Next Tuesday, June 3 is the the lodging cutoff to receive the MPA group rate at the Beau Rivage during our 142nd Annual Convention. If you have not yet made your reservations, do it today. Rooms are filling up fast.
Call the Beau Rivage at 1-888-383-7037 and ask for the MS Press Association rate, or click here.
Two longtime Mississippi newspapermen will be inducted into MPA’s Hall of Fame June 27th during the association’s 142nd Annual Convention in Biloxi.
Murphy Weir, former editor and publisher of the Poplarville Democrat, and Edgar T. Crisler Jr., former editor and publisher of the Port Gibson Reveille, are the latest men to be named to the Hall of Fame, established in 1986 to recognize individuals who have made significant contribution to journalism in Mississippi and elsewhere.
A 39-year newspaper veteran, Weir was born in Newton in 1909. He graduated from Newton High School and earned his bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University, where he served as editor of The Reflector.
Weir purchased the Newton County News in 1938 and sold it two years later when he moved to Poplarville to purchase the Weekly Democrat. He served as the paper’s editor and publisher for 34 years until his death in 1978. During his tenure, the Democrat was regularly cited for excellence by MPA, including a General Excellence prize. He was regularly involved with the Press Association.
Weir was a Rotarian and member of First United Methodist Church. He was named Poplarville’s Citizen of the Year in 1960 for his support of Pearl River Junior College.
Weir’s son, Kenneth “Butch” Weir, serves as the editor of the Democrat today. He is expected to accept the honor in memory of his father.
Crisler was born in 1935 in Port Gibson. His widow, Emma Crisler, continues to serves publisher of the Reveille today.
He earned a BA degree in English from Southwestern (Rhodes) College in Memphis before returning to his family’s newspaper in Port Gibson. He became editor of the newspaper upon the death of his father, Edgar Crisler Sr., a former MPA president, in 1975.
According to Emma Crisler, her husband’s “expertise in investigative reporting” aided in his coverage of corruption of public officials. Among the numerous awards presented to Crisler from MPA was a 1981 prize for Best Investigative Reporting.
During his tenure, the newspaper covered critical community events such as an NAACP boycott of local businesses and the building of the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Plant.
Crisler is also credited with diversifying the content of the newspaper to cover news of relevance to citizens of all races.
The two men will be inducted during the annual President’s Banquet, Friday evening, June 27 at 7pm. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Beth Boone, 601-981-3060.
The National Newspaper Association will host its annual Postal Summit July 10-11 in the nation’s capital at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel. Topics to be covered in the two-day session include requirements for intelligent mail barcodes, startup of flats sequencing machines and “Postal Service in the Throes of Massive Change.”
For additional information on the event, or registration materials, visit the NNA Website.
The Southern Newspaper Publishers Association is partnering with Borrell Associates to present a webinar series on Online Advertising Revenue. The sessions begin July 9 and continue through August. The sessions are open to MPA members.
The SNPA webinars will deliver the training and information directly to any computer. Content for the first series is being developed by Borrell Associates, an industry leader in online advertising sales training and research.
The sessions last about one hour and cost just $75 for an unlimited number of participants connected in a conference room, auditorium or classroom. The only equipment needed: an Internet-connected computer and a telephone.
Dates and topics:
For more information or to register, visit the SNPA Website.
Technology gurus Kevin Slimp and Russell Viers will continue their successful Braincast webinar series on topics such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Flash and PDF managment in June. MPA members have access to the live, online training using their Web browers (Safari, Explorer, Firefox) over a broadband (high-speed) Internet connection. Participants receive live audio by dialing a toll-free number provided after registration.
The fee to participate is $69 per connection per session. Most newspapers will choose to gather staff together in one location, around a large monitor or projector, while listening to audio over a speakerphone.
Register today or find out more course information at braincast.biz.
Upcoming sessions:
These webinars can be viewed on Mac or PC computers and no special software is necessary. Participants will receive an instruction sheet after registration. Included in the information is the username, password and a toll-free number for audio. In addition, you will be supplied a log-on name.
