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The premier resource for insight, analysis and technology integration in newspaper and hybrid operations and production. Images: Evvnt Images:

u News & Tech Staff Report Richard Green, Events at Evvnt Evvnt founder “It’s quite aggressive what we’re trying to do,” ton, Pamplin, Wick and two Adams papers. and CEO. Evvnt CEO Richard Green told News & Tech. In February, Evvnt announced a deal with Town- Green, a chatty Brit, was talking about his push News, a Lee subsidiary that provides digital services to sign up corporate and family-owned newspaper to media organizations. “It’s a very valuable deal,” operations to his Evvnt platform. “Our mission is to says Green, as TownNews serves more than 2,000 get every single newspaper off the likes of CitySpark, papers. “It gets our product into the hands of news- Pointslocal, SpinGo, all this historical tech. We want papers using their platform very quickly.” that out of the way.” Contracts are out with Gannett for another 200 of In prevailing current models, papers don’t make their local brands through USA Today, and with Lee revenue out of event listings, Green says. for the just-acquired BH Media papers, says Green. Among those on board with Evvnt are the former “If you watch Evvnt over the next three to six GateHouse papers (now Gannett), Lee, McNaugh- months, you’re just going to hear that we’re signing Evvnt continues on page 5 Colorado Springs Gazette increasing customer, content engagement u by Tara McMeekin Contributing Writer The Gazette in Colorado Springs made some changes last fall to right-size the way the southern Colorado publisher manages a Deedie McKenzie, vice president finance, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, at the Key Execu- number of customer-facing functions. In September, The Gazette tives Mega-Conference in mid-February at the tapped Naviga Global for cloud-based solutions to manage sub- Omni Fort Worth Hotel. scriptions, marketing functions and its digital paywall. Naviga is the result of Newscycle’s rebrand, which launched in April 2019 following a number of vendor acquisitions over the past year, including that of Marketing G2. The Gazette went live with Naviga’s Subscribe, Engage and Discover software mod- ules. The Subscribe app offers readers a self-service portal where they can manage subscription sign-ups, starts and stops, and pay bills. “We had previously used DTI’s circulation management and had built our own subscription ecommerce platform,” Deedie McKenzie, vice president of finance and IT for The Gazette, told News & Tech. “We had a full staff of developers and that’s how we were managing everything online.”

Turn to page 33 for expanded industry coverage Colorado Springs Gazette continues on page 6

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manufacturer. That system is outdated and no longer supported. Mainpost expanding press The 12 new mRC-3D cameras for register and cut-off control will automation with QIPC be installed on the K&B Commander press and will help the print facility save start-up waste and work more efficiently, says QIPC. The printing operation of German newspaper Mainpost is expanding its press automation with Q.I. Press Controls (QIPC). The mRC-3D and IDS-3D systems of the Dutch specialist in measurement and control equipment for the printing industry will be installed in Wurz- New Commander CL for burg, in central Germany. Druckhaus Delmenhorst The new order from Germany comes shortly after Mainpost's print- ing works first became acquainted with QIPC's press automation and Druckhaus Delmenhorst is slated for a new Commander CL. The is part of a general modernization of the K&B Commander CT press. floor-mounted Commander CL comprises three four-high towers, The press expansion that Mainpost recently purchased included two KF 5 jaw folders and three Pastomat reelstands with a stripping QIPC register and color control. “The convincing results and experi- station and Patras A paper-reel transport system. ences on our first production line made us decide relatively quick to It is scheduled to come on stream in the fourth quarter of 2020. retrofit the rest of the machine as well,” said Andreas Kunzemann, “Our existing Commander CT is already very well utilized, and so technical manager at Mainpost. we needed to expand our production capacities to be ready for a A total of eight mRC-3D and four IDS-3D cameras will be installed series of new jobs which we will be printing from December 2020 in Wurzburg. onwards,” said Gerhard Tapken, the owner of Druckhaus Delmen- In addition to the Mainpost, the Schweinfurter Tagblatt, Schwein- horst, based in Delmenhorst, Germany. furter Volkszeitung, Hassfurter Tagblatt, Bote vom Hassgau and the Starting at the end of this year, the new press will be responsible Volksblatt are printed in Wurzburg. for production of the papers Weser-Kurier, Bremer Nachrichten and Verdener Nachrichten, among others. “With a total of four state-of-the-art folder deliveries, Delmenhorst will then become one of the major newspaper printing locations Adams Publishing using in northern Germany,” said Gunter Noll, head of sales at Koenig & Brainworks Stratica Bauer Digital & Webfed.

