MPA/MPS e-Bulletin

No. 53 for June 2006

Common Sense Journalism
By Doug Fisher

Headline panel leaves lots to think about

The modern newspaper is designed for skimmers, not just readers. That means more decks in headlines, catchy heads and other blurbs and doodads that we keep telling ourselves will pull people in and give those skimmers enough of the story that they get some value.

And, as usual, the “Inside nonreaders’ heads” panel at the recent American Copy Editors Society meeting in Cleveland should have us questioning some of that accepted wisdom.

• Those decks to help explain the story – and that we sometimes lean on to explain a tight main head – often don’t get read. “I feel like the deck is just filler between the headline and the regular text,” said Erin Kennedy, a high school senior on the panel.
• Pictures that don’t reflect the headline can be jarring.
• That other typographical furniture? Too often more distraction than help.
• Catchy headlines are good if not forced. But most of all make sure the head makes clear why someone should read the story.

Instead of the usual panel of nonreaders, this time all four were intensely interested in news and said they would read a paper – if the head caught their attention and they had time. Only Willow Andrews, who is raising her family at home, pointedly said she once read newspapers but quit because too much fluff crowded out vital information. She now uses public radio and the Internet.

Jane Trager worked for many years at a suburban Cleveland paper and now works for Ohio’s corrections agency. The fourth person, Sambala Boyd, is a young man from the Virgin Islands who works at local hotel. He and Andrews are black; Kennedy and Trager are white.
Reaction to this head from an inside page highlights the complexities of assembling a newspaper for today’s diverse audience:
Iraqi police unearth the bodies of 87 slain men

Kennedy found little to attract her when “it’s a common story now; you have it everywhere.”
“I want to read them,” she said, “but I want to know why this story is important. Why is it more important than the 30 men they found yesterday?”
But Andrews said she would read the story “to find out who these people are and why they are dead. … You don’t just say there are five more today.”
“It’s not a matter of not caring,” Boyd said. “It’s a matter of seeing it over and over.”
He said he probably would read the headline but skip the story and go to an “Other Developments” box. “It’s something else, something I don’t know,” he said.

This head, with its sexual innuendo, brought twitters from the audience:
Pinot Envy
It went with a story of how the movie “Sideways” promoted the wine. “Get your mind out of the gutter,” Kennedy admonished any nervous copy editors. And from Trager: “I just think it’s a hoot.”
Likewise, this head, on a sports story, generally went over well:
Urine trouble: Smith caught with cheat kit
Airport police find dried urine that is used with ‘The original Whizzinator’ to beat drug tests “Urine” again had some editors twittering, but was no problem for the panel, nor was repeating it in the head and deck. But using only “Smith” was a stumbling block. Kennedy said the catchphrase got her interested, but she wasn’t sure why she should read the story.

Trager also wondered who Smith was, “But I’d read the story because I work with people who try to cheat on their urine tests all the time.” She didn’t think the head might tend to convict Smith in public opinion. “If you have a cheat kit, you have a cheat kit. Why do you need a cheat kit?” she said.
However, this attempt to be catchy on a weather story fell flat:
A Sun-undrum
Fifteen days after March strolled in gentle as a lamb, not even a meteorologist can say whether the lion will awake with a roar.
Boyd said he might read it, but he would skip the deck. Trager agreed, and Kennedy said of the whole thing: “I think it’s a title, not a headline.” She’d skip to the next page. Andrews said her 9-year-old son is fan of the Weather Channel and knows all about weather. “But if I put this in front of him, it would take an hour” for him to figure out.
The following head was paired with several pictures, the main one showing a woman at home lying on a sofa and talking on a cell phone (the woman had been through the ordeal of a rockslide on Interstate 84):
In a flash, death barrels toward her
A woman is cruising I-84 one second, recovering from flying boulders the next
Boyd loved it – “It sounds like the beginning of a story” – and Andrews said it would draw her in. But the disconnect between the picture of a woman lying seemingly serenely and the idea of a rockslide jarred Kennedy and Trager.
There were other heads, and a full summary will be on the Common Sense Journalism blog, http://commonsensej.blogspot.com. In one case, for instance, the use between a headline and a story of a picture referring readers to a related story confused the panel.
Alex Cruden of the Detroit Free Press has organized these ACES sessions for almost a decade, and this year he was helped by Holly Franko of The Oregonian.