From MediaLife Magazine: Perhaps the most positive thing to note about newspapers is that a good chunk of…circulation declines were managed, where publishers intentionally slashed what’s these days referred to as junk circulation, papers being sent out to areas beyond the core readership or that are essentially given away…it’s a move that advertisers should welcome…
From Editor and Publisher: A Canadian court has cleared the way end Hollinger Inc.’s control of Sun-Times Media Group (STMG), the Chicago Sun-Times parent announced. Hollinger, once a leading international publisher, owned a number of Mississippi newspapers, including Meridian, Laurel, Starkville, West Point and Kosciusko.
From IAB: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP announced that the 2007 Internet Advertising Revenue Report shows Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. continued their upward climb. For the full year 2007, revenues totaled $21.2 billion, exceeding 2006 performance by 26 percent.
The Mississippi Press Association will return to the Gulf Coast and Biloxi’s Beau Rivage Resort and Casino for the group’s 142nd Annual Convention June 26-28.
This year’s convention, which will focus on the state Sunshine Laws and Freedom of Information matters, will host speakers well-known to many MPA members, including FOI attorney Leonard Van Slyke, MPA general counsel John Henegan, and National Newspaper Association postal chairman Max Heath.
View the tentative agenda here.
Reservations can be made for the Beau Rivage for the group rate of $139 Wednesday and Thursday night and $179 Friday and Saturday nights. For more information on lodging or to make reservations, click here.
Registration packets will be mailed to members in early May.
Convention chairman for this year’s event is Randy Ponder of the Sea Coast Echo, president-elect of MPA/MPS. He will accept the gavel the evening of June 27 from outgoing president Tom Andrews of The Picayune Item.
Convention highlights include the traditional golf and tennis tournaments, post-event schooner cruise and, of course, the Better Newspaper Contest Awards program.
For more information on the convention, contact Layne Bruce, executive director, lbruce@mspress.org, or Kimberly Haydu, event manager, khaydu@mspress.org.
Members who entered the 2007 Better Newspaper Contest Editorial Division should this week receive notifications from MPA on whether their newspaper or staffs placed in the annual competition. Contest coordinator Beth Boone sent notices in care of each winning newspaper’s publisher.
Judging this year was performed by the South Carolina Press Association in Columbia last month. Awards will be presented during MPA’s 142nd Annual Convention June 28 in Biloxi.
First class postage rises to 42 cents effective May 12. But a long-sought 5 percent discount on out-of-county mail should be good news for community newspapers.
Newspapers should also take note of revised USPS Form 3541 that goes into effect this month.
The National Newspaper Association is calling for nominations for the 2008 Daniel M. Phillips Leadership Award, which was established in 2007 to honor Daniel Morris “Dan” Phillips, longtime associate publisher of The Oxford Eagle and former MPA president who passed away in 2005 at the age of 47.
Nominees must be between 23-40 years old, well respected in the community, be of good reputation and integrity, provide active leadership in the newspaper industry and be active in his or her state press association and community. Nominees must be an NNA member, and although NNA involvement is encouraged, other merits will be taken into consideration in determining the award winner (NNA involvement is not required).
Deadline for submission of letter of nomination and form is May 31, 2008. If your nominee is among the top five candidates selected by the judges, you will be contacted and asked to submit additional documentation. The nomination form and more details are located at nna.org.
The Daniel M. Phillips Leadership Award will be presented during NNA’s 122nd Annual Convention & Trade Show, Sept. 25-28, 2008, in Saint Paul, MN. For more information, contact Sara Dickson at (573) 882-5800 or saradickson@nna.org.
Established in 1885, the National Newspaper Association is the voice of America’s community newspapers and the largest newspaper association in the country. The nation’s community papers inform, educate and entertain nearly 150 million readers every week.
From Editor and Publisher: Print circulation continues on its steep downward slide, the Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed Monday in releasing the latest numbers for some of the country’s largest dailies in the six-month period ending March 31, 2008. When a full analysis appears it is expected to find, according to sources, the biggest dip yet, about 3.5% daily and 4.5 for Sunday.
MORE FROM E&P
From MediaLife Magazine: Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalists that also owns the St. Petersburg Times, talks to Media Life about managed reductions, justifying circ declines to advertisers, and what media people can learn from the circulation drops.
From American Journalism Review: “Forget Clinton and Obama. The real loser of the Wednesday night debate in Philadelphia was journalism…The relentless rat-a-tat-tat of questions about campaign distractions by ABC moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos was a vivid illustration of what is so wrong with so much that passes for political coverage today.”