Adams Publishing Group has chosen Brainworks Stratica Advertising and CRM solution for their estimated 550 users companywide, ac- cording to Brainworks Software. Indian printers place orders Adams is a Brainworks development partner. with QIPC “We look forward to working with APG, both as customer and co-development partner,” said Rick Sanders, president and CEO of Q.I. Press Controls (QIPC) has received three orders for the replace- Brainworks. “We recognize that significant changes are happening ment of automation systems from India. The orders came from the in the traditional partner model and the best path to profitability in printing companies Hindustan Times Media, Mirror Image and Delhi this industry is through co-development partnerships that are easy to Press Patra Prakashan. do business with like APG.” At Hindustan Times Media, a large Indian media group, two mRC- Adams Publishing has 27 daily papers, more than 100 non-daily 3D cameras for color register and cut-off control were installed re- papers and a number of other media-related businesses in 15 states cently on a Harris N400B press at their Greater Noida Plant. The and the District of Columbia. Other Adams family enterprises in- mRC-3D system replaced an older and non-functioning automation clude outdoor advertising (billboards), radio, wine and Camping register- and cutoff control system from another manufacturer. World/Good Sam (recreational vehicles). At Delhi Press Patra Prakashan, two new mRC-3D cameras for color register and cut-off control were installed on a Harris N400B press. Again, the mRC-3D system replaced an obsolete system from another manufacturer. Delhi Press Patra Prakashan publishes 33 Reiff Zeitungsdruck gets magazines in 10 languages and has a group readership of over 35 new automation from QIPC million. Mirror Image in Gandhinagar also chose to upgrade its press auto- Q.I. Press Controls (QIPC) will equip the Koenig & Bauer Commander mation with an mRC-3D system from QIPC. press of German regional printing company Reiff Zeitungsdruck with new automation. In Offenburg, central Germany, QIPC’s mRC-3D system for register and cut-off control will replace an automation system from a local

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 3 March/April 2020

contents Volume 32, No. 2 News & Tech P.O. Box 478 Colorado Springs Gazette increasing Beaver Dam, WI 53916 customer, content engagement 1 p: 303.575.9595 Check out www.newsandtech.com Events at Evvnt 1 Editor & Publisher Mary L. Van Meter [email protected] Leveraging digital location tech to Art Director Violet Cruz showcase the value of print advertising 8 [email protected] Managing Editor Trends, tips from AI book author 10 Mary Reardon News & Tech’s new [email protected]

Contributing Writer Mega vendor roundup 14 — 15 expanded coverage Tara McMeekin starting on page 33 of [email protected] USA Today goes with Tecnavia’s NewsMemory 16 Contributing Writer Marcus Wilson the digital edition at [email protected] Off the Record: Mega Conference 17, 19 — 20 Contributing Writer Kirsten Staples www.newsandtech.com [email protected] Registration walls get buzzy 18