Doug Fisher, a former AP news editor, teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina and can be reached at dfisher@sc.edu or 803-777-3315. Past issues of Common Sense Journalism can be found at http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/csj/index.html.

FYI - Due to problems encountered when attempting to reach MPA’s convention hotel, the IP has added more rooms to our block this morning and have extended the cut off date right now to June 7th.

The reservation number MPA provided for the IP is a good number. They’re just experiencing an extremely heavy volume of calls, I’m told. We’re sorry that some of you have been frustrated when trying to make contact with the IP reservation desk.

Anyone having issues related to reservations should email the following:

feissl@ipbiloxi.com

Include the following information:

Name
Contact number
Reservation information (dates, type of room, etc.)
Do not include credit card information.
The IP rep will call back for billing details and lodging confirmation.

Let us know if we can be of further assistance with your convention lodging needs.

Carolyn

A phone conversation today sparked the idea of checking with all MPA members to see if any had a full time employee who was 83 years of age or older. No need to respond, unless your newspaper has a regular, full time employee who comes to the newspaper office and works every day, and is 83 or older.

We know of one such person (age 83), already, and wondered if there was anyone older still working full time for a MS newspaper. We will look forward to hearing from others with such a full time employee.

Thanks for your attention to this polling of MPA members.

Carolyn

We’re holding the Second Quarter edition of The Fourth Estate for one or two items still out, so this is a final call for any news you’d like to share with fellow members of staff promotions, hires or other items of interest at your newspapers.

Send your items to lbruce@mspress.org.

Hope to see you all on the coast in a couple of weeks.

lsb
–
Layne Bruce
Director of Marketing
Mississippi Press Association/Services

by Kevin Slimp, April 2006

I’m in a familiar predicament. There are at least a dozen new software applications on my desk, all waiting to be reviewed. There’s backup software, drive rescue software, photo editing software and word processing software, not to mention a pile of books. I decided to go with the most unique looking box. Comic Life, by Freeverse Software, fit the bill.

At first, you might think this is an application a newspaper would never use. Not so, my friends. I installed and opened the application. Within fifteen minutes, I had created my first comic. The comic I provided with this column was my second effort. It took about ten minutes to create. Let me tell you how it works.

After installing the software, I immediately opened Comic Life. The workplace was very user friendly. Basically, the left half of the screen is the template for your comic. I counted 16 templates to choose from or you can create your own. The right half includes a library of photos and all the tools. Comic Life gets its photos from your iPhoto library. Yes, this application is only available on the Mac platform. I added the photos I wanted to use to my iPhoto library, then headed back to Comic Life.

Laying out a page is as simple as dragging photos from the library into frames on the template. Once in the frames, pictures can be manipulated by dragging a handle, much as you resize photos in pagination applications. Each “cell” of your comic contains an image.

Comic balloons, bubbles and boxes are added to cells by choosing styles from the bottom area of the workspace. Text is created within each balloon or box. You can even move a balloon’s tail by moving it with your mouse.

My favorite aspect of Comic Life is the ability to use filters to create a “look” for your comic. I selected “Color Pencils” to give my creation the look of an old-fashion comic book. When completed, files can be saved in tif, jpeg and other formats.

Why would a newspaper be interested in Comic Life? First, it’s an easy way to be creative with advertising. Let’s face it. We only have so much time to spend on each ad. Why not dazzle your client with an ad that looks hand drawn, but takes only ten minutes to create? And second (are you sitting down?), The price. Comic Life retails for $30 US / $35 CAN / $50 AUS.

I can’t remember a product that offered so much potential at such an affordable price.

Comic Life is available from most Apple software vendors or you can order it from www.freeverse.com. For more information, visit www.freeverse.com.

