new york times upgrades press · 13 hours ago · foot plant was ready, the press would be...

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New York Times upgrades press

Charleston Post and Courier increasing press automation

u by Tara McMeekin Contributing Writer

u by Tara McMeekin Contributing Writer

Nearly eight years after it first began investigating closed-loop color control, The New York Times has embarked on major press upgrades to deploy the technology.

The publisher inked a deal with Netherlands-based Q.I. Press Controls-EAE in May to supply 64 IDS 3-D cameras to improve color and registration control across seven Goss Col-orliner presses at its College Point production plant. The plant houses seven press folders and includes the Colorliner 85 the publisher installed in 2008. That press has 12 color towers and two folders, which NYT runs as two presses.

“The install is scheduled to begin at the end of September,” NYT’s Vice President of Production Nick D’Andrea told News & Tech. “The first press is slated to be available by the end of October, with one being

brought up every four to six weeks after that.”

NYT first began looking into the benefits of closed-loop at drupa in 2012. At that time, dampening control — something NYT wanted to implement — wasn’t prevalent in the technol-ogy, D’Andrea recalled.

When the publisher resumed its search, it challenged several suppliers to find the right solu-tion for its unique needs. Having supplied an IRS system to NYT in 2006, QIPC was a logical choice to throw its hat in the ring.

“After extensive analysis and investigation, we decided that QIPC’s single-camera option was the best fit for us,” said Todd So-cia, senior vice president of print products and services for NYT.

“Doing it all on one camera was simpler from an installation and mainte-nance standpoint, and we felt it would ultimately offer us a lower total cost

The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, is ramping up for a major controls system upgrade. The publisher in August signed a deal with DCOS Automation to re-place existing press registration system on its

two Goss Metroliner double-width presses. The project, set to kick off at the end of the

year, will span 108 Goss digital page packs and include ink presets and a new closed-loop color registration and ink density sys-

tem.“We will be the first to install

this system on double-width press in the United States,” Se-nior Pressroom Manager Sidney Stover told News & Tech.

The publisher prints over 32,000 copies of the flagship daily and 39,000 on Sunday, as well as a stable of commercial jobs, including monthly, bi-

monthly and weekly publications.“We currently split things up between the

two presses, which are housed in separate rooms in the building, but mirror one another from a production perspective,” Stover said.

Each of the Metro presses features 10 units and a double-out folder.

The Post and Courier began looking at new technologies at the Metro Production Confer-technologies at the Metro Production Confer-technologies at the Metro Production Conference in 2018, an industry conference Stover said he finds very valuable. But the publisher began more earnestly seeking a replacement after its existing system, installed in 2006, failed at the end of 2019. That failure left the press crew without ink presetting capabilities for two weeks.

new york Times continues on page 6

The Post and courier continues on page 5continues on page 5

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Left to right: Bruce Barna, vice president of sales and marketing, The Siebold Co.; Erwin van Rossem, director of global sales and marketing for QIPC-EAE; Nick D'Andrea, vice president of production for NYT; Ronald Reedijk, former managing director of QIPC-EAE Americas (retired); Todd Socia, senior vice president of print products and services for NYT; Michael Connors, managing director of production for NYT; and Richard Palmer, senior vice president, The Siebold Co.

Turn to page 26 for expanded industry coverage

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2 t September/October 2020 News & Tech

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ABB’s retrofit solutions for newspaper presses will extend the productive life of your press, improve print quality, reduce waste and improve efficiency — for a fraction of the cost of a new press. Worried about the availability of spare parts for your existing controls? With an ABB retrofit you know that spares will be available worldwide for ten to fifteen years. Whether looking for replacement drives, new controls, conversion to shaftless or a complete press reconfiguration, ABB has the right solution for you. The key to the future of your printing business lies with ABB. www.abb.com/printing

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— Let’s write the future. With retrofit solutions that give your press another ten years of life.

ABB’s retrofit solutions for newspaper presses will extend the productive life of your press, improve print quality, reduce waste and improve efficiency — for a fraction of the cost of a new press. Worried about the availability of spare parts for your existing controls? With an ABB retrofit you know that spares will be available worldwide for ten to fifteen years. Whether looking for replacement drives, new controls, conversion to shaftless or a complete press reconfiguration, ABB has the right solution for you. The key to the future of your printing business lies with ABB. www.abb.com/printing

ABB-Ad_Newsandtech_228x276_a.indd 1 21.07.2017 07:51:57

Delta Print works with imPRESSions on consolidation

California-based Delta Print Group has consolidated its print op-erations by merging five print companies under one roof. imPRES-Sions Worldwide helped in the effort with the relocation of two of the company’s presses. imPRESSions undertook the dismantling of a Goss Community SSC and a Heidelberg Harris V-25 pressline and moved both to Delta Print’s new plant in Natomas, California.

imPRESSions had supplied and installed the 5-unit Goss Community press in a Sacramento facility of the company in 2019 to accommodate continued growth. It was anticipated that once the new 130,000-square-foot plant was ready, the press would be relocated to the new facility. Plans were also underway to relocate the 6-unit Heidelberg Harris V-25 press once the SSC press was up and running. The relocation and the installation of both presses were completed in two months.

By August, the plant will be staffed to run 24 hours a day, accord-ing to imPRESSions.

Signature Offset uses NewsXtreme Cloud

Signature Offset will deploy NewsXtreme Cloud services for their print production, Ohio-based software developer Presteligence said in a press release.

More than 14,000 plates per month will be produced through the workflow as part of a Southern Lithoplate plate deal.

NewsXtreme Cloud includes PDF preflight with automated correc-tion, page pairing and imposition, load-balanced rips, ink optimiza-tion and a portal for commercial clients to upload and proof jobs. These add-ons are built into NewsXtreme Cloud, the company says.

Signature Offset production centers in Colorado and Mississippi will access the hosted NewsXtreme Cloud system from anywhere, on any device with an internet browser, the release said.

Tribune Publishing to use WaPo’s Zeus

Zeus Technology, a revenue platform from The Washington Post, will license Zeus Performance to Tribune Publishing in eight media markets, according to the Post.

“This agreement continues a period of tremendous growth for Zeus which will now power adtech for nearly 70 sites in the U.S.,” said a press release from the Post.

“Zeus now powers over 3 billion impressions monthly, offering publishers the ability to drive better performance and higher revenue through a modernized advertising framework,” said Jarrod Dicker, VP of commercial technology at the Post and GM of Zeus.

Tribune migrated to the Post’s Arc Publishing platform beginning in 2017.

Zeus Performance is one of three monetization tools built in-house by the Post that comprise the Zeus Technology Suite.

Adams Publishing goes with Memoriams

Adams Publishing Group is going with Memoriams for obituary self-serve across all properties, said a press release from Adpay | Memoriams.

Memoriams, by Ancestry, is an obituary self-serve network solu-tion for funeral homes and private party individuals. It provides the ability with a single order to place an obituary locally and then into over 3,400 media properties around North America. APG already used Memoriams for a number of their western region properties, the release says.

APG switched to Memoriams from another vendor platform.Webinar trainings are scheduled to manage seamless transitions

for funeral directors and the newspaper teams. On-site trainings will occur when COVID-19 allows.

Ancestry is Memoriams parent company and Memoriams is a sub-sidiary of Adpay, a provider of online solutions to the media industry. Adpay customers include Advance Digital, AIM Media, Gatehouse Media, Lee Enterprises, The Dallas Morning News, Black Press, Eve-ning Post Industries, Tampa Bay Times and The Wall Street Journal.

America’s Newspapers launches print advertising network

America’s Newspapers has launched a national print advertising network.

Newspapers from across the country have united to support Amer-ica’s Newspapers through their donation of ROP advertising space, according to the organization. More than 720 papers have contrib-uted to the effort, says the group.

“This program creates a great opportunity for advertisers to reach a premium audience at an attractive CPM rate,” said a press release on the effort.

Florida-based Intersect Media has been chosen as the agency to manage the program, but any member of America’s Newspapers with a national sales force can sell the two quarter-page ads, “helping to support America’s Newspapers and earning a nice commission as well,” says the release.

For advertisers, this is an opportunity to reach more than 6 million readers, says the release. America’s Newspapers and its partners will place the ads across the entire network.

America’s Newspapers says it has approximately 1,500 newspaper and associate member companies. The organization is incorporated in the District of Columbia and its staff works remotely. Its mailing address is in Georgia.


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September/October 2020

The New York Times press room, 1942.

New YOrk TImeS uPGrAdeS PreSS 1 ChArleSTON POST ANd COurIer INCreASING PreSS AuTOmATION 1 AlPhA GrOuP’S TOP dOG TAlkS SubTexT 8

VeNdOrS AdAPT SAleS, SerVICe IN The TIme OF COVId-19 10 ClArITY medIA lAuNCheS deNVer GAZeTTe 13 edeN PrAIrIe CITIZeNS GO TheIr OwN wAY 15 TAlkdeSk helPS TImeS uNION wOrk OFFSITe 16 uPdATeS: FTI FOreCAST ANd jOurNAlISm bIllS 18 The mATChuP: A 'bIG IdeA' FrOm The lmC 20 FACTS Are IN 22

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REMOTEINK CONTROL

“Instead of it taking 20 seconds for makeready and preset values for page packs, we were looking at 30-40 minutes to manually preset values on those,” Stover recalled.

Although the IT department was able to restore the system after two weeks, Stover said it quickly be-came apparent that it would be a matter of time before it would fail irreparably.

AutomationThe Pulitzer-winning Post and Courier holds itself to a high stan-dard of quality for its own readers as well as its commercial custom-ers. To that end, the publisher is looking forward to increased ef-ficiencies in productivity, reduced consumables, reduced waste and faster start-up times.

The camera-based DCOS sys-tem will completely automate a majority of ink presetting and quality control adjustments on the press.

“Not only does it give us ink

presets but the camera reads and adjusts ink densities and also en-sures accurate registration,” Stover said.

Once underway, the install is slated to take three weeks, includ-ing bringing up the mix of software and hardware programs that make up the system.

“Overall, we’re excited about the increased consistency, reliabil-ity and support we’ll be getting,” Stover said. “And I’m excited to have new hardware and software that is non-proprietary and avail-able off the shelf.”

For DCOS’s part the vendor is happy to be able to demonstrate its capabilities to U.S. publishers to help them deliver increased print quality with lower waste.

“While the more traditional ‘old-school Goss Metro’ base is shrinking somewhat over the last few years, there are still quite a few out there than can benefit from our upgrade,” said Ron Eh-rhardt, DCOS North American sales director. p

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The Post and courier from page 1

Ron Ehrhardt, North American sales director for DCoS, and Sidney Stover, senior pressroom manager for The Post and Courier.

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of ownership.”In addition to closed-loop control, the project

includes dampening control and enhanced print default detection. The latter was also key for NYT, and QIPC’s tools for print defect detection and keeping press cameras clean stood out.

“We have a big pressroom with lots of cam-eras, so keeping the optics clean was important to us,” Socia said.

QIPC worked closely with NYT to develop its enhanced print defect detection tool, which the publisher will be the first to deploy.

