MPA/MPS e-Bulletin

A delegation of members from MPA’s Governmental Affairs Committee met Thursday with Mississippi Lt. Governor Amy Tuck and Attorney General Jim Hood to discuss the organization’s desire to improve newspaper access to fundamental information on crime reports at the local level.
MPA staff and GAC members participating in the meetings were chairman Lloyd Gray, editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal; MPA/MPS president Marcus Bowers, publisher of the Rankin County Record; Patsy Speights, editor and general manager of The Prentiss Headlight; Jim Prince, president of Prince Newspaper Holdings; Carolyn Wilson, MPA/MPS executive director; and Layne Bruce, marketing director.
The GAC has been seeking for a few years the adoption of standardized reporting of incidents and crime reports for local law enforcement agencies, emulating similar procedures in states such as Alabama and Iowa.
For the upcoming 2007 Legislative Session, GAC members are concentrating their efforts on improving accessibility to basic, pertinent information from police and sheriff investigations: including the “who, what, when and where” of a particular incident.
Tuck offered the assistance of her office in researching existing state statutes and examining those in use by other states, while Hood addressed the need to work closely with state associations for police and sheriff officials to maximize potential success for such measures.
GAC members will be following up in the coming weeks with the staffs for Hood and Tuck, as well as with the lobbyist for the state police chief’s association.

Journalists who want to learn more about court reporting or public meetings and open records laws in Mississippi have two important training opportunities coming up the week of Oct. 23.
The Judges and Journalists Workshop will bring together reporters and members of the judiciary for a daylong session at Pearl River Resort in Philadelphia Wednesday, Oct. 25.
The program will start  with continental breakfast at 8 a.m. in Meeting Rooms 4 and 5 at the Silver Star Conference Center.  The morning session will include role reversals in a mock trial. You be the judges, and jurists will take notes and write news stories. Afterwards, participants will study the stories written and talk about each other¹s roles.
The luncheon speaker will be Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon.
The afternoon session will start with a video clip from a TV interview of a judge, with discussion to follow.
The media program will conclude with a panel discussion of free press vs. fair trial issues. Panelists include Circuit Judges Vernon Cotten and Ann H. Lamar, Rankin County Court Judge Kent McDaniel, Clarion-Ledger Court Reporter Jimmie Gates, Greenwood Commonwealth Managing Editor Leesha Faulkner and WLBT TV News Director Dennis Smith.
For more information or to obtain an agenda and registration form, e-mail bkraft@mssc.state.ms.us  or call Beverly Kraft at 601-354-7452.
The week ends with a special program conducted by noted Freedom of Information attorney Leonard Van Slyke of Jackson on open meetings and public records. The event will be held from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at The Clarion-Ledger and is co-sponsored by MPA, the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters. and the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information.
Van Slyke is a former reporter who has represented media companies for the past two decades and has been listed in the Best Lawyers in America in First Amendment Law.
Registration fee is $35 for MCFOI members and $50 for non-members. The price includes a copy of the MCFOI media law handbook and covers lunch.
Deadline for registration is Friday, Oct. 20. Send fee and contact information, including email address, to Jeanni Atkins, MCFOI, Department of Journalism, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. Contact her by emailing iatkins@olemiss.edu or call 662-915-7146.

Nov. 1 is the cutoff date to register for the ArkLaMiss Circulation Conference, Nov. 9 and 10, Ameristar Hotel and Casino in Vicksburg.
Speakers include Max Heath, vice president for circulation, Landmark Community Newspapers; Jay Jones, circulation director of the Huntsville (AL) Times; and Jeff Helms, circulation director of the American Press, Lake Charles, LA, among several others.
For a registration form and complete agenda, click here.

Todd H. Carpenter, president and chief operating officer of Boone Newspapers, has joined the board of directors for the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. Carpenter succeeds Wanda Jacobs, publisher and CEO of The Mississippi Press in Pascagoula, who has served two terms on the board as the Mississippi director.

Tim J. McGuire writes: September presented editors with two stories that I contend should serve as a new rallying point for editors intent on playing something more than a subordinate role in crafting a future for newsrooms and journalists: One argues for a common platform for newspaper Web sites as a means to fight obsolescence; the other is a reminder that newspaper sites might not always want to depend on outside organizations like Google to aggregate their work.