Book Covers Creative Suite Gamut

I’ve written reviews of books on just about every aspect of Adobe’s Creative Suite. Recently I had a chance to review Using Adobe Creative Suite 2: The Only CS 2 Book You Need, by Michael Smick. In 986 pages, the author provides detailed information concerning Photoshop, ImageReady, Illustrator, InDesign and GoLive.

It might not be the only book you’ll ever need, but it sure covers a lot of ground. I appreciate the way the author offers simple explanations about what tools do, then supplies step by step instructions so users can begin using them right away. From Que Publishing (www.quepublishing.com). $50 US / $70 CAN / $80 AUS. ISBN 0-7897-3367-6.

The letters requesting graphics & verification for the Better Newspaper Contest have gone out all this week – if you haven’t gotten yours yet, you should shortly!

E-mail graphics (JPG, TIFF, PDF preferred) to vbracknell@mspress.org. There is a limit on our system of 4MB per e-mail, so you may have to split the e-mails up if you are sending more than one graphic. If you are sending multiple e-mails, it’s best to send about 10 minutes apart. I will be leaving e-mail running 24/7, and it checks every ten minutes. So if an e-mail should happen to bounce back because my box is full, just give it a few more minutes and try again, or give me a call. — Victoria

What else have you got to do today, huh?

Check out the new stuff at www.yabb-adobe-doo.com and take a break.

Since we have new training videos, technically you’re working.

Don’t miss out on the stupid stuff, though. All work and no play…

New stuff added weekly…and some times weakly…so tell your friends to subscribe for future updates.

See you soon and thanks for Yabbin’.

Russell Viers
DIGIVersity.TV

JACKSON — The Mississippi Press Association has launched a new blog covering developments in the newspaper industry at its website, www.mspress.org/inkblots.

The blog is compiled by MPA/MPS director of marketing Layne Bruce, a longtime reporter, editor and publisher at community papers in Mississippi. The InkBlots blog will focus on notable developments in the newspaper industry inside Mississippi and around the country.

“Blogs are ubiquitous on the net these days. They range in tone from serious and informational to quirky and entertaining,” Bruce said. “We think InkBlots is a way for MPA to join this trend and provide some valuable, relevant information to our reader and associates in a timely way.”

Member comments and feedback are encouraged through the blog, which will be updated several times each week.

“We don’t want this to be about what MPA thinks about any given issue. We want it to be the start of a dialog between our members about what’s going on in our business,” Bruce said.

Additional blogs could be added in the future, he said, if members are interested in starting discussions on topics such as newspaper design, technology and revenue generation.

To read the blog, visit http://www.mspress.org/inkblots.

For more information, email lbruce@mspress.org.

COMMUNITY JOURNALISM:

‘The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love’
Speaker: Jock Lauterer

Saturday morning concurrent session 10:15 A.M.

AFTER THE HURRICANE:

‘Getting Mississippi’s Story Told’
Speaker: Kathleen Koch
Saturday morning general session 8:00 A.M.

Kathleen Koch is a CNN general assignment correspondent based in Washington, D.C., specializing in aviation reporting and serving as back-up correspondent at the Pentagon and the White House.

In 2005 and 2006, Koch provided moving reports from the Gulf Coast during and in the aft ermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her reports were featured in CNN Presents: Saving My Town – Th e Fight for Bay Saint Louis, a special that looked at the progress of Koch’s hometown in Mississippi
six months aft er Katrina.

Before joining CNN, Koch was a general assignment reporter covering Washington D.C., for multiple news organizations. She was also a consumer and medical reporter for the Group W Newsfeed Network and a weekend reporter at WRC-TV in Washington D.C. She was an anchor and State Department correspondent for “America Today,” the U.S. Information Agency’s two-hour daily international
news broadcast to Europe.

Koch began her career, hired before graduating college, as a reporter and weekend anchor for the ABC affiliate WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Miss.

Koch was a Rotary Foundation International Graduate Scholar at the University of Dijon in Dijon, France. She studied journalism at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she was one of only 40 freshmen accepted into the university’s honors program.