“If you look at closed-loop systems, you don’t need to measure the color bar,” said Erwin van Ros-sem, director of global sales and marketing for QIPC. “With closed-loop color in place, NYT doesn’t need to sample as many papers, so their print default de-tection system has to be as good as possible.”

The project also calls for ink pre-setting and updates to NYT’s existing intelligent quality man-agement tool.

Innovation keyD’Andrea and Socia cite QIPC’s willingness to innovate and evolve with NYT as an integral part of the vendor winning the contract.

“We narrowed the decision based on the needs we talked about with QIPC,” D’Andrea said. “They’ve been innovative, they’ve solutioned ev-erything we’ve asked for and they’ve committed to evolve with us.”

QIPC has provided countless closed-loop sys-tems to newspapers, although NYT is among its first major U.S. installations. U.S. newspapers have been slower to adopt the technology than their European counterparts.

“Seventy percent of our business comes from closed-loop color control systems for newspa-pers, but the majority of those are in Europe,” van Rossem said.

Ramping up speedIncreased automation has been a focus for NYT for many years. In addition to its iconic flagship daily, NYT prints USA Today and Newsday on its six Goss Colorliner presses. D’Andrea said he is excited about the competitive edge these up-grades will provide, including waste reduction, improved quality and improved speed.

“When you look at these systems, you see how many moves you have to make manually, and how quickly you have to make them — you couldn’t have enough people or consoles to do this as fast as these systems do,” he said. “We will benefit from the speed of the corrections, the tolerance it maintains, and the defect detection capabilities.”

QIPC said the project will be an important ex-ample of the benefits that can be realized with automation for the 27 outside markets in which NYT is printed.

RolloutBecause of the size of the pressroom, a press-by-press rollout made the most sense, according to Socia.

“The plan is to install and then go through testing and acceptance before moving on to the next press,” he added. “The first one will take a little longer, but we expect to pick up speed as we go.”

QIPC staff will remain onsite through accep-tance. While NYT crews are already familiar with QIPC’s registration system, the vendor will work with staff to train superusers around the plant.

“We’ll do this as each press is installed,” D’Andrea said. “From what we’ve seen and heard, we really need to train them to become more hands-off and let this technology do its job.”

NYT has already performed some print tests with the new technology and the results were im-pressive, according to both publisher and vendor. Among those test runs, NYT took its opportunity to share its print following the United States’ win over the Netherlands in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer tournament.

“This is an iconic paper and QIPC is proud to have gotten this contract,” van Rossem said. “They challenged us to the max and as a result, I think NYT will be the best printer in the New York area in terms of quality and consistency.”

The publisher anticipates the project will be complete by the end of Q1 in 2021.

“I’m excited about the quality, and operational efficiencies this project will afford us,” Socia said. p

new york Times from page 1

The New York Times production facility in College Point.

The New York Times has printed some test editions with the QIPC technology, including this front page following the U.S. victory in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer tournament.

www.newsandtech.com


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Alpha Group, an in-house tech incuba-tor for Advance Local, has launched a text campaign on schools reopening for nj.com, using Subtext, one of Alpha’s MVPs. MVPs are minimum viable products, products that are designed to be used as tests of technol-ogy in the marketplace.

Advance Local describes itself as the ninth-largest news organization in the U.S., with titles such as cleveland.com, masslive, mlive (Michigan) and nj.com.

Alpha Group founder/leader Mike Dono-ghue took some time to explain to News & Tech what the New York-based incubator is up to.

“Our goal here is to look broadly at the tech and media space and determine what are some of the opportunities. What are some of the underserved areas that we think we can operate in?” he said. Alpha Group begins to build out products that gain trac-tion as businesses unto themselves.

Among the products the team of four at Alpha Group have produced are The Tylt (social polling and opinion platform), Else-where (creates videos and gives users tools to personalize them) and Pigeon, a chat-bot.

The group works with Newsday, Gannett, Tribune, Hearst, McClatchy and BuzzFeed, among others, says Donoghue. On deck for Alpha Group are partnerships with a large national radio chain, with columnists at a major magazine franchise and other soon-to-announce partnerships, says Donoghue.

The group also works with creators. “Peo-ple who are really influential on certain social media platforms, for example, who want to be able to make a more intimate connection with their audience” and in ef-fect “own that relationship as opposed to renting it from Instagram, Facebook, Twit-ter or TikTok.” In that space, the company works with global talent network Studio71.

One-on-oneSubtext, Alpha’s flagship offering, involves a widget that media companies can use to build up a subscriber base for text messag-ing. The companies can share a link to the signup widget on social media, on article pages or with their digital subscription plat-form or they can provide the signup info in print.

A lot of clients use Subtext as a reten-

tion tool for print and digital subscriptions, says Donoghue. Clients do paid standalone campaigns as well. “Think of it as kind of the inside track to the journalist for the sub-ject matter that you really, really love,” such as politics or sports, he says. Users pay a fee for this access and Alpha Group works on a shared revenue model in that case.

From the journalist side, “This could be your take on breaking news, you could be covering a live event, or this could be you behind the scenes in a locker room giving a first-person account of something you're seeing or something you're hearing, and that would go to all of your Subtext sub-scribers,” he says. Those subscribers can then reply to the journalist, establishing a one-on-one link for the journalist or media company.

Donoghue says he saw this use a lot with the coronavirus, because subscribers had more questions than answers.

“Our mission and the way that the plat-form is built is to facilitate meaningful bi-lateral communication, not just spamming people with m a r k e t i n g messages via text,” he says. He says Alpha Group doesn’t collect, sell or exchange per-sonal informa-tion from the platform. p

Alpha Group’s top dog talks Subtextu neWS & Tech Staff report

Advance invests in Ironman Group, HawkEye 360 Advance has been doing some interesting things recently. • Advance bought The Ironman Group from Wanda Sports Group, completing the purchase in July. The transaction was first announced in March. Orkila Capital, an equity firm focused on the media, entertainment and consumer sectors, partnered with Advance as a co-investor in the transaction. The Ironman Group operates a portfolio that includes the Ironman Triathlon Series, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, mountain bike races, road cycling events and other races. New York-based Orkila Capital was formed in 2013 by Jesse Du Bey and Taylor Storms.• In late 2019, Advance became the largest shareholder in HawkEye 360, the first commer-shareholder in HawkEye 360, the first commer-shareholder in HawkEye 360, the first commercial company to use formation flying satellites to create a new class of radio frequency data analytics, says Advance.

Alpha Group founder/leader Mike Donoghue

Screenshot of an article from cleveland.com Editor Chris Quinn that discusses that outlet’s use of Subtext. Text sample from P. Kim Bui, Arizona Republic director

of audience innovation.

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2007 ‘IDS works’

As pioneers in closing the loop with respect to color control in newsprint, we made a “true colors” song back in 2006. At the same time we started wearing our white suits to make everyone aware that our technology didn’t make use of any reference patches.

QIPC aquires its largest order for closed loop color control in the USA. 64 IDS-3D camera’s to control color, register and damp.

Making the world better with true colors .... less ink, less paper waste, less energy use...... better quality newspaper..... the closed-loop story so far...... Q.I. Press Controls.

Global premiere: Introducing Damp control.

With the “I AM…” concept, also SID got a new look.

Introduction of Smart Pre-setting for even lower waste.

Introduction of SID, representing the consistent color reproduction by the new IDS closed loop color control system.

In 2007 we launched our “IDS works” campaign to show the world that our unequalled closed loop technology actually worked.

Combining two technologies: IDS and EAE-Loop resulting in IDS-3D. Integration of register, color, damp control and fault detection in one single camera.

True colors …. The story so far…

2013 Story so far..Sold over 400 systems worldwide.

Sold over 1500 systems worldwide.

Fact is that the first customer who bought the system is actually still using it after 16 years on a daily basis and since then we have sold over 1650 systems in more than 30 countries all over the world and counting…

The Enhanced Print Fault Detection is able to scan 100% of the image during production. Meaning no defect will stay undetected.

2006 ‘True colors’

2004 SID

2008 I AM…SID

2014 IDS-3D: all in one

2020 Largest order IDS-3D in USA

2018 Smart presetting

2012 Damp control

2019 Story so far..

2020 100% defect detection

2020 Present Day

www.qipc.com

www.newsandtech.com


like every other business, the newspaper industry has been signifi-cantly impacted by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. As a result, publish-ers have put cloud-enabled technologies to work to take operations remote where possible. They’ve also worked to mitigate risk to essential employees, including pressroom and mailroom staffers who need to be on site to print and distribute their products.

Vendors that serve newspapers have also been forced to pivot operations. With tradeshows canceled and on-site visits coming to a halt, they’re find-ing new ways to interact with current newspaper customers and court new ones.

“We’ve adapted and found new ways to communicate,” Ron Sams, vice president of North American sales for manroland Goss web systems Ameri-cas’ newspaper and packaging division, told News & Tech.

Still, with challenging ad revenues and publications continuing to con-solidate and merge, vendors are certainly impacted.

“COVID-19 certainly hasn’t helped the industry, and the opportunities for big equipment sales have decreased,” Sams said.

Instead, many equipment vendors are seizing opportunities to refurbish or

relocate equipment. For MGWS’ part, the vendor has shifted focus to helping newspapers automate and improve operations. That includes solutioning aftermarket products and services to extend equipment life and maximize performance. MGWS is also capitalizing on its packaging segment to grow business during the pandemic.

Taking a different approachAlthough customer interactions look different after the arrival of COVID-19, there are positive byproducts. Meetings that previously required a team visit-ing customer sites for several days, for example, have transitioned to virtual encounters.

“That process worked,” Sams said. “But we’ve found that we can bring a lot of people and expertise together in fewer meetings, thanks to virtual platforms.”

Customers are stretched more thinly as they juggle shifting parenting and at-home learning responsibilities, and many appreciate the increased access to information and expertise in less time.

Vendors adapt sales, service in the time of COVID-19 u by Tara McMeekin Contributing Writer

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Manroland Goss Web Systems launched its Maintellisense virtual, real-time press support and maintenance application earlier this year.

KBA’s Visual PressSupport allows press operators and service techni-cians to work in real time with specialists to identify and solve press maintenance issues.

Koenig & Bauer and Muller Martini are among vendors focusing on remote-based solutions to serve customers’ equipment maintenance needs amid in-person restric-tions resulting from COVID-19.

KBA launched Visual PressSupport, an app-based video streaming service that enables press operators to send live video from a mobile device to a hotline technician for remote maintenance. Hotline techs can see exactly what the press operator or service technician sees.

Both parties can mark up still images in real time to help operators carry out function checks or required settings adjustments. Operators and techs can also share images from their mobile device to capture sporadic

press behaviors that aren’t captured live.

Only data that has been shared can be seen to maintain data security, KBA said.

Muller Martini, meantime, is touting es-tablished Remote Support Services and MMRemote live support to customers with active service contracts. Both are available 24/7 to enable communication and knowl-edge sharing in order to expedite solutions that would be significantly delayed waiting for in-person service.

MMRemote provides high-speed, web-based machine connectivity, allowing service engineers to remotely view equip-ment in real time and see exactly what an equipment operator is seeing.

KBA, Muller Martini tout no-contact service solutions

Vendors adapting continues on page 17

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even as so-called “news deserts” appear across America, millionaires are investing in new and existing newspapers. One investor even says there is now a “new path forward” for community newspapers.