Newspaper stocks rose on Thursday, rebounding in line with broader market gains a day after weak earnings reports from two large newspaper publishers pressured the sector.

One analyst also said that comments by Gannett and Journal Register indicate that newsprint prices, which have been on the rise for some time, could be stabilizing.

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet cable network, says he thinks newspapers are underpriced.
“The value proposition is much better than what you’re having to pay for,” Cuban said, speculating that newspaper owners “just don’t have the guts” to raise prices.

A delegation from the MPA’s Governmental Affairs Committee will meet separately October 12 in Jackson with Lt. Governor Amy Tuck and Attorney General Jim Hood.
The MPA group is seeking to get support from the elected officials for making adoption of a uniform law enforcement incident report a priority in the next legislative session. Tuck learned about MPA members’ desire to push the issue during a luncheon with members of the Legislative Budget Committee last month in Jackson.
Governmental Affairs committee members expected to attend include chairman Lloyd Gray of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, MPA/MPS president Marcus Bowers of the Rankin County News, Prince Newspaper Holdings Inc. president Jim Prince, Prentiss Headlight general manager Patsy Speights and MPA/MPS executive director Carolyn Wilson.
Clarion-Ledger Perspective Editor Sid Salter, who made MPA’s case for the incident reports during the Sept. 21 meeting, recently wrote a column on the subject, as did fellow committee member Mark Thornton, editor and publisher of The Star-Herald in Kosciusko.

Member newspapers submitted 1,506 entries for the 2006 Better Newspaper Contest — Advertising Division, which deadlined Tuesday. A couple of newspapers came in just under the wire at the 5 p.m. cutoff, bringing the total number of participating newspapers to 37 (19 dailies, 31 weeklies/non-dailies).
Judging for the contest will be conducted this month by members of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.
Awards will be handed out during MPA’s Mid-Winter Conference, scheduled for Jan. 25-27, 2007, at the Jackson Hilton Hotel.

With the close of the 2006 MPS fiscal year now behind us, member newspapers participating in the Mississippi Classified Advertising Network  (MCAN) and Mississippi Display Advertising Network (MDAN) will soon be receiving their dividend payments.
Checks should be mailed by the middle of October.
Staff members have been reviewing final affidavits and calculating dividends this week following the close of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Through MPS, member papers in MCAN/MDAN are paid annual dividends based on money in the network pool that builds through the year.
Members also can earn substantial commissions and bonuses by actually selling ads into the networks. In some cases, one or two network sales per month can equal or improve upon more labor-intensive local promotions and special sections.
For more information on the networks, contact coordinator Linda Caldwell, lcaldwell@mspress.org; to inquire about network sales training for your ad staff, contact marketing executive Sue Sessums, ssessums@mspress.org. Or call the MPS office directly at 601-981-3060.

Beth Fuchs Brenner, vice president and founding publisher of domino magazine, and Bruce Thomas, vice president and publisher of Progressive Farmer magazine, are among more than a dozen prominent journalists slated to participate in Journalism Week Oct. 9-13 at the University of Mississippi.
Samir Husni, chair of the journalism department, said that speakers for the fall event come from all over the country and represent the best of journalism in practice. Husni is recognized as the world’s foremost expert on magazine publishing.

The American Press Institute (API), after its year-long “Newspaper Next” work, released a report detailing specific ways for newspapers to reverse the course of declining revenues and shrinking readership and to envisage new business models.
API describes “Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project” as a “collaborative effort to develop practical, market-tested tools and processes for achieving long-term industry survival and growth through innovation….

If you were a newspaper-toting tyke, or remember a newspaper carrier who delivered to your home, will you share your tales?
Sandra Walker, a participant in the Nearby History program at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), is conducting a project with carriers who delivered in the many towns across America in the 1920s to 1960s era of newspapers.
Once as common as the milkman and the corner grocer, the youngster who threw the local paper on porch after porch also served the community.  The postman has been granted praise for rigorous efforts to complete his rounds under harsh conditions.  The child scurrying along delivering newspapers faced the same extremes of weather, and struggled with heavy loads, braved the dogs, and the occasional customer who shouted when the newspaper was on the roof.
Please recall your adventures and participate in contributing to the preservation of this American history.
Contact Sandra Walker at: 5111 Harbor Lane, Everett, Wash.  98203; phone: (425) 265-0718 or  (206) 276-3224; email: papercarrier@verizon.net.