Please note the date and time for the upcoming annual meetings in Biloxi:

MPA/MPS 2006 Annual Business Session
Imperial Palace Resort, Biloxi, MS
Friday, June 23, 2006, 10:30 a.m.

The brief business meetings will take place during the annual Mississippi Press Association Convention and will convene immediately at 10:30 a.m. It will adjourn by 11:00 a.m., as Gov. Haley Barbour will speak at that time.

According to the MPA Bylaws, there must be 25 voting members present to constitute a quorum. Please mark your calendar and plan to attend the annual business meetings where you will elect board members and approve officers to fill vacant slots. An overview of FY2005 and the nominating committee report will be provided to voting members prior to the business meeting.

MPA and MPS Board members note:
Thursday, June 22 1:00 p.m. - MPA/MPS board meetings.

Foundation board members note:
Thursday, June 22 4:00 p.m. - MPA Education Foundation semi-annual board meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact the MPA office.

Most elementary age children are interested in space exploration.
But how often do they find information about the very latest space discoveries and space technologies written especially for them? The short monthly columns provided by NASA’s award-winning Space Place outreach program give newspaper editors a no-cost source of accurate, up-to-date, and highly readable information for their youngest readers.  The columns are about 300 words and include a high-resolution image, with suggested caption, to support and enhance the text.  They are written at 4th or 5th grade level.

The columns are offered free of charge.  But editors are asked to send in a tear sheet each month.

If you would like to receive this monthly column for use in your NIE space, please contact Nancy Leon at (818) 354-1067 or at nancy.j.leon@jpl.nasa.gov

Dear editors,

(NOTE: This column is early. An editor, who shall remain nameless except to his family and close friends, implored me to send one right away, and because I fortuitously had finished my column for May, I reluctantly acceded to his request. However — and this is a huge “however” — in June, I shall resume my usual schedule of sending the column by the 27th of the month. I know all of you wish I would send it sooner, but the truth is, no matter when I send it, you always want it sooner. And if I sent you one column per day, someone would ask, “If it’s not too much trouble, could you send two per day?”)

Have I ever told you the story about of the poet I met on an airplane?

He looked more like a salesman than a poet, and son of a gun, a salesman is what he was.

I struck up a conversation with him because … because … well, honestly, because he was sitting next to me, and (in case you didn’t know this about me) I talk to everybody. I talk to longshoremen and shepherds and kayakers (not sure that’s a legitimate word, as my computer just gave me the finger for using it) and even my close relatives.

So I was on this plane, and we were sitting on the runway in Detroit, waiting behind a dozen other Northwest Airlines flights that were delayed because (so the story goes) a computer was broken in Memphis, and without that computer, no mere mortal could figure out whether the airplanes’ loads were balanced. (When I mentioned to the flight attendant the folly of having a dozen or more flights delayed because of a balky computer 1,000 miles away, he sneered and said, “I used to figure out the load balance with a pencil and piece of paper.”)

Anyway, I was sitting next to this very well-dressed guy (except for the cowboy boots), and I asked what he did for a living, and he said he sold heavy-construction equipment, and I said that sounded interesting, and he sneered and said, “Then you don’t know much about heavy-construction equipment.”

Apparently unwilling to unlock for me the mysteries of heavy-construction equipment, he asked me what I did for a living, and I told him, “Writing coach,” and then the sneering began in earnest. He couldn’t believe I could make a living teaching writing, as he was 100% certain he knew more about writing than I did, when all he really knew about me was that I wasn’t dressed as well as he was (except for the cowboy boots).

At that point, he revealed to me that he was a poet. Now, until that moment, I had never been in an actual emergency inside the fuselage of an airliner, but when I realized I was buckled into a seat next to a poet, and our flight was still on the ground, at least an hour late, and our flight was going to last at least another hour even after we took off, I swiftly asked the flight attendant if he could activate the oxygen masks that (according to airline legend) will drop from the ceiling, should we experience a sudden loss in cabin pressure.

