta Tofani, a freelance reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, earned a watchdog journalism award from Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. for “American Imports, Chinese Deaths.” “This ambitious project shows that the mundane creature comforts of American lives have debilitating and sometimes deadly consequences for the people of China who make them,” the judges said. “The project takes readers to plants where young workers touch and inhale carcinogens without gloves, masks or proper ventilation. Freelance reporter Tofani exposes the abuse of Chinese workers while American industry conveniently fails to discover bogus safety audits and fake record keeping.”

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