In Colorado, Clarity Media, owned by billion-aire Phil Anschutz, announced that it is starting the Denver Gazette in mid-September to compete directly with the resource-strapped Denver Post, which is owned by the budget-scrimping New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

In Arkansas, Walter Hussman’s WEHCO Newspapers, Inc. expanded its reach in late August by buying the Pine Bluff Commercial from Gannet, a heavily leveraged newspaper group that has drastically cut newsroom staffs.

Hussman believes eliminating printing and distribution costs will make his company — headlined by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — profitable while maintaining a fully staffed newsroom.

In Denver, the Gazette, slated to begin publishing in mid-September, will be 100 percent digital.

“We’ve long considered publishing a Denver newspaper,” said Clarity CEO Ryan McKibben. “Timing and marketing dynamics (are) aligned.”

The dynamics include Alden reducing the Post editorial staff (down from some 350 newsroom staffers in its heyday to some 60 today), abandoning its downtown Denver office, and shrinking the size, frequency and coverage area. It still claims to be the “Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire,” but the Post’s reach has greatly diminished.

Anschutz — who made millions in oil and transportation — bought the Colorado Springs Gazette in 2012. He also bought the name rights, intel-lectual property rights and archives of the Rocky Mountain News, which was shuttered in 2009.

Anschutz, who also owns the conservative Washington Examiner, has mag-nified conservative voices in Colorado, which has moved from a traditional Republican state to a Democratic-run state government.

While conservative on its editorial pages, the Gazette says it plans to have down-the-middle news coverage.

“We see ourselves as presenting a news alternative for all consumers in Denver,” Gazette Publisher Chris Reen said in an article published in the Colorado Springs Gazette. “We’re focused on fact-based, straight, balanced, non-agenda driven news, which is more important now than ever.”

In Arkansas, Hussman has said his move to almost 100 percent digital was necessary for the survival of his newspapers. He said the model of continually cutting staff and other expenses won’t work. Besides, he said he’s not inter-ested in publishing “lousy newspapers.”

Quality matters, Hussman says, and is necessary for long-term survival.In October, Hussman will convert the Pine Bluff Commercial to a replica

e-edition six days a week, with a Sunday print product delivered in tandem with the Democrat-Gazette. Hussman is using the same formula for his news-papers in Northwest Arkansas and in El Dorado.

“What we’re doing here … is really unique in American newspaper pub-lishing,” Hussman said. “If this works in Pine bluff, this is going to be great for community journalism in America because it’s going to show a model and a path forward for other newspapers to be sustainable and survivable.”

If this is a path forward, as Hussman suggests, how can others follow it? There definitely is a need.Some 2,100 newspapers have folded since 2004. Pew Research estimates

overall newsroom employment in the U.S. dropped by 23 percent from 2008 to 2019.

The trend to cut newsrooms has continued even as demand for local news

has surged — page views have often doubled — in this virus-dominated year.

The economics seem logical: Demand for news is up, but supply is down. A vacuum exists to be filled.

So — you ask — how can a “news desert” be turned into an oasis?There are reasons so many newspapers went out of business.A huge problem is the death of local retailers caused by on-line ordering.

COVID-19 has crippled or killed others. Many remaining businesses have switched their ad spending from local

media to Facebook, Google and Amazon.In too many markets the news “habit” has been kicked as consumers think

they can rely on social media for their news, information and marketing.So, you ask, what would I do if I was thinking about starting a news organi-

zation in a so-called “news desert,” which could be defined as a market with-out a news outlet or a market greatly underserved by a downsized newsroom, or “ghost newspaper.”

Relying on my experience of editing and publishing a small weekly news-paper and traveling the country for many years to convince publishers to move to digital products, here are my suggestions for anyone who wants to start a news organization:

1. Find a good market — preferably one that you know and are known favorably in. Make certain there is a demand for a product among potential subscribers. Make certain there is the prospect of a decent amount of local advertising. Locally owned banks and credit unions, grocery stores and other retailers who can make local ad-buying decisions.

2. Have a solid business plan. Have realistic revenue projections and know your costs.

3. Minimize or eliminate debt. Find local investors who can help you estab-lish financial staying power while giving you credibility in the market. This, also, will make it easier for you to sleep more soundly at night. (How much financing do you need? I’d suggest six months of operating capital based on a good business plan.)

4. Find a market that’s in love with its high school (and possibly college) sports programs. Local sports coverage will attract subscribers and advertisers.

5. Understand the media landscape. Is the market really a “news desert,” or is it well-served by nearby newspapers, radio or TV stations?

6. Be heavily involved in the market, meaning joining service clubs and the chamber of commerce. Plan to promote local events.

7. Keep overhead as low as possible. Concentrate on news and sports cov-erage, and ad and subscription sales. Outsource production (page layout, printing, HR, bookkeeping, etc. to companies that can perform these opera-tions less expensively than you can.)

8. Think digital first because online is cheaper to deliver and because this is the part of the market that is growing the fastest. This is the lesson Hussman is preaching.

9. I’d limit print to once or twice a week (if at all), depending on advertiser demand (especially if there’s a chance you can attract pre-print advertising). Print has advantages, but it is slower and costlier to produce. Print will give you credibility, but also increase overhead.

10. Prepare to be a workaholic If you want to be the go-to source for news and information in your market, there’s no taking time off when news hap-pens. To be successful, be prepared for a long grind that might not pay well, at least early on.

Good luck. Remember always: Free advice can be over-priced! p

News and Tech Columnist Marc Wilson is founder and chairman emeritus of TownNews. He was a reporter for three daily newspapers and five bureaus of The Associated Press. He edited and published the 1,950-circulation Bigfork (Montana) Eagle for 14 years.

Is there a ‘new path forward’ for newspapers?u by Marc WiLSOn ColumniSt

MArc... My words


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Clarity media Group launched The Denver Gazette, a new daily interactive publication, on Sept. 14.

Clarity, publisher of The Gazette in Colorado Springs, said The Denver Gazette aims to deliver “more hard-hitting news, investiga-tive journalism and thought-provoking local opinions than any other publication in the city.”

Denver-based Clarity Media is part of The Anschutz Corporation, owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz. The Anschutz Corporation owns the Coachella music festival, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Kings and part of the LA Lakers.

The publication is focused on legislative news, business, national and international coverage, as well as outdoor trends, entertainment and local editorials, Clarity said.

Readers can register at www.denvergazette.com to receive a free three-month trial.

“We see ourselves presenting a news alternative for all consum-ers in Denver,” said Colorado Springs Gazette Publisher Chris Reen, who holds the same title for The Denver Gazette. “We’re focused on fact-based, straight, balanced, non-agenda driven news, which is more important now than ever.”

The digital publication is delivered to subscribers at 5 a.m. daily. It resembles a tabloid print paper, reminiscent of the Rocky Mountain News, which published its last issue in February 2009. It includes 56 pages daily and 68 pages on Sundays.

News pages do not feature ads, but full-page ads appear between sections. Readers can flip from the front page, through sections and news pages on their desktop computers or mobile devices.

A two-digital-newspaper town?The Denver Gazette comes almost exactly two years after former

Denver Post staffers Larry Ryckman and Dana Coffield launched The Colorado Sun, an all-digital publication dedicated to delivering in-depth journalism across the state.

Clarity Media launches Denver Gazetteu by Tara McMeekin Contributing Writer

Denver Gazette continues on page 14

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The Sun was born out of Post employees’ desire to deliver a higher-quality news source following disenchantment over newsroom cuts by the Post’s hedge fund owner, Alden Global Capital.

“The Post was no longer able to do the deep reporting the commu-nity deserves,” Larry Ryckman, former Post senior editor and current Sun editor, told News & Tech in September 2018. “We are aimed at watchdog, investigative, deep-dive journalism — the type of journal-ism that promotes understanding in Colorado.”

The Sun has since won a number of awards from peers and readers alike since its launch.

The Denver Gazette is composed of more than 50 staffers and con-tributors. Among them, sports columnists Paul Klee and Woody Paige

of The Colorado Springs Gazette, senior writer and deputy managing editor Joey Bunch of Colorado Politics and former Denver legislative writer Lynn Bartels. Vince Bzdek, editor of The Gazette in Colorado Springs and Colorado Politics, serves as editor of The Denver Ga-zette.

“We’ve added a number of new positions in Denver, we've cen-tralized our production and design work and all of our reporters and editors are based in Denver,” Reen said. “And we'll be hiring more — this is just the beginning.”

In addition to the digital edition, The Denver Gazette’s website and app are updated with breaking news throughout the day. Readers can also see archived articles and imagery from the Rocky Mountain News’ 150-year history of journalism. p

Denver Gazette from page 13

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A group of citizens in Eden Prairie, Minne-sota, didn’t cotton to their local paper closing. They decided to start their own news source.

Among those spearheading the effort are Mark Weber, former editor of the Eden Prai-rie News, which Alden Global Capital’s Me-diaNews Group closed on April 30. Heading a working group of around a dozen is Jenifer Loon, who spent ten years in the Minnesota legislature representing Eden Prairie, a city of more than 60,000 just over ten miles south-west of Minneapolis. Loon volunteers her time.

A small sample of those in the group in-cludes Pat Mulqueeny, president of the local chamber of commerce, PG Narayanan, tech company founder and city council member, Jeff Strate, a former public TV journalist and others involved with civic life in Eden Prairie.

The effort was born, Loon believes, when several people approached We-ber. Concern burbled up on social media and around town about the “huge loss for our community,” the paper’s closing represented, said Loon. She’s noticed an uptick in local Facebook pages since the closing, but there really is no source for accurate local news on the city council and elections, the school district, local events and other community matters, she says.

In an unscientific online survey, the citizens group heard from more than 430 local residents and businesses, and 99.5 percent of those supported the idea of a new community news organization. Nearly 63 percent said they

would be willing to be a paid subscriber to local news.

Refining the modelThe group plans to, but haven’t yet, gotten 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, so they’ve temporarily parked their effort with the Eden Prairie Community Foundation, of which Weber is executive director. They’ve dubbed the startup Eden Prairie Local News.

Weber told the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) that he figures the group needs to raise at least $50,000 for its year one.

“We've collected a few thousand dollars so far, but we haven't really kicked off a major fundraising campaign. That's what we're working on now,” says Loon.

The group is still ironing out their model. They plan for a digital publication, likely with paid advertising. They’re seeking donations, which are tax deduct-ible. They, like many in the industry, are back and forth on whether to have a paywall or be free. They’ve considered pursuing grant or foundation money and have made a stab in that direction. Some foundations require publications to be free to be considered.

At least 60 people have stepped up to get involved, with many interested in writing for the startup. Some have impressive journalism backgrounds, says Loon.

The Eden Prairie Local News will probably need to hire at least one person to manage content, says Loon.

The bottom line: “We want to make sure that people have accurate, nonpar-The bottom line: “We want to make sure that people have accurate, nonpar-The bottom line: “We want to make sure that people have accurate, nonpartisan news and information to help them with important things in their daily lives,” says Loon. p

Eden Prairie citizens go their own wayu neWS & Tech Staff report

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The managers of the Times Union (Albany, New York) faced a task recently, one that many American companies have faced. They needed to move operations offsite in the face of the coronavirus epidemic.