After the flight attendant (rudely, I think) ordered me to cease acting like a child, I reluctantly resumed talking to the poet. He explained to me (in iambic pentameter, I think) how coarse and misguided modern printing and publishing executives are, to which I said, “Let me guess: You’re an unpublished poet.”

In a voice loud enough to activate hotel sprinkler systems, he responded, “At the moment, sir, yes,” which I took to mean he was unhappy.

Then he went to great pains to recite for me his favorite poems, all of which were by the same author, coincidentally, himself. At about No. 17, a sonnet dedicated to farm machinery, I think, he was interrupted by the pilot who announced we were next in line for takeoff, and I used that opportunity to ask the flight attendant if the pilot could grant my fondest wish, which was that he crash the plane.

No such luck. We took off without incident, and I heard plenty of poetry for the next hour or so, until we landed in Baltimore, at which point I lost track of the poet. I think he went to the bathroom, which is something I never envisioned Keats doing.

In a way, I wish I could have kept in touch with the poet, as I’ve been working on a rhyme myself. It starts, “There once was a bulldozer from Nantucket …”

Happy May, and I’ll be back in touch soon … jim

•••

As I was wrestling with the three lawn chairs that my wife, Sharon, and I had just bought, as I was twisting and turning them, trying to force them into the car trunk, a stranger strolled past.

“From my engineering background,” the grinning guy, dressed in shorts, a white T-shirt and a ball cap, said, “that ain’t going to work.” He looked as much like an engineer as I look like an NBA power forward.

I faked a smile, said, “Let me see your diploma,” and he laughed, which was the first thing that had gone the way I planned since Sharon and I had carried the chairs from the store.

Before we had left home, Sharon asked me if the three chairs would fit in the car. I told her I had done rigorous calculations (which I had not), and I assured her we’d have no problem getting them home (which I had no justification for saying).

We already owned one of that type of chair, and we both liked it so much, we routinely tried to outmaneuver each other to determine who would sit in it.

So when we saw that a local store had the same chair on sale ($5 off the regular price), we talked about buying another. Then we realized that if friends ever dropped over, we’d need extras, so we set out to buy three.

Before we went, I took the one chair we already owned out to our Mazda Protege, manhandled it into the trunk, looked warily at the overhang, got some rope for tying the trunk lid shut, then proclaimed myself ready for the modern-day suburban equivalent of combat: shopping.

That’s how I do things. I don’t measure and calculate and plan and make sure I can accomplish what I set out to do. First, I set out; then, when things go wrong, I improvise.

That’s the writer’s personality, and I think it’s what makes us special. Hey, before I got into the car to drive to the store, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I knew exactly how the chairs should fit in the trunk. I had thought a lot about it.

Such thinking is the key. I saw those chairs in the trunk long before I tried to place them there. (Besides, I had rope. I once read that rope will solve just about any problem.)

Before reporters go out on a story, they should know what story they want to get.

They should prepare, but not be so rigid as to adhere blindly to their pre-set plan.
Things will go wrong. Show me a reporter who got precisely the story he or she expected, and got it in precisely the way he or she envisioned, and I almost always will show you a mediocre story, one born of simplistic questions asked of the usual suspects, who then responded with predictable answers.

As we were paying for the chairs, Sharon whispered, “Should we see if the store will deliver them?”

With my characteristic empty but convincing bravado, I said, “Nah. Getting them home will be an adventure.”

Every story should be just that: an adventure, a stepping into the unknown. If we reporters know exactly how things will turn out, why do we think readers will not also know it? Why do we think readers want only the routine stuff they see in every edition?

I recently read a story about the clubs at local high schools. One of the clubs is for break dancing. Break dancing. Can you imagine? No, neither could I, and neither could other readers, and, I’ll bet, neither could the reporter, who probably started out thinking a story about high-school clubs would turn into a predictable list: the French club, the chess club, the debate club.

When Sharon and I got the chairs to the car, she asked how I wanted her to help load them. I said, “Why don’t you walk over to the grocery store and get some bananas?”

