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Patrick Cassidy is greeted by his wife, Merrily Cassidy, after Patrick was announced as journalist of the year among New England's dailies at NENPA's awards banquet. Both Cassidys are on the news staff of the Cape Cod Times of Hyannis, Mass. Merrily also was an award winner at the banquet Feb. 12. NENPA
convention focuses Continued from Home Page “If we had advertising flowing online, nobody would be holding back. But the problem is if you move readers online, mobile or whatever, but you don’t have a way of making money off it, (newspaper executives) want to hold back. And if they think it’s taking one reader away from print, where the money is, then they’re (reluctant). … Long term, if they don’t see a path to get the advertising on those other platforms, why pursue it?” Speaking at NENPA’s annual meeting to its board of directors and other early-risers among the more than 700 industry professionals who gathered for the two-day convention, Cotter identified ad sales as a top priority in the coming year. The winter convention was Cotter’s first as executive director, and the annual meeting represented his inaugural opportunity to chart a clear mission for NENPA, which spent much of 2010 in transition after the merger of the New England Newspaper Association and New England Press Association in July 2009. Mary Pat Rowland, outgoing president of NENPA’s board and managing editor of Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover, N.H., dedicated some of her parting speech to praising Cotter and the NENPA staff for their hard work and vision. “As I look back on this past year, it’s been a pretty wild ride for the New England Newspaper and Press Association,” Rowland said. “The dust began to settle from the merger of NENA and NEPA, and we began to forge a new legacy with a brand new organization. “Most of what’s been accomplished this year is all new and had to be created from scratch. I think they’ve done an amazing job,” Rowland said. NENPA's incoming president, Oreste “Rusty” D’Arconte, echoed Rowland in his speech and pointed to future challenges — challenges that also reflected a business-oriented outlook. “As someone who had one foot in NEPA and the other foot in NENA, I have only praise for the people who put this new organization together,” D’Arconte said. “Robert Laska, (NENPA’s first president), did all the heavy lifting; Mary Pat welded it together. And they both left me with a new, stronger and promising association. “There is a lot of work ahead: growing membership, improving finances, repositioning ourselves in a changing market,” D’Arconte said. Besides D’Arconte, publisher of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., NENPA’s 2011 executive committee includes Vice President Terrence Williams, publisher of The Telegraph of Nashua, N.H.; Treasurer Geordie Wilson, vice president of online strategy for Newspapers of New England Inc., parent company of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor; Secretary Phillip Camp, publisher of The Vermont Standard of Woodstock, Vt.; and past president Rowland. New members of the board of directors are John Voket, associate editor of The Newtown (Conn.) Bee; Timothy Ryan, publisher of The Westerly (R.I.) Sun; Mark S. Murphy, editor of the Providence (R.I.) Business News; Todd Smith, assistant publisher of The Caledonian-Record of St. Johnsbury, Vt.; and Mike Schroeder, publisher of The Herald of New Britain, Conn., and the Bristol (Conn.) Press. Departing members include Laska, a Hearst Newspaper Group consultant; Mark Smith, publisher of the Caledonian-Record; Eliot C. White, publisher of the Record-Journal of Meriden, Conn.; and Nancy Doniger, managing editor of Hersam Acorn Newspapers, based in Ridgefield, Conn. This year’s winter convention — which NENPA designated as its staff convention, in contrast to its institutional convention, held in the fall — featured more than 40 workshops on various newsroom and management topics. Cotter said most were well-attended and exceeded his expectations. “Attendance-wise, if we thought this was typical … we would have to be talking about another hotel, frankly,” Cotter said. “I wouldn’t want to do that for another couple years, but if we get that kind of crowd, (we’ll have to consider it). I mean these rooms are packed.” A series of watchdog reporting seminars was among the most popular, typifying one of this year’s main themes. Friday’s offerings included the New England First Amendment Coalition Fundraising Luncheon, where Anthony Lewis, retired Pulitzer Prize-winning and longtime New York Times columnist, received the first Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award. Lewis was honored for years of advocating government accountability, a record contemporary journalists should mimic as much for its business value as for its public service, Cotter said. “It’s becoming the focus of the industry,” Cotter said. “We realize that just reporting what happened yesterday is no longer enough for newspapers. We’ve got do in-depth analysis and the investigative stuff to make papers different. A lot of the ‘what happened?’ is available in many spots.”
He also said NENPA will launch a revamped version of its website, nenpa.com, in the next eight weeks. “It’s going to be something that we can be proud of,” Cotter said. “It will not only look better and work better but also have all kinds of useful tools for the newspapers, examples of best practices — all this inspiration that’s out there, we’re going to get it up on the Web. It’ll be all categorized, so you can look for circulation ideas, advertising ideas, news ideas.” Another notable initiative will come from the National Newspaper Association, represented at the NENPA annual meeting by its president, Elizabeth K. Parker, co-publisher and executive editor of Recorder Community Newspapers, based in Bernardsville, N.J. “One of our biggest threats this year — and ongoing — is a mental one: the belief that newspapers are dying,” Parker said. “NNA this year is carrying out a marketing campaign to speak to the world at large that community newspapers are real newspapers. And we are alive and kicking and doing well.” Cotter said the key to ensuring that newspapers maintain their lively status is advertising. He lauded NENPA’s new outbound advertising sales manager, Steve Baril, for his preliminary efforts last year and predicted positive returns in the near future. “We will sell more advertising for NENPA,” Cotter said. “Steve joined us in June or July, and just getting the word out and raising awareness, that’s what he did. But for a lot of the advertisers, the real promotional cycle doesn’t start until the spring. So, we’re hoping to see the fruit of his labor … We are going to be far more aggressive than we’ve been before. And we’re going to not only sell print, we’re going to try to put together some kind of online ad network that we can sell.” The winter convention concluded with the New England Better Newspaper Contest awards banquet. The following won in key categories: Weekly Journalist
of the Year: Susan Parkou Weinstein, The Raynham (Mass.) Call POSTED 2/13/11 |
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To
help member organizations conduct investigative journalism, NENPA plans
to hold training sessions at its Dedham, Mass., headquarters this year
and offer traveling newsroom instruction, Cotter announced at NENPA’s
annual meeting.|
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