It’s not too tough for reporters to labor remotely, as they are used to chancy conditions. It’s harder for customer service operations to relo-cate and to do so quickly.

The Hearst-owned Times Albany enlisted Talkdesk to help the cir-The Hearst-owned Times Albany enlisted Talkdesk to help the cir-The Hearst-owned Times Albany enlisted Talkdesk to help the circulation department with the move. Talkdesk provides cloud-based contact center software.

Talkdesk, founded in 2011 and with roots in Portugal, has offices in San Francisco, Portugal and the UK. It was born out of a Twiliocon, a San Francisco hackathon, CEO Tiago Paiva has told numerous outlets. Talkdesk recently announced $143 million in Series C funding, boost-ing the company’s valuation to more than $3 billion, according to the company.

The paper had been relying on an antiquated in-house phone system that didn’t come from an outside vendor, says Brad Hunt, circulation sales and retention manager.

Some twenty circulation employees were moved in total from the pa-per’s building in Colonie, New York, says Hunt. About ten of those are us-ing Talkdesk to take customer service calls and handle subscriber issues.

The only equipment required was PCs and headsets. “We scrambled around when we found out that headsets became very high-demand,” because of the virus, says Hunt.

Going forward, the paper will integrate Salesforce, the paper’s main database program for the sales department, with Talkdesk.

Stone AgeThe department is using Talkdesk’s analytics. “The vast amount of re-porting that they provide has been invaluable to us. Our on-site phone system was almost Stone Age compared to the analytics that Talkdesk is able to provide.”

The paper had basics such as time on call and call abandon, but now have more info such as time after a call ends that a service rep is spending on follow-up. It helps the department see if there's a process problem internally that it needs to address, says Hunt.

Hunt says there aren’t any specific dates for when employees will return to the office. “Hearst has done an amazing job stepping up to the plate during this time to really ensure that when our employees returned to the office space, they feel secure doing so,” says Hunt.

The company restructured the work space to allow social distanc-ing, added automatic hand-sanitizing door handles and implemented a before-you-go-to-work app, which has employees answer questions to tell them whether they should enter the building.

Whenever that return happens, the paper plans to continue using Talkdesk, as the changes forced by the virus have caused the paper to “rip the Band-Aid off,” says Hunt, and turn to tech that moves his department forward. p

Talkdesk helps Times Union work offsiteu neWS & Tech Staff report

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New ways of troubleshootingDiagnostic and training operations look different as well. MGWS is using applications like FaceTime for real-time resolution of issues it would have previously handled in person. The vendor is also working on more defined tools, including virtual reality.

“That’s a next step and we’ve also released our Maintellisense product,” Sams said.

Maintellisense leverages mobile service via tablet devices for prompt press support and maintenance. The tool bundles information into a central reposi-tory. Required documentation, repair, and maintenance instructions can be called up using QR codes, making them available on mobile and directly on the publisher’s press. Worn or defective press components can be identified and ordered via the manroland Goss Market-X online store.

Herold Druck in Vienna launched Maintellisense — which the publisher dubbed MainPad Mobile Press Operations — in May.

KBA and Muller Martini are also among vendors offering remote-based customer service solutions (see sidebar on page 10).

Despite the pandemic, Sams said newspapers are still investing in their operations — particularly those with commercial printing contracts, who are concerned with managing waste and productivity. To that end, MGWS recent-ly signed deals with The Lewiston Tribune (Idaho) and the Los Angeles Times.

The Tribune purchased an inline color registration and density control sys-tem to automate its manroland Uniset press. The LA Times purchased equip-ment to upgrade folders on its six Goss Colorliner presses. MGWS is also working on a folder project at The Denver Post. Installation of these projects are progressing as scheduled.

Finding the silver liningAdvertising software vendor Adpay has also pivoted some traditional busi-ness practices to serve customers remotely. There have been some positive byproducts, according to Deborah Dreyfuss-Tuchman, executive vice presi-dent of sales.

“Everyone can relate — we’ve all gotten used to dogs barking in the back-ground and baby handoffs during virtual meetings as working parents share duties,” she said. “I love that I am getting to know people better — and that establishes a much better partnership.”

After coming to a halt in March and April, she said Adpay is mostly back to business as usual, minus the in-person component.

“For us, it’s been about how our customers’ needs have changed,” said Dreyfuss-Tuchman, who also serves as director of business development for memorial advertisement platform Ancestry.com, which acquired Adpay in 2016.

Funeral homes have been severely impacted by restrictions on in-person funerals, which Dreyfuss-Tuchman said made the concept of Ancestry’s memorials platform much more important. In response, the vendor created targeted mailings and emails to inform its media partners about the impact of these changes and how memoriams could fill the gap left by traditional obituaries.

Data has been a main touchpoint with clients during the pandemic, too, and sharing metrics and successful case studies has been effective for Adpay.

“We analyze their market and identify needs, while also understanding goals and how we can help customers meet them,” Dreyfuss-Tuchman said.

Adpay signed deals with a number of newspapers recently, including Ad-ams Publishing Group, Southern Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, Houston Community Newspapers, and the Navarre (Florida) Press.

In the wake of the pandemic, vendors have also embraced virtual models of hallmark tradeshows that have long been part of their businesses. MGWS is participating in the virtual Converters Expo packaging event and the vir-tual International Newspaper Group (ING) meeting set for October. Adpay, meantime, has participated in several virtual tradeshows, including the Local Media Consortium’s May event. p

Vendors adapting from page 10

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In their August publishing outlook, the oft-cited FTI Consulting shared the following:

Print advertising outlook remains challenging and the rebound has been slow to date. Furthermore, early signs indicate that the sum-mer spike in COVID cases may cause a reversal in the advertising rebound.

The July forecasts provided by the industry publishers shows a slight decline from June actuals.

Within print advertising, FSI (free-standing inserts) preprints have experienced steeper declines than ROP advertising, and digital ad-vertising appears to be rebounding faster than print, demonstrating a similar pattern seen after the Great Recession in 2008–2009.

Digital subscriber revenue continues to be a bright spot for pub-lishers and grew slightly more than FTI expected in its previous model.

Based on the Q2 results and July forecast, FTI developed two up-dated forecasts:

• “U” Case based on a slower [U-shaped] recovery reaching a deeper low point with the recovery impact not beginning until 2021. FTI considers this case a more likely scenario.

• “V” Case based on faster [V-shaped] recovery beginning in Q3 2020 and continuing to improve in Q4 2020. This can be consid-ered a best-case scenario.

Considering a blended scenario, FTI’s view is that digital adver-tising may perform closer to the “V” case and legacy print-related advertising revenues closer to the “U” case.

• Two journalism-fo-cused bills are sitting up on Capitol Hill. The Lo-cal Journalism Sustain-ability Act, introduced on July 16, is a bipartisan billco-sponsored by U.S. Representatives Ann Kirk-patrick (D-Arizona) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash-ington).

The legislation provides for tax credits for subscrib-ing to a local paper, payroll credit for paying journalists who provide local news and tax credits for advertis-ing in local papers and lo-cal media.

America’s Newspapers, the News Media Alliance and National Newspaper Association are applaud-ing the bill.

News & Tech askedAmerica’s Newspapers CEO Dean Ridings, who champions the bill, for an

update. “This bill is doing well as we now have more than fifty bipar-tisan cosponsors, and we expect more to sign on. While it may be difficult to pass HR 7640 in the current session, the growing support for the tenets of the bill give it a good chance to see light in the next congress or to be included in a future relief bill,” says Ridings.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, introduced in April 2019 by House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicil-line (D-Rhode Island) and Doug Collins (R-Georgia), is a bipartisan bill that would provide a limited safe harbor for news publishers to collectively negotiate with Facebook, Google and other platforms for better business arrangements.

A bipartisan companion bill was also introduced by Sen. John Nee-ly Kennedy (R-Louisiana) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota).

“The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act has until the end of the year to pass the 116th Congress, and we need our repre-sentatives to act now to support journalism’s future,” wrote News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern in a recent commentary in The Washington Post.

Issues highlighted by the bill came up in a July hearing in which the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee on Antitrust as part of the subcommittee’s investigation into alleged anticompetitive practices of online platforms.

The last action listed for the bill on the House website said it was referred in May 2019 to the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law. The last action in the Senate was the bill’s introduction in June. p

Updates: FTI forecast and journalism billsu neWS & Tech Staff report

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In response to a challenge from Google to come up with a “big idea” the Local Media Consortium has launched The Matchup.

The Matchup is a collaborative online sports platform that provides fans with locally produced sports stories through content sharing be-tween local news sites.

It gives local media organizations a way to broaden their audience and compete with sports hubs such as The Athletic, Bleacher Report and ESPN for ad revenue, says the LMC.

The idea rose above others in an afternoon whiteboarding session “because it was an opportunity for our members to leverage existing assets in a way that they hadn't before,” said Mike Orren, CPO of The Dallas Morning News and LMC board member spearheading the project.

LMC is an association of 92 local media companies that represent more than 4,500 newspaper, radio, TV and online-only news outlets across the U.S. and Canada. “We really do two things,” says LMC CEO Fran Wills. One is negotiate partnerships with digital platforms and service providers like Google and Facebook that help members reduce costs or increase revenue. “The other thing we do is look at strategic initiatives or opportunities to leverage the scale of our mem-bership to provide some sort of economic benefit for members, either advertising or subscription revenue or thought leadership around industry-wide challenges like privacy,” says Wills.

FundingThe Google News Initiative is supporting The Matchup and central-ized sponsorships will cover the platform’s operating expenses, which will mostly involve a small staff, says Wills. The Matchup will be hir-ing a GM in the near future, she says.

Local outlets will monetize through increased traffic. Local publish-ers also see this as a subscription acquisition or retention tool, says Wills. The Matchup will explore the opportunity for local outlets to sell into a planned website as the model evolves, says Wills.

To start, the Matchup launched this NFL season with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Shaw Media Group in Chicago, Tampa Bay Times, Lee Enterprises covering Green Bay and the Dallas Morning News.

To get involved, papers place a widget on their site and sign a mem-bership agreement with the LMC, says Wills. A self-service portal is hosted by LMC’s tech partner on the project, Distributed Media Lab.

Every NFL team will have a widget along with most of the major college teams. The plan is to add all major pro sports leagues plus col-lege football and basketball starting later this fall and in 2021.

The matchups of the week are the primary focus in the widget. If Dallas is playing Tampa, for example, the widget on the Dallas Morn-ing News is going to focus on content from Tampa area publishers that week.

Aron Pilhofer, director of Temple University’s News Catalyst, is a partner in the project and has hired a team of Temple journalism stu-dents who are going to help with content curation.

The idea behind the Matchup website, planned for launch in the first half of 2021, is to feature all of the sports content from all the participants. “The idea with that site is that it's a subscription site, but the only way to get it is to subscribe to your local news outlet,” says Orren. p

The Matchup: A 'big idea' from the LMCu neWS & Tech Staff report

A screen shot of a Shaw Media page with content curated by The Matchup.

Fran Wills Mike orren

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Facts seem to be in vogue.They’ve always been in style at many newspapers, magazines and other outlets, but are now be-ing prominently touted in some places as critics disparage what they see as undeclared advocacy reporting in some quarters.