No, I didn’t have some secret plan for using bananas to help me load the chairs into the car. But we needed bananas, and I don’t like anyone lurking over my shoulder when I’m creating, whether I’m doing cargo sculpture or writing a story.

I think the best writers are loners, individuals. Some of them are the tortured-genius types, although I personally love writing too much ever to think of it as torture. I think most writers who need constant guidance will struggle to step forward and write something bold, something that goes against the grain and thus reveals.

By the time Sharon got back with the bananas, I was tying the rope holding down the trunk lid. Yes, I had succeeded. Protruding from the trunk were lawn chairs. Two of them.

That’s right, two. The third was in the front passenger seat. You reporters and editors instantly will recognize what had happened.

The original plan wouldn’t work, so I went with a main story and a sidebar.

THE FINAL WORD: I ordered a beer from the list on the menu, and the waitress said, “That’s non-alcoholic. It says ‘NA.’” I looked at the menu, and sure enough, there was “NA.”

Just as “NA” was foreign to me, some of the terms we use in newspapers are not familiar to our readers. One I’ve never cared for is “K-12,” our shorthand way of referring to schooling from kindergarten through high school. Spell out “kindergarten through 12th grade.”

###

Writing coach Jim Stasiowski welcomes your questions and comments. Call him at 410 247-4600 or write to 5812 Heron Drive, Baltimore, Md. 21227.

We’re more excited than ever about our auction at the summer convention this year! We’re awaiting confirmation on several big ticket items, but here’s a taste of what we have so far!

• IPod Shuffle - American Profile
• 11 x 14 Framed Pen & Ink Drawing - Ricky Nobile
• Brunch for Two - Hilton Hotel
• Dinner for Two - Huntington Grill/Hilton Hotel
• Two Nights Stay - Hotel Monteleone New Orleans
• Pottery - Carolyn Wilson
• Pottery - Wanda Jacobs
• 3 Day/2 night stay - Sandestin Golf & Resort Destin FL
• Horseshoe Casino Hotel - Tunica 1 night stay/$100.00 certificates to N’awlins Fine Dining
• Harrah’s Grand Casino Hotel - Tunica 1 night stay/$100 certificates to Murano’s Fine Dining
• Monmouth Plantation - Natchez 1 night stay
• Signature Offset - $250 Apple store gift certificate
• Casio Disc Title Printer - MPA/MPS
• Ladies Watch - Kimberly Haydu
• $100 gift certificate to Del Sol Fine Dining & Wine Bar - Pam Johnson
• Gas Grill - value $700-800, donated by Robert Lesley, Atmos Energy

“Lighting the Way”
MPA’s 140th Annual Convention
Imperial Palace Resort, Biloxi, MS
June 22-24, 2006

THURSDAY, JUNE 22

• 11:00 a.m. Registration/Silent Auction/Vendor Displays set up
• 1:00 p.m. MPA/MPS Board Meetings
• 4:00 p.m. MPA Education Foundation Board Meeting
• 7:00 p.m. Welcoming Reception/Buffet/Live auction to benefit MPAEF; Entertainment: coast area disc jockey playing ’70s music
• 10:00 p.m. Hospitality Suite Open (10 p.m. to midnight)

FRIDAY, JUNE 23

• 7:00 a.m. Registration/Silent Auction/Displays Open Continental breakfast available from 7-9 a.m.
• 8:00 a.m. Convention Kick-Off - Opening remarks/Flag presentation Welcome to the MS Gulf Coast
• 8:15 a.m. Leading the Recovery: How it all relates to communities statewide Panel of key leaders involved with rebuilding the coast area; Coordinator: Ricky Mathews, publisher, The Sun Herald
• 10:30 a.m. Annual MPA & MPS Business Meetings
• 11:00 a.m. Moving Forward: The Big Issues in the Recovery Process The Honorable Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi
• 12 noon Bus loading for afternoon tour of three coast counties. (Limited seating.) (Tour & sporting activities include a boxed lunch/pick up before leaving hotel.)
• 1:00 p.m. Golf Tournament - Shell Landing Golf Club Tennis Tournament - Treasure Oats in Ocean Springs
• 6:00 p.m. President’s Reception & Banquet - MPA’s 140th anniversary recognition Hall of Fame Presentation & Passing of the Gavel
• 10:00 p.m. Hospitality Suite Open (10:00 p.m.-12 midnight)

