MPA/MPS e-Bulletin

The SNPA Traveling Campus will return to Mississippi next week with sessions scheduled in Grenada at the Daily Star Aug. 26 and 27 and at the Thames Conference Center on the Wesson Campus of Co-Lin Community College Aug. 27 and 28.

Topics include newswriting and advertising sales in Grenada, while Wesson topics will focus on circulation and news and ad design. Nationally-known speakers will be presenters for all sessions.

There is no cost for participation in these informative training sessions. Simply visit SNPA’s Traveling Campus website to sign up you or your staff members or to learn more about the sessions planned and the presenters.

Criteria and entry forms for the 2007 Better Newspaper Contest — Advertising Division will be released Friday, Aug. 31. Members will be informed via email when the rules are posted and will then be able to obtain PDFs of the criteria and entry packets at mspress.org/bnc.

Entry deadline for the 2007 Contest, which covers the dates of Sept. 1, 2006-Aug. 31, 2007. Entries will be judged by members of the Utah Press Association in Salt Lake City this fall. Winnters will be announced during the annual Mid-Winter Conference at a special awards luncheon Jan. 26, 2008.

Mississippi Press Services is currently making plans to co-host with AdMall a webinar session on maximizing revue and sales through the Web-based co-op program. MPS has offered the AdMall service to members for several years, but participation has waned over the past year and that has driven costs up for the remaining participants.

“If we can get more members interested in joining AdMall, then the dues for the program will be more affordable for everyone,” said MPA/MPS executive director Layne Bruce. “The purpose of the webinars is two-fold: We want to increase participation and training among existing members and hopefully entice a few more papers to join the program.”

MPS Director of Sales David Gillis is currently polling members to see who would be interested in participating and is working with AdMall reps to set a date in September for the training.

Members do not have to participate in AdMall currently to join in on the webinar. Dates will be announced soon.

If your newspaper would like to participate and learn how to grow co-op sales through the AdMall program, contact Gillis, dgillis@mspress.org, or call 601-981-3060.

From the North Star Writers Group: A study came out last week saying that, by 2010, more media advertising dollars will be spent online than in print. This poses a serious question for media companies – how to make online revenue work, and fast? Although online revenue is increasing at most newspapers, ad sales for the dead tree edition still largely pay the bills.

From American Journalism Review: Many in the media jettisoned caution–and the presumption of innocence–in their coverage of an alleged rape by Duke lacrosse players, and were too slow to correct the record as the case unraveled. But some journalists distinguished themselves with skeptical and incisive reporting.

From MediaLife Magazine: Worldwide, it’s a mega-trend, the rise in free dailies challenging older, established paid-circulation newspapers. Free papers are already big in Europe, and more are launching in the U.S. in cities like Washington, New York and Chicago. But the trend is hardly confined just to major markets.