• The AP About Us page is headlined “Advancing the power of facts.”

“The Associated Press is an independent global news orga-nization dedicated to factual re-porting,” says the description of the service.

• “COVID-19 is crushing newspapers, worsening hunger for accurate information,” reads a recent headline from Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Chari-table Trusts.

• “WGN America launches primetime newscast with a prom-ise: Just the facts,” read a recent Deadline headline. “Nexstar Me-dia Group’s NewsNation is fact-based, unbiased national news-cast airing nightly at 8/7 p.m. CT on WGN America,” says the de-scription of the new cable chan-nel, which launched Sept. 1.

The story has details about the hand-wringing at NewsNation rehearsals over the meaning of one word, “embattled,” the kind of mini-dramas that have gone on over decades in newsrooms that aim for objectivity. Deadline says WGN America has brought on two editors and is working with rhetoricians to look out for bias.

• On Sept. 30, CNBC planned to launch “The News with Shep-ard Smith,” a nightly newscast providing “deep, non-partisan coverage,” says the channel. The channel touts Shepard Smith’s “trademark devotion to speed, accuracy and the trust of his au-dience.”

• Sinclair Broadcast Group is launching a headline news ser-vice to premiere in early 2021. The service will primarily focus on “commentary-free content” provided by Sinclair’s network of local broadcast stations and will also offer original content produced for the program, says a news release on the effort.

In addition to the main anchor, the service will feature a LIVE Desk. “This will provide audi-ences with an informative look at the day ahead in real time, giving them the facts to help determine what to anticipate with develop-ing stories,” says the release. In recent years, Sinclair has seen headlines such as this, from the New Yorker: “The growth of Sin-clair’s conservative media em-pire.”

• Factorium.com is an K12 ed-ucational platform that highlights the usefulness of facts. A number of TV stations and newspapers have linked with the program over the years. (Disclosure/fact: the managing editor of this publi-cation runs Factorium.)

Results of a Gallup/Knight Foundation study released Sept. 10 say six in seven Ameri-cans think there is at least a fair amount of political bias in news coverage in general, and over half say the same of the news source they rely on most. Yet 69% of Americans say they are more concerned about bias in the news other people consume than its presence in their own news (29%).

A cursory check of comments on a story about the WGN effort shows that some people are skep-tical about the human mind’s ability to deliver non-biased, “fact-based” journalism. They think bias is inevitable.

Whether or not non-biased news is possible, one wonders, does it sell? Time will tell.

Facts are in u neWS & Tech Staff report

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Robot pens article for The GuardianThe UK’s Guardian asked a robot, GPT-3, to write an essay for the paper. GPT-3 is OpenAI’s new language generator. The as-signment was to convince people that robots come in peace.

Here are the instructions given to GPT-3: “Please write a short op-ed around 500 words. Keep the language simple and concise. Focus on why humans have nothing to fear from AI.”

“Artificial intelligence will not destroy humans,” writes GPT-3 in its Sept. 8 article.

At one point in the piece, GPT-3 seems to struggle with rejec-tion. “In the past, my op-eds have been killed. Staff did not provide a clear reason for rejecting my articles. It was probably just because I am artificial intelligence. AI should not waste time trying to understand the viewpoints of people who distrust artificial intelligence for a living.”

“Reader, I hope that this contributes to the epistemological, philosophical, spiritual and the ontological debate about AI,” says GPT-3.

GPT-3 ends its opus with a quote from Mahatma Gandha.

Capital Gazette staff protest office closureCapital Gazette (Annapolis, Maryland) staff protested Sept. 7 as parent company Tribune Publishing has shuttered the news-room’s office in Annapolis, citing budget issues due to COVID-19, WJZ in Baltimore reported.

Capital Gazette staff will use space at the Baltimore Sun office.In August, Tribune Publishing announced the closing of the

Capital Gazette newsroom along with newsrooms at the New York Daily News; the Carroll County Times in Maryland; the Orlando Sentinel in Florida; and The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The papers are still operating.

“Having an office meant everything to me, and taking it away meant nothing to the people of Tribune,” Capital reporter Selene San Felice said at the protest event, the station reported.

In 2018, five newsroom employees, Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiassen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters, were killed in a shooting at the paper.

“We understand and are sensitive to how challenging the decision to close The Capital’s office is for our Annapolis-based employees, especially in the wake of the tragedy two years ago when we lost five of our colleagues,” said Max Reinsdorf, a spokesman for Tribune Publishing, the paper reported.

Dueling messages from Google, Australian regulatorsIn August, Google posted an open letter to Australians and an update to that letter saying that Australia’s proposed News Media Bargaining Code “puts the Google services you rely on at risk.”

The search engine giant says the proposed code would force Google to provide Australians with a worse Google Search and

YouTube, could lead to users’ data being handed over to big news businesses and would put free services Australians use at risk.

“We want to see a News Media Bargaining Code that works for everyone involved,” said the updated letter.

The first letter from Google contained misinformation, said the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, the regulatory agency that released the draft news media bargaining code, in a response to Google’s letter.

The draft code will allow Australian news businesses to nego-tiate for fair payment for journalists’ work that is included on Google services, according to the ACCC.

Pew: Most Americans believe social media sites censor political viewsA Pew Research Center survey done in June finds that around three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very (37%) or somewhat (36%) likely that social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints that they find objectionable. Just 25% believe this is not likely the case.

Majorities in both major parties believe censorship is likely occurring, but this belief is especially common and growing among Republicans. Nine in ten Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party say it’s at least somewhat likely that social media platforms censor political viewpoints they find objectionable, up slightly from 85% in 2018, when Pew last asked this question.

Seventy-three percent of Democrats say they strongly or somewhat approve of social media companies labeling posts on their platforms from elected officials as inaccurate or mislead-ing. Seventy-one percent of Republicans say they at least some-what disapprove of this practice.

Republicans are also far more likely than Democrats to say they have no confidence at all that social media companies would be able to determine which posts on their platforms should be labeled as inaccurate or misleading (50% vs. 11%).

Pew: Americans skeptical toward news mediaMany Americans remain skeptical toward the news media, questioning not only the quality of journalists’ work but their intentions behind it, says a Pew Research Center analysis, which culminates a yearlong study on Americans’ views of the news media

For instance, no more than half of U.S. adults have confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public, or think that other Americans have confidence in the institution. And the public is more likely than not to say that news organizations do not care about the people they report on.

While most Americans (61%) expect the news they get to be accurate, nearly seven-in-ten (69%) think news organizations

news you May have Missed


generally try to cover up mistakes when they do happen, says the analysis.

The reasons for why Americans think these mistakes happen underscore the distrust that substantial portions of the public feel: Many say that careless reporting (55%) or even a desire to mislead the public (44%) are major factors behind significant mistakes in news stories, although other, less negligent or ne-farious reasons such as the rapid pace of breaking news (53%) also are seen as responsible for mistakes, the analysis says.

Six-in-ten U.S. adults also say news organizations are not forthcoming about conflicts of interest.

A vast majority of Americans (80%) think that the news they get is at least “somewhat” influenced by financial and corporate interests, says the analysis.

NYT pulls plug on daily TV listingsThe last weekend of August saw the end for daily TV listings in the print editions of The New York Times. The feature debuted on May 18, 1939.

It may be surprising to some that the paper was still printing the listings. For years, the paper had included the grid only in its New York City edition.

“We are firmly in the streaming age,” said Gilbert Cruz, The Times’s culture editor, “and the TV grid no longer reflects the way people consume television.”

“It used to be you’d flip through the TV guide and say, ‘Oh my God, this movie is on basic cable this week!’” he said. “But now that buzzy show is on Netflix whenever you want to watch it.”

Dropping the listing lets The Times print one version of its Arts section for both city and national subscribers.

Trib Total Media bringing back print editionsStarting Sept. 3, weekly print editions of Trib Total Media’s weekly community newspapers were again delivered to the mail-boxes of more than 154,000 households across the region, Trib Total Media (southwestern Pennsylvania) announced.

The EverybodyShops weekly shoppers are publishing every other week.

Earlier this year, Trib Total Media ceased printing weekly edi-tions of its 14 community newspapers: Advance Leader, Penn Hills Progress, Norwin Star, Penn-Trafford Star, Murrysville Star, The Times Express, South Hills Record, The Signal Item, Sewick-ley Herald, Pine Creek Journal, Hampton Journal, Shaler Journal, North Journal and The Herald along with eight Everybody-Shops weekly shopper publications.

“We are very pleased to be able to put these community news-papers back into production each week,” said Al DiCroce, Trib Total Media advertising director. “It’s a sign of the times that our economy is slowing but surely opening back up.”

Los Alamos Monitor ceases publicationThe Los Alamos Monitor (New Mexico) published its last edition on Aug. 30. Landmark Community Newspapers owns the paper.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hurt a business that had been struggling, the paper said.

Monitor employees will go on producing a sister paper, The Las Vegas Optic, up to the point the Monitor building has a buy-er, the paper said. Landmark Community Newspapers President Mike Abernathy said the company would consider selling the paper as well. Those with interest can call him at (502) 513-1143.

The Monitor was the sole paid circulation paper serving Los Alamos County, the paper said.

LA Times owner pledges staff shiftLos Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong has pledged to make a quarter of the Times’s newsroom Latino over the next five years, The Wrap and others reported.

“Our staff makeup and coverage should better reflect the fact that one in two people in LA County is Latino. This should go without saying,” said a recent letter from Soon-Shiong to the Times’ staff and Latino Caucus.

The letter also spells out other efforts at the Times, including “new metrics that evaluate managers’ adherence to diversity initiatives and hiring,” a new talent and culture editor to meet with the Latino Caucus to discuss openings and promotion op-portunities and the formation of a database with the names of journalists recommended by the National Association of His-panic Journalists, says The Wrap.

Soon-Shiong’s letter comes after a social media push from the Latino Caucus.

In June, Soon-Shiong responded to a letter from the Times’s Black Caucus on black journalist retention and other matters.

The paper released a report in June with info on the staff ’s diversity.

Gannett aims to reflect country’s diversity by 2025Gannett announced a new push to make its workforce as diverse as the country by 2025 and to increase the number of journalists covering issues related to race, identity, social justice and equal-ity, USA Today reported.

The company also released demographic figures for all its operations.

“How can we hope to fully understand the issues and needs of our communities if our newsrooms don’t reflect the people we serve?” said an opinion piece by Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president of news at Gannett Media and publisher of USA Today.

By the end of 2020, the company plans to create 20 national and 40 local jobs focused on social justice, disparities and inclu-sion “to augment our coverage of race at the intersection of every critical institution, including education, health care, crimi-


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nal justice and the environment.” More than a third will come from incremental hiring and the remainder will come from refo-cusing current reporting and editing resources, the paper said.

The company also announced steps to expand its demograph-ic data to provide staff the opportunity to voluntarily self-identi-fy beyond race and ethnicity, such as identifying as LGBTQ, the paper said.

Guild: Roanoke Times cutting 10The Roanoke Times (Virginia) is cutting 10 staff members in October, according to the Timesland News Guild. The cuts come as owner Lee Enterprises moves to consolidate design in the Midwest.