SATURDAY, JUNE 24

• 7:00 a.m. Registration/Silent Auction/Displays Open/Cont. breakfast 7-9 a.m. Optional viewing of “Saving my Hometown”, CNN documentary
• 8:00 a.m. Getting Mississippi’s Story Told Kathleen Koch, CNN reporter who grew up in Bay St. Louis, MS
• 9:00 a.m. Covering Disasters/Communicating in Crisis Panel of newspaper reporters/editors who rode out the storm; Coordinator: Stan Tiner, editor, The Sun Herald
• 10:15 a.m. Concurrent Sessions:
  • (A) Planning Before a Diaster & Covering Katrina’s Aftermath Panel of photojournalists; Tim Isbell, Sun Herald, coordinator
  • (B) Community Journalism: The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love Jock Lauterer, Director of the Carolina Community Media Project
• 11:30 a.m. Pressing On: Mississippi’s Newspapers after Hurricane Katrina Dr. Ralph Braseth, Ole Miss Student Media Center
• 12:30 p.m. Better Newspaper Contest - Editorial Division 2005 Awards Luncheon
• 2:00 p.m. Closing Comments

FOR HOTEL RESERVATIONS, CALL 1-888-946-2847 (#1). Identify yourself with the MS Press Association group #V387. Rates: $89-Wed/Thurs; $129-Fri/Sat. Hotel cut off deadline - May 29. Don’t wait!

Since you’re bored at the office today, we thought we’d give you something to do. We really do care about you.

We’ve added more free training videos, more stupid stuff and more discussion topics. NOW, you have something to do today.

Stroll on over to www.yabb-adobe-doo.com and have a look.

Tell your friends…and your enemies.

Thanks for Yabbin’,

Russell Viers
DIGIVersity.TV

• Job bank feed: feed://www.mspress.org/job_bank/?feed=rss2
• Press release feed: feed://www.mspress.org/pressreleases/?feed=rss2
• e-Bulletin feed: feed://www.mspress.org/ebulletin/?feed=rss2

What’s RSS? (Really Simple Syndication)

From Wikipedia:

RSS or Web feeds provide web content or summaries of web content together with links to the full versions of the content, and other metadata. In addition to facilitating syndication, web feeds allow a website’s frequent readers to track updates on the site using an aggregator.

An aggregator or news aggregator is a type of software that retrieves syndicated Web content that is supplied in the form of a web feed (RSS, Atom and other XML formats), and that are published by weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites.

The syndicated content an aggregator will retrieve and interpret is usually supplied in the form of RSS or other XML-based data, such as RDF or Atom formats.

Do you need a news reader? You can find links to different software here. Some e-mail programs like Thunderbird or web browsers such as Safari or Firefox also offer RSS support. Similarly, there are free online RSS aggregators like Bloglines.

Literacy advocates in Conway, Ark., have developed a project to promote literacy and have made the plans for conducting the project available on a new web site.

The project, known as “A Bookcase for Every Child,” is the brainchild of nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist Jim Davidson. It was launched in 2005 by volunteers who built 50 personalized bookcases and collected 6,000 “gently-used” children’s books and gave the bookcases to 100 children. The volunteers plan to continue the project each year with 50 more bookcases.

Go to www.jimdavidsoncolumn.com/bookcase to read more about the project.

The project’s web site includes a narrative, photos, bookcase plans, front-page newspaper articles and suggestions about raising funds.

Davidson has pledged all of the profits from his book “Learning, Earning & Giving Back” to fund the project. Private donations also fund a portion of the program.

In the United States, 61 percent of low-income families do not own any books and up to 80 percent of children in low-income families grow up in single-parent homes.