Rick Looser, CEO of Flowood’s Cirlot Agency, appeared Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show to promote his organization’s “Mississippi…Believe It!” public awareness campaign. You can view video from the feature and interview here.
MPA president Marcus Bowers, publisher of the Rankin County News, and executive director Layne Bruce traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to represent state newspapers at the National Newspaper Association Governmental Affairs Conference. During the event, they traveled to Capitol Hill to visit with Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott, as well as Third District Congressman Chip Pickering on issues of relevance to state newspapers, including strengthening of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), postal reform and the repeal of the Estate Tax (Death Tax).
During the conference, several candidates seeking the presidency spoke to publishers, editors and association representatives in attendance, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani and California Congressman Duncan Hunter. Other speakers included Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). Friday luncheon included remarks by Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post, who directed the paper’s coverage of Watergate and President Nixon’s resignation.
Sens. Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) were honored with awards for their bill in Congress to strengthen FOIA.
Member newspapers will soon receive a survey in the mail from Ralph Braseth, director of the Student Media Center at Ole Miss. Braseth’s research will compile data from member publishers and editors. He is scheduled to present his findings at the annual MPA Convention, June 21-23 at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi.
Braseth is a long-time MPA collaborator, producing last year’s documentary, “Pressing On,” that focused on the five Gulf Coast newspapers’ efforts to recover from the storm.
Packets will include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for return. For more information, contact Braseth via email, jnrbb@olemiss.edu.
From NNA: A delay in the implementation of new periodicals mailing rates until July 15, as other increases kick in May 14, is a welcome relief for newspaper mailers, NNA President Jerry Tidwell, publisher of the Hood County (TX) News said today.
From the Editor’s Weblog: “Is the newspaper industry dying? Not now. On an average day, roughly 51 million people still buy a newspaper, and 124 million in all still read one,” says the US State of the News Media 2007 report. Despite this positive introduction, the report’s findings point towards challenging times for the newspaper industry.
From NNA: Postage increases for periodicals mailers should be delayed until at least mid-summer to allow software programmers to grapple with a complex new rate schedule and give mailers time to understand the changes, the National Newspaper Association told the US Postal Service Board of Governors this week.
From Advertising Age: Maybe it’s no surprise that Google’s effort to help small and medium-size advertisers buy offline media such as newspaper space and radio spots appears to be working. What is surprising, however, is that the newspaper and radio folks aren’t sounding the least bit spooked by it. In fact, Google may have finally built what years of complaining by media-buying agencies couldn’t: a viable, scalable, e-business approach to buying local media.
National Sunshine Week begins Sunday. If your newspaper is participating by publishing related stories, editorials or house advertisements, please notify MPA so we can track participation.
A reminder that Daylight Savings Time starts early Sunday morning. A change in the law governing the time shift pushed it a few weeks earlier this year. In addition, it will last one week later, too, ending Nov. 4 instead of the last week of October.
A reminder to also take time to check and replace the batteries in your home’s smoke detectors.
Samir Husni from the University of Mississippi will be featured this weekend on CBS News “Sunday Morning,” which typically airs on most CBS stations at 8:00 AM CDT. He’ll be speaking on the future of the print journalism industry.
On Monday, NBC’s “Today” Show will feature a segment on the “Mississippi, Believe It!” campaign developed by the Cirlot Agency and its COO Rick Looser. The segment is scheduled to air during Today’s first hour, between 7-8 a.m. CDT, according to a Cirlot release. For more information on the “Mississippi, Believe It!” campaign, visit the Website.
The 9th Annual McDavid Conference will be held Thursday, March 29 at Pearl City Hall auditorium. The event will bring together student journalists from across the state for a half day’s worth of educational programs and the annual Student Better Newspaper Contest.
Speakers include Clarion-Ledger writer and columnist Orley Hood and longtime Mississippi columnist Ovid Vickers. Also scheduled to appear is cartoonist Ricky Nobile. Students will also view the documentary “Pressing On,” produced by Dr. Ralph Braseth and journalism students at the University of Mississippi.
For the past eight years, the O.C. McDavid Memorial Fund, administered by the Mississippi Press Association Education Foundation, has underwritten the cost of this conference to promote journalism education in the state.
The conference is named after the late O.C. McDavid, former managing editor of the Jackson Daily News, who actively pursued a second career as an artist and sculptor after retiring from journalism. The MPA is proud to focus a portion of these sessions on coverage of community lifestyles and the arts.
Attendees receive a copy of “My Name is O.C.,” his autobiography.
For more information on the conference, contact Member Services Coordinator Beth Boone, bboone@mspress.org.
MPA is conducting a poll of the membership to determine average fees now paid to stringers for coverage of sporting events and other activities. Please email the average amount your newspaper pays to stringers per game or event, plus any expenses you cover, to lbruce@mspress.org. General findings will be shared with members in a few days. We appreciate your help.
The National Newspaper Association’s Governmental Affairs Conference will convene in Washington, D.C. March 21 and focus on a number of issues important to community papers across the county. A delegation from Mississippi and your state’s press association will attend, including MPA president Marcus Bowers, publisher of the Rankin County News, and past presidents Bill Jacobs of the Brookhaven Daily Leader and Joe Lee of the Grenada Daily Star.
Jacobs was recently appointed to the NNA Board of Directors and is the first Mississippi newspaperman to hold such a post since the late Dan Phillips of the Oxford Eagle served in the late 1990s.
The agenda will focus on such topics as Freedom of Information, small business health plans, postal issues and the estate tax. For more information, visit nna.org.
From The Washington Post, via Napa Valley Register: If there’s any good news about the businesses of newspapering these days, it can be found at the industry’s littlest papers, which are doing well even as their bigger brothers founder.
From the National Journal: What the newspaper industry needs right now is a good publicist. Not a “vice president for public relations” or a “spokesperson” who puts out press releases and waits for phone calls. I mean a hard-core, hard-charging publicist like the ones celebrities employ to craft the image and keep the “brand” humming.
From Editor and Publisher: At least seven of Ann Coulter’s approximately 100 clients dropped her column this week, meaning more than 90 are keeping the feature — at least for now.