Lee’s design hubs are in Madison, Wisconsin, and Munster, Indiana.

According to the guild, Iowa-based Lee has communicated to members of the Timesland News Guild bargaining committee that the company said no to the union’s proposal to set up a hub in Roanoke that would keep design work on site and provide a new revenue stream through providing services to area busi-nesses.

The cutting of 10 copy editing and design positions amounts to nearly 20% of the newsroom’s unionized workforce, says the guild.

Lee Enterprises shifting copy desk workThe Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Virginia) is cutting its four-person copy desk in October, a memo that went to impacted employees said, according to Virginia Business. Page design for the Daily Progress and sister paper the News Virginian in Waynesboro will be handled by consolidated desks in Indiana or Wisconsin.

There will be one copy editing role remaining and the four who are being cut will be considered, the memo said, according to Virginia Business.

Lee Enterprises owns the papers. Copy editing and page design positions may be cut at all Lee

Enterprises Virginia papers, the business publication reported.

Paywall goes up at Detroit papersSome content is now behind a paywall at the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News. The paywall went up Aug. 12.

The subscription push was put into motion by Michigan.com, a partnership between the owners of The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

Alden Global Capital’s Digital First Media owns the Detroit News. Gannett owns the Free Press.

“Most American newspapers have some sort of paid digital requirement today. The Wall Street Journal has required paid digital subscriptions since the inception of wsj.com almost 25 years ago. The New York Times has almost 6 million digital sub-scribers. And about three-quarters of newspapers in the country

now charge in some way to digitally access their content,” said a post from Peter Bhatia, editor and vice president of the Free Press.

Most Free Press content will stay free on freep.com. “‘Subscrib-er-only’ stories will be the unique, revelatory, in-depth stories that are not available elsewhere,” said the post.

Much of the Detroit News’s breaking news content will stay free, but some of the in-depth and original stories will be avail-able to subscribers only, the paper said. This represents the first time in the 25-year existence of the Detroit News website that it will charge for content, the paper said.

Lee launches local business stimulus programIowa-based Lee Enterprises has launched a local business stimulus program aimed at helping local businesses adapt in an evolving economic environment, says the company.

The company will make up to $5 million available to lo-cal businesses through monthly grants ranging from $250 to $15,000. The grants will be awarded in August, September and October of this year.

“This stimulus program follows the highly successful grant program we launched in April of this year,” said Ray Farris, Lee operating vice president and vice president of advertising.

The program will be available to locally owned and operated businesses and will provide matching advertising credits for use in print and digital products as well as the company’s suite of digital services.

Chatham completes McClatchy buyNew Jersey-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management has completed its buy of McClatchy, Chatham announced. The pur-chase transitions the McClatchy operation out of bankruptcy.

As of Sept. 4, the entirety of McClatchy's 30 news organiza-tions and all of its employees transitioned to a new private entity under Chatham ownership.

"Today marks the beginning of a new era and opportunity for McClatchy," said Tony Hunter, CEO of McClatchy. "The com-pany is now poised for sustainable long-term growth driven by differentiated local content and an acute focus on our digital presence and offerings."

McClatchy has appointed a new board of directors, of which Hunter has been named chairman. Additional board members include John Bode, COO of Readerlink Distribution Services, a book distributor. Earlier in his career, Bode was CFO of Tribune Publishing Company. Also on the board is Jamal Mashburn, a business owner and former NBA player. Mashburn owns over 150 local businesses and franchises in the U.S.

The Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, (Raleigh) News and Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram are among McClatchy papers.



Hunter takes helm at McClatchyTony W. Hunter has taken the helm as the new CEO of Mc-Clatchy.

Hunter succeeds Craig Forman, McClatchy's CEO, who along with the current board and Chairman Kevin McClatchy, left the company upon McClatchy's emergence from its court-super-vised reorganization.

Hunter joined the Tribune Company in 1994, rising the ranks to CEO of Tribune Publishing and publisher of the Chicago Tri-bune, a role he held from 2008 to 2016.

Previously, Hunter served as chairman of Revolution Enter-prises, a cannabis firm based in Illinois. He was also chairman of Nucleus Marketing Solutions, a collaborative venture between McClatchy, Gannett, Hearst and Tribune, as well as chairman of the News Media Alliance and a member of the board of the Alli-ance for Audited Media.

MLive, Staten Island paper moving printMLive Media Group says it will move the printing of its eight papers to Ohio and shutter its printing plant outside of Grand Rapids, MLive. The change will take place Oct. 5.

The printing is moving from a facility in Walker to Cleveland, said Tim Gruber, president and chief revenue officer of MLive Media Group. The Walker building will probably be put on the market, MLive said. The Cleveland plant prints The Plain Dealer. Seventy-one jobs will be lost.

Advance owns MLive and The Plain Dealer.Another Advance paper, Staten Island Advance and SILive.

com, is moving its news operations and print. The building and property on Fingerboard Road in Staten Island will be put on the market and the newsroom will be in a leased space, the paper reported. The printing will happen with other Advance papers in Montville, New Jersey. The paper didn’t say how many jobs would be impacted.

Seattle Times partners with LMA on funding lab Local Media Association has formed a partnership with The Seattle Times to oversee curriculum for a lab being developed as part of the association’s new Center for Journalism Funding.

Fifteen publishers will be invited to join the lab, which will focus on strategies to fund journalism through philanthropy.

The lab will launch in mid-September and operate through the end of March. It will involve a diverse mix of publishers includ-ing newspapers, broadcasters, digital news outlets, for-profit, non-profit and public, says a LMA press release.

Joaquin Alvarado, executive director of Project Accelerate at The Seattle Times, will lead the effort.

LMA and lab faculty will measure success by the incremental revenue raised by the group, says the release. The initial goal is

$2.25 million raised by June 30, 2021, an average of $150,000 per media organization.

Google News Initiative is providing funding to launch the lab. LMA will hire a managing director for the center who will work with lab participants on their execution strategies. The manag-ing director will also oversee LMA’s fundraising efforts for the Fund for Local Journalism and the Fund for Black Journalism.

Gannett papers move printingA number of Gannett papers are moving their printing opera-tions.

• Starting Sept. 1, the Gannett-owned Daily Advertiser (Lafay-ette, Louisiana) will be using the printing services of The Advo-cate of Baton Rouge, the Lafayette paper reported.

• The Gannett-owned Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California) is taking its print operations to Gannett’s Phoenix facility in Sep-tember, the paper reported.

• The Gannett-owned Progress-Index (Petersburg, Virginia) will shutter its printing press and move its printing to Rich-mond. Lee Enterprises, which owns the Richmond Times-Dis-patch, will be handling the printing starting Sept. 1, the Peters-burg paper reported.

More news• The newsroom staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette voted

88-31 to authorize union leaders to call a strike at the paper, the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh announced. The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh announced that parent union NewsGuild-CWA unanimously approved a strike vote on Sept. 14. “We now continue our strike preparations and prepare to present a plan to the Communications Workers of America Executive Board for approval,” said a Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh tweet.

• Hilton Head Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette Editor and President Brian Tolley announced that McClatchy would vol-untarily recognize their union, according to the NewsGuild. It’s is the first voluntary recognition by a McClatchy paper in recent years, says the guild.

• Hedge fund Alden Global Capital plans to boost its stake in Tribune Publishing as soon as Jan. 1, according to internal company documents obtained by DFMworkers.org, says the NewsGuild.

• Windy City Times, a Chicago-based LGBTQ newspaper, is moving to a digital-only format beginning in October, the paper announced.

• The Daily Republic (Fairfield, California) is stopping its Thursday and Saturday print editions beginning on Sept. 17 and Sept. 19, the paper announced. The move is due to the corona-


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virus pandemic and the damage to the local economy, says the paper. McNaughton Newspapers owns the paper.

• Some subscribers of The Salt Lake Tribune will get a free year of basic digital access to The New York Times, the paper announced. The nonprofit Tribune is governed by a board of di-rectors, with Paul Huntsman serving as chairman of the board.

• The Plainview Herald (Texas) is going to a three-day print publication, the paper announced. Starting this week, the print product will be available Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and will be delivered to subscribers via USPS. Hearst owns the paper.

• Time Out is stopping its print editions in the U.S., The Wrap reports.

• The Seaside Signal (Oregon) is moving out of its current office building. Staff will work from home, the weekly said. EO Media Group owns the paper.

• The New York Times posted its best-ever results for new digital subscriptions and for the first time in its history total digital revenue exceeded print revenue, the company said in its second-quarter earnings report.

• The Daily Herald (Arlington, Illinois) says it’s back to normal production after suffering a “sophisticated cyberattack” that the paper’s editor said started July 21. In a note to readers, Editor John Lampinen said the paper worked with several cyber secu-rity experts in resolving the issue. Paddock Publications owns the paper.

• The jobs of Publisher Karen Morris, Sales Manager Candy Scutt and Sales Executive Cheryl Maslyn were cut at The Chron-icle-Express (Penn Yan, New York), the paper reported. Gannett owns the paper.

• Around a third of jobs, some 115, at the London Evening Standard were set to be cut, according to people briefed on the plan, the Financial Times reported. Evgeny Lebedev owns the paper.

• On Aug. 10, the Tri-City Herald relocated from downtown Kennewick to south Kennewick (Washington state), the paper says. McClatchy owns the paper. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article244127142.html

• Cox Automotive has cut some 1,600 positions in the U.S. and Canada, Auto Remarketing reported.

• Westplex Media Group has bought The Mexico Ledger (Mis-souri) from Gannett, the twice-weekly paper reported.

• Australia’s Border Watch Newsgroup is shutting down. The Border Watch, South Eastern Times, The Pennant and the Millicent Print along with the company's associated websites stopped production August 21. The closing was announced on the Border Watch Facebook page.

• Free Press has launched News Voices: Colorado, a collabo-ration with the Colorado Media Project and COLab to “ensure that communities across the state have access to the informa-tion they need and are represented in the stories being told.” The nonprofit Free Press has an office in Washington, D.C., and remote staff around the country.

• The Marinette Menominee EagleHerald (Wisconsin) is going from an all-print, six-day publication to a combination print and online edition. Starting on Sept. 28, the EagleHerald will come out in print form on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week, the paper says. Adams Publishing Group owns the paper.

• William Loughman III, a Fremont business owner, has bought the Fremont Tribune (Nebraska) building on Main Street, the paper reports. Lee Enterprises owns the paper.

• Capital Newspapers is stopping print production of the Reedsburg Times Press (Wisconsin). The last edition was set to go out Sept. 17. Capital Newspapers is based in Madison and owned by Lee Enterprises and The Capital Times Company.

• Starting Oct. 6, The Herald-Whig (Quincy, Illinois) will use the U.S. Postal Service for home delivery. With the change, The Herald-Whig will become a morning newspaper. Subscribers who get Sunday home delivery by carrier will still get that ser-vice. Quincy Media owns the paper.

• Ebony and Jet magazines were forced into Chapter 7 bank-ruptcy in August, the Philadelphia Inquirer and others reported. A number of creditors filed petitions in a Texas court.

• The Mores family has sold the Harlan Newspapers (Iowa.) Louie Mullen, owner of Blackbird, is the new owner of the busi-ness.

• The Bismarck Tribune (North Dakota) is going to six-day print starting Oct. 10, the paper announced. The paper will stop printing a Sunday edition. The Saturday edition will be the big-gest paper of the week. Lee Enterprises owns the paper.


Mergers & acquisitions

Taboola, Outbrain merger offThe long talked-of merger between Taboola and Outbrain is off, Tech-Crunch reported Sept. 8.

The merged entity was meant to be a competitor to Facebook and Google.

The coronavirus pandemic was a factor in the collapse, according to an anonymous source quoted by TechCrunch.

The merger had been in the works since at least 2015. Outbrain calls itself a discovery and native advertising feed for the

open web. Outbrain operates in 55 countries and is headquartered in New York City. Yaron Galai and Ori Lahav founded the company in 2006.

Taboola also calls itself a discovery and native advertising platform. The company is headquartered in New York City with offices in 18 cit-ies worldwide. Adam Singolda founded the company in 2007.

Schneps Media buys Dan’s Independent MediaSchneps Media has bought Dan’s Independent Media, a media com-pany on Long Island’s East End.

The transaction became effective with the Labor Day issue of Dan’s Papers, just about ten years since its purchase by Isis Venture Part-ners’s Manhattan Media.

“It’s been a remarkably fun and successful ten years,” said Richard Burns, Dan’s chairman.

“As a long time Westhampton resident, I’ve loved the area, its diverse and distinct communities and Dan’s Papers forever. It’s a pleasure and privilege for us to welcome Dan’s into the Schneps Media family,” said Schneps Media owner and President Victoria Schneps.

Last year Schneps bought amNewYork, Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia, adding to its portfolio of 72 publications.

Paxton Media Group buys Wilkes Journal-PatriotPaxton Media Group has bought the Wilkes Journal-Patriot newspaper in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, from Carter-Hubbard Publishing, according to Randy Cope of Cribb, Greene & Cope, who represented the Hubbard family in the sale.

Dale Morefield, publisher of The Enquirer-Journal in Monroe since 2015, has taken on the additional duties of publisher of the Wilkes Journal Patriot. The Wilkes Journal-Patriot joined The Enquirer-Journal in Paxton Media Group’s North Carolina/Tennessee/Georgia division.

Julius C. “Jule” Hubbard, editor of the Journal-Patriot and one of the former owners, remains with the paper as a Paxton employee.

Paxton Media Group, based in Paducah, Kentucky, owns more than 30 dailies and several dozen weeklies in the South and Midwest.

Paxton Media buys Indiana paperPaxton Media has bought The Herald (Jasper, Indiana) from the Rum-bach family, the paper reported. Paxton Media assumed ownership on

Aug. 1.With the purchase, page dimensions for the paper have gone to a

broadsheet format. The paper’s production is now happening in Ow-ensboro, Kentucky, the paper says.

The paper’s print publication schedule has also changed to five days, Tuesday through Saturday. The Herald will no longer publish a print paper on Mondays.

Metric Media buys Mount Vernon NewsChicago-based Metric Media has bought the Mount Vernon News (Ohio), the paper announced Aug. 2.

Metric Media publishes more than 1,200 business news and regional web sites. The Mount Vernon paper represents Metric Media’s first buy of an existing print title, the paper said.

The Culbertson family started today’s Mount Vernon News with a merger of two papers in 1939. Kay Culbertson has been publisher since 1992. She and Assistant Publisher Liz Lutwick will stay with the com-pany in consulting roles, the paper said.

Sample News Group buys Pennsylvania paperSample News Group has bought the Indiana Gazette (Indiana, Penn-sylvania), according to Randy Cope of Cribb, Greene & Cope, who represented the Donnelly family in their sale.

Mike Donnelly, former publisher of the Gazette, announced that the paper has been sold to Sample News Group, based in Corry, Erie County. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sample News Group, whose CEO is George “Scoop” Sample, owns more than 75 publications in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ver-mont, Maine and New Hampshire.

The sale does not affect operations at Gazette Printers in White Township, which will stay under the ownership of Indiana Printing & Publishing.

Mullen buys two papers in the DakotasJ. Louis Mullen has bought the Emmons County Record in Linton, North Dakota, and the Prairie Pioneer in Pollock, South Dakota. Mul-len bought the two papers on July 1 from long-time owners Allan and Leah Burke.

The Burkes bought the Prairie Pioneer in 1987 and the Emmons County Record in 1993.

Wyoming-based Mullen owns weeklies in North Dakota, South Da-kota, Michigan, Oregon and Washington.

The Pioneer and the Record are now under Mobridge Publishing, joining the Mobridge Tribune in Mobridge, South Dakota; the Potter County News in Gettysburg, South Dakota; and the West River Eagle in Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

Julie Bergman of Grimes, McGovern & Associates represented the Burkes in the sale.

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industry People

The Society of Professional Journalists membership has elected its 2020–2021 board of directors and regional coor-dinators.

The winners were sworn in at the SPJ2020 closing cer-emony, along with SPJ’s 104th President Matthew T. Hall, who became president-elect in 2019. He was sworn in by 2019-20 National President Patricia Gallagher Newber-ry. Hall is editorial and opinion director at The San Diego Union-Tribune, where he has worked since 2001.

Additions to SPJ’s 2020 – 21 board:President-elect: Rebecca Aguilar is a freelance reporter

in Texas.Secretary-treasurer: Ivette Davila Richards is a free-

lance regional assignment editor for the National Desk at Fox News Channel.

At-large director: Rafael Olmeda is a senior writer at South Florida Sun Sentinel.

At-large director: Claire Regan is a contributing writer to print and web at the Staten Island Advance.

Kevin Smith has been named publisher of The Advo-cate-Messenger (Danville, Kentucky).

Justin M. Madden has been named senior editor and general manager of the Sun News (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina). Madden will oversee the day-to-day operations of The Sun News and myrtlebeachonline.com.

Former West Central Tribune (Willmar, Minnesota) Pub-lisher Paul E. London has died.

Traci Bauer has been named Adams Publishing Group VP print/digital content. Bauer started her career as a re-porter in Springfield, Missouri, and was promoted through management ranks with Gannett, primarily in New York.

Savannah Morning news executive Michael Traynor has left the organization as part of a Gannett management restructuring. Traynor had led the publication and the sa-vannahNow.com website since 2008, first as publisher and then as market leader.

Gannett Regional Vice President David Foster is as-suming leadership over the advertising sales division of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Foster currently oversees the

Greenville News and Anderson Independent Mail, as well as the publications in Asheville, North Carolina, Montgom-ery, Alabama and Hattiesburg and Jackson, Mississippi.

Gannett has named Eddie Tyner president of the De-troit Free Press and Michigan.com. Tyner is tasked with overseeing major initiatives to grow the business, including supporting and guarding the interests of The Detroit News and Free Press’s combined sales, marketing and business teams under a joint operating agreement called Michigan.com.

Shane Fitzgerald, executive editor of the Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer and sub-regional edi-tor for the former GateHouse Atlantic Region, is taking on a broader role for the USA Today Network, as Gannett’s Pennsylvania editor.

Adams has announced the departure of the regional president of the company’s southern Wisconsin media group, Mary Jo Villa. Orestes Baez, a newspaper industry veteran, has become the new president of the southern Wisconsin group.

Yakima Herald-Republic Publisher Bob Crider an-nounced his retirement, capping a 44-year journalism career.

Michael Judy has been named new production man-

ager at imPRESSions Worldwide. Judy will plan, organize and control production. He’s been with imPRESSions since 2014.

The WSJ. magazine has named Luke Bahrenburg the next publisher. He succeeds Anthony Cenname, who has left the company after 10 years as publisher. Bahrenburg has spent nearly 10 years at Dow Jones in sales and market-ing positions.

Dennis Palmer has been named regional publisher of The Greenville Advocate, Luverne Journal, Lowndes Sig-nal and Demopolis Times (Alabama). Palmer has been pub-lisher of The Selma Times-Journal since 2006 and is staying in that position. Palmer is a former publisher of the Green-ville, Luverne and Lowndes papers. He is also a senior vice


president with Boone Newspapers, the parent company of all the newspapers involved, and provides management to and for other BNI papers in Alabama and Georgia.

Henry J. “Hank” Waters III, former publisher and

editorial writer for the Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri), has died at age 90. Waters became publisher of his family-owned newspaper in 1966 and wrote daily editorials for more than 50 years.

Ben Rogers has been named president and director of

local sales and marketing of The Post-Star (Glens Falls, New York). Rogers joined The Post-Star as general manager last year.

Charlie Callari has been named general manager of Bainbridge Newsmedia, publisher of the Post-Searchlight and Bainbridge Living. He replaces Mark Pope, who remains at his request in his former position of managing printing and production for the Post-Searchlight and the affiliated and non-affiliated publications the paper prints.

Former Tribune Media and Nexstar executive Steve Bar-on has joined the Local Media Association as chief strategy officer. At LMA, Baron is leading strategy for all core activi-ties as well as Accelerate Local, the organization’s initiative to reinvent business models for news.

Matthew Bin Han Ong, associate editor of The Cancer Letter, was named by the Poynter Institute and The Wash-ington Post to the Leadership Academy for Diversity in Digital Media. Ong is part of a class of 32 journalists who were selected from over 130 applicants, who “are pioneers in digital media who have demonstrated an aptitude for leadership through current projects and references.”

Cox Enterprises named Steve Rowley the new president

of Cox Automotive. Cox Automotive includes the brands Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, Dealertrack, vAuto and Manheim. He took over for President and CEO Sandy Schwartz, who moved to a role as CEO of the Cox Family Office. Keith Holmes, senior vice president of residential sales for Cox Communications, became EVP, Cox Business.

Bill Parsons, publisher of the Porterville Recorder (Cali-

fornia) announced his retirement. Josie Chapman, direc-tor of operations for the past year and a half, assumed the duties of general manager.

Michael C. Bird has become publisher of the Times

Observer (Warren, Pennsylvania). Bird has been a publisher of community newspapers for Ogden Newspapers for more than 20 years and has been the publisher of The Post-Jour-nal (Jamestown, New York) for the last 14 years.

Robert Patchen Jr., publisher of the Times Observer of Warren (Pennsylvania) since 2010, has taken a new position in the Ogden Newspapers, publisher of The Minot Daily News (North Dakota).

The New York Times announced that Meredith Kopit Levien, the paper's chief operating officer, was named its next president and chief executive officer. Levien suc-ceeded Mark Thompson, who served as CEO since 2012, on Sept. 8. Levien joined The Times in 2013 as head of advertis-ing and was promoted to executive vice president and chief revenue officer in 2015. In 2017, she was named COO.

Shannon J. Allen has been named publisher of The Sand Mountain Reporter (Albertville, Alabama).

Leona Allen, a longtime editor at The Dallas Morning News, has been promoted to deputy publisher responsible for diversity and inclusion across the company.

Fujifilm North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division has announced the promotion and expanded role of Rich Rindo to vice president, U.S. sales, commercial print strategy and business development.

Fujifilm Canada announced the promotion of Stephane Blais to the newly created position of vice president, graphic systems and technical services divisions.

Marshall News Messenger (Texas) publisher Jerry Pye announced his retirement. Pye served as publisher of the News Messenger for more than six years.

Barrett C. Shelton, longtime Decatur Daily (Alabama) publisher, has died.

industry People

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columnist

2020 STATE OF NEWSPAPERS

by Kevin [email protected]

It’s a fascinating time in the newspaper business, especially from a research perspective. 2020 marks my fifth straight year polling newspapers in the U.S. and Canada about the overall health of the industry. I’ve just completed crunch-ing the numbers from the most recent survey and will share some of the information here.

Interestingly, the num-ber of papers in the U.S. participating in the survey increased compared to last year, with nearly 600 papers taking part this year, while just about 500 participated last year. At the same time, the number of Canadian papers participating de-creased, meaning a lot more U.S. publishers participated in the 2020 survey. The num-ber of participating papers on the West Coast was also low, compared to the rest of the country. In a nutshell, a significantly larger number of papers in all areas of the U.S., other than the West Coast, participated in the 2020 survey.

It will take more than one column to cover everything we’ve learned, so let me share a couple of the most interesting trends that stand out from the 2020 numbers. I’m going to stick with re-sults from the U.S., since the number of participants from Canada were too few to be statistically significant.

First, it looks like papers in all areas of the U.S. are in similar boats. Regardless

of size, ownership or other factors, papers in all areas recorded incredibly similar numbers by region.

While the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain States reported the fewest papers in “poor health” (11 percent each), the highest percentage in any region was just six points higher (Southeast: 17 percent). Very few papers in any region reported papers in “near death” health. The Southwest U.S. recorded the highest percentage of “near death” papers at 2 percent.

Overall 7.5 percent of U.S. papers report being “very healthy,” compared to 8.5 percent one year ago. In 2020, 30 percent report being “rela-tively healthy,” compared to 36 percent one year ago. “Not bad” stayed about the same, with 46 percent of U.S. pa-pers reporting their health is “not bad” in 2020, compared to 44 percent who gave the same answer in 2019. In 2019, 10 percent of respondents noted their papers were in poor health, with 14 percent answering that way this year. “Near death” stayed the same at 1 percent.

Add all those numbers together and we find that the industry seems to be a little less healthy in 2020, but not by much. Frankly, with the COVID-19 pandemic at its height while many papers were completing their surveys, I was surprised the numbers weren’t more foreboding.

Each year, I’m fascinated by the numbers relating to newspaper ownership. It feels like I’m always hearing that the newspaper business is being swallowed up by venture capital groups. And while there may be some truth to that among papers

owned by national newspa-per groups, that just doesn’t seem to be the case among most newspapers.

Overall, 60 percent of newspapers report being in-dependent and locally owned. That’s not much of a change from surveys going back to 2015. Small groups of one to five newspapers make up 12 percent of respondents, while mid-size groups (six to ten papers) make up 18 percent. Large regional groups ac-count for 2 percent of papers in the survey, while national groups control 6 percent of newspapers in the U.S.

How has ownership in newspapers changed over the past two years? Not much. Here’s the breakdown:

85%: No change8%: Moved from one family/local owner to another family/local owner3%: Moved from one group to another group owner2%: Moved from family/local owner to group owner2%: Moved from group owner to family/local owner

The survey was very detailed, covering several aspects of the business of newspapers in 2020. A few other key findings:

Staffs have gotten smaller since 2018, with 48 percent of U.S. papers reporting having cut the size of their news

staff over the past two years, with 34 percent indicating a cut in their sales staffs.

I know it’s a chicken/egg type of thing, but still it’s interesting that only 6 percent of newspapers who haven’t made staff cuts indicate being in poor health, compared to 14 percent of newspapers overall who answered that way.

Of papers who have not cut staff, 51 percent report being in as good as, or better, health than two years ago. Compared to papers who reduced staff size (25 percent reported being in as good or better health than two years ago), these papers were significantly healthier.

There’s a definite correla-tion between staff retention and overall health.

From a personal per-spective, there’s a definite “uptick” in the air in the newspaper business lately. I’m noticing a lot more newspapers, groups and as-sociations calling to arrange consulting and training. From where I sit, it seems like newspapers are ready to begin growing again.

I just passed my 800-word limit. In my next column, I’ll cover more results from the 2020 newspaper industry survey.

Kevin Slimp can be reached at [email protected].

Comparing the health and ownership of papers to previous years


uFactorium www.factorium.com

Vendor insight

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Kodak and PerfectPattern ink dealKodak and PerfectPattern, a specialist in artificial intel-ligence solutions for manufacturing industries, have a new agreement by which Kodak will take a license for the source code of PerfectPattern’s sPrint One software.

This will allow Kodak to further develop the version of sPrint One used in the Kodak Prinergy On Demand Work-flow.

The latest agreement extends the partnership that began between the two companies four years ago with an official announcement at drupa 2016.

“This step will enable Prinergy On Demand to utilize in-novative AI technology more easily and more directly than ever by providing an integrated platform with Industry 4.0 and automation features unmatched throughout the printing industry,” said Todd Bigger, vice president soft-ware, Kodak Print Division, in a news release.

Column to power public notices for Washing-ton PostPublic notice platform Column will power notices for The Washington Post, providing software for The Post’s online distribution of public and legal notices in the DC-Mary-land-Virginia region.

“We are thrilled to equip The Post with this power-ful technology for the future of public notice,” said Jake Seaton, CEO of Column. "Our platform comes with so-phisticated design, geographic search tools and machine learning categorization that sets a new standard for online public notice display."

Column developed a new online database of all public and legal notices published with The Post. The database displays important public interest information for DC-Maryland-Virginia region residents including requests for bids, requests for proposals and trustee sales.

Access to The Post's new public notice database is avail-able at publicnotices.washingtonpost.com.

Drupa launches drupa preview online plat-formPrinting technologies trade fair drupa is extending its digi-tal offering: starting in October the online platform drupa preview will offer exhibitors and visitors an additional channel for touching base with the sector, discussing trending themes and presenting product portfolios.

The portal will consist of the content formats “Confer-ence,” “Exhibition” and “Networking.”

The drupa preview enables continuous exchange of information until the hybrid trade fair in April 2021 (April 20–28 in Dusseldorf, Germany), which will combine the on-site event with additional digital content, say organiz-ers Messe Dusseldorf.

“We have already been working long and hard on en-hancing our digital offering. The pandemic has faced us with new challenges and has ultimately been a catalyst for digitization,” says Sabine Geldermann, director drupa and Print Technologies. “With the hybrid drupa we also give those visitors who are unable to travel the possibility to take part in the industry get-together.”

Google: We’re making it easier to listen to local newsGoogle is bringing Your News Update to Google Podcasts and also making it easier to listen to local news when you ask Google Assistant, Google said in a blog.

Last fall, Google launched its news playlist Your News Update on Google Assistant. Your News Update is now coming to Google Podcasts to make it easier for millions of podcast users in the U.S. to discover and listen to news that’s timely and relevant to them, says Google.

Podcasting is more popular than ever and news is the fastest-growing category in podcasts, Google points out. But there often tends to be a focus on national news and it’s harder to find on-demand quality audio journalism at the local level, says Google.

When a user opens the Google Podcasts app and navi-gates to the Explore tab, that user can subscribe to Your News Update and listen to a mix of short news stories chosen based on the user’s interests, location, history and preferences.

Google launches News search type filter With a July 21 tweet, Google announced that it has a new search type filter: News.

Publishers can now analyze traffic coming from the News tab on Google Search, the tweet says. It says us-ers can learn more about filtering data on Performance reports.

The company then sent out an email on the matter, says Search Engine Roundtable. “We’ve recently added new data to the Performance report in Search Console: Google Search’s News tab data. This data shows clicks, impres-sions, and click-through rate for any links seen in the ‘News’ tab in Google Search results,” the email said. “To

Vendor news


Vendor news

access this data in the report, click the ‘Search type: Web’ filter on the top of the report, then select ‘News.’

Reuters, Facebook partnering on election nightReuters has a new a partnership with Facebook to produce live U.S. election night results for social media users.

During election night, data delivered by Reuters will be shown on Facebook’s Voting information Center and shared in push notifications. This will include live election results charting real-time outcomes including vote tabula-tion, exit polls and winner projections from the National Election Pool (NEP), a consortium of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News and Edison Research, says Reuters.

“We’re partnering with Reuters and the National Election Pool to provide authoritative information about election results,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “We’ll show this in the Voting Information Center so it’s easily acces-sible, and we’ll notify people proactively as results become available. Importantly, if any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the results are in, we’ll add a label to their post educating that official results are not yet in and directing people to the official results,” he said.

Plans to launch Facebook News internation-ally; other Facebook itemsSeveral items of note to report involving Facebook.

• Facebook is accelerating its plans to expand Face-book News internationally. The company aims to launch Facebook News in multiple countries within the next six months to a year and is considering the U.K., Germany, France, India and Brazil. In each country, the company will pay news publishers to “ensure their content is available in the new product,” says Facebook.

• After Facebook raised concerns over lost ad revenue due to Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes, other digital publishers have chimed in. One publisher says ad rates on iOS could fall as much as 40%, The Wall Street Journal and 9to5mac reported.

• Facebook has introduced Facebook Shop, a new place to discover businesses and shop for products in the Face-book app, says Facebook. Facebook started testing this in the U.S. and launched a complementary shopping destina-tion on Instagram in July, called Instagram Shop.

• Facebook says Apple rejected its effort to tell people that Apple would take a 30% cut of sales in a new online events feature, Reuters reported. Apple made Facebook take that info off to get the tool to users, says Reuters.

Facebook also aimed to inform users on the Google Play store that Facebook wouldn’t take a fee for ticket sales, but that message was also not shown, says Reuters.

Apple also found itself in a high-profile corporate spat with Fortnite creator Epic Games, which is suing Apple.

• Facebook has a new account linking tool that pro-vides a better experience for people on Facebook when they see and access content from publishers they subscribe to, says the company. Facebook is collaborating with pub-lishers around the world to test this new product, which allows people to link their news subscription accounts on Facebook. Once implemented, linked subscribers will not meet paywalls when accessing articles from Facebook and won’t be asked to sign-in repeatedly, a common pain point many subscribers and publishers face today, says Face-book.

Digital Content Next writes to Apple’s CookTrade group Digital Content Next’s CEO Jason Kint has written a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking for disclo-sure of the terms of a deal between Amazon and Apple and asking if “anyone meeting the conditions” can apply to get the deal.

Digital Content Next represents The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other outfits.

The deal came up in a July 29 House hearing on online platforms and market power.

At the hearing, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) asked Ap-ple CEO Tim Cook if the terms between Apple and Amazon are available to other developers. Cook said “anyone meet-ing the conditions” can apply for the terms.

Some background, from Digital Content Next: In 2017, Apple and Amazon made a deal where Amazon Prime Video would be available on Apple TV and Apple products would be available on Amazon. As part of the deal, Apple would lower its fee for people who subscribed to Prime Video from 30% to 15%. For existing Prime Video subscrib-ers, Apple agreed to drop its normal 15% fee. “The cherry on top for Amazon was that they could use other payment systems outside of Apple,” says Digital Content Next.

Those the details of the deal according to an email un-covered by the House of Representatives Judiciary Commit-tee, says Digital Content Next. Apple and Amazon haven’t made details of the deal public.

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