NinjaCat wrangles the data 21 PUBLISHING GROUP President Agfa Graphics opens new offset tech center 24 James E. Conley Jr. DIGITAL EDITION We’re In partnership with Olive Software, News & Tech U.K., Indian publishers launch digital puzzles 24 is available as a digital edition, containing an exact replica of articles and advertisements. The Digital Edition is available free of charge on our Web site, Torstar launching digital-only local news initiative 24 Overflowing! www.newsandtech.com DATELINE Execs urge newspapers to highlight Each Monday, News & Tech distributes Dateline, an electronic newsletter that covers breaking industry value to local communities 25 MORE: news and events. To subscribe to the free newsletter, People News send a request to [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS Industry News Subscriptions are free to qualified industry personnel. To subscribe, visit our Web site at Mergers & Acquisitions www.newsandtech.com, or call 303.575.9595. ADVERTISING SALES Vendor News To schedule advertising or confirm space availability, please contact Mary L. Van Meter at Association News 303.575.9595 or email [email protected] News & Tech, ISSN# 2150-6884, is published Education bimonthly by Conley Magazines, LLC, P.O. Box 478 Beaver Dam, WI 53916. Phone: 303.575.9595; Fax: 303.575.9555. Copyright ©2020 by Conley Marketing Partners Magazines, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the expressed consent of the publisher. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, staff or advertisers of News & Tech. The return of unsolicited manuscripts or other material columnist cannot be guaranteed. Periodicals postage paid Marc Wilson at Denver, CO, and additional mailing offices. Free 12 to qualified newspaper personnel. POSTMASTER: Please send 3579 for address correction request to News & Tech, 5139 Yank Court, Arvada, CO 80002

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Evvnt from page 1 should be ticketed, whether paid or free. up major large corporate groups of newspa- “This year, we’re going to be adding SMS pers,” Green says. (short message service) so you can poten- Green says signing smaller or family- tially send SMS to the people who bought a owned operations is his favorite. “They’re ticket to give them a link to an Uber taxi, or a the most annoyed by paying a lot of money map or send them the ticket itself,” he says. for crap products,” he says. Evvnt is also going to be adding paid social. Evvnt Inc. is based out of a U.S. office in ‘About to scale up’ L.A. and has teams in Austin and Houston. Green touts the $18 billion annual events Green says he’s going to be opening an of- market that he says sees some 65 million fice in Fort Lauderdale as well. “There are events put on the internet a year. Evvnt’s a lot of newspapers in Florida we haven’t model allows event posters and promoters spoken to yet.” to get their event on Evvnt calendars and Founder Green, an entrepreneur with a into various online marketing and listing background at eBay and Accenture, is ma- channels, with the option for newspapers jority owner. Evvnt has investors, among to offer print. Newspapers can get the cal- them David Dunn-Rankin, former president endar part of the platform free or can pay of Sun Coast Media; Lee Enterprises and the An Evvnt details page a monthly fee to buy into a revenue-shar- from Austin. Harrell-Fritts family, which sold the Bakers- ing model. Green says Evvnt is cheaper for field Californian in 2019. newspapers than widely available options “I think we’ll probably end up taking ven- on the market. ture capital money later this year just be- In 2019, the company introduced an cause we’re about to scale up,” says Green. email marketing option, working with Site In January, Evvnt appointed a new chair- Impact, an opt-in email database used by man, Peter Newton, previously COO of about 70 percent of the newspaper industry, Gatehouse Media and currently president according to Green. of Big Rock Consulting Group and manag- White label ticketing is now included, ing director of Accelerate Local at the Local and Green is big on the notion that events Media Association (LMA). p

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 5 www.newsandtech.com

colorado springs Gazette from page 1 And the publisher’s out-of-market digital subscribers have increased too, Seeking a more cost-effective solution, the publisher saw an opportunity accounting for close to 1,000 of its total current subscriptions. when MG2 was brought under the Newscycle/Naviga umbrella. The Gazette In addition to controlling content viewership and enabling a digital pay- is still a seven-day-a-week paper, touting strong circulation numbers for a wall, Engage allows publishers to create repeatable templates to quickly paper of its size. It currently counts some 38,932 daily subscribers. build campaigns. Publishers can segment to target specific audiences. The “We are one newspaper and we don’t have scale, so we wanted to le- app also allows users to white label IP addresses for unrestricted access to verage one app that had everything we needed,” McKenzie said. “Naviga content at the publisher’s discretion. Finally, Engage provides data insights Subscribe and Concierge give our subscribers the ability to go online and and behavior analytics to help publishers better understand current and pro- do everything they need to do in order to manage their subscriptions — and spective subscribers, according to Naviga. they don’t have to talk to anyone.” “It’s been much easier for us to get data and information out of this sys- The Subscribe app can leverage as little — or as much — customer data as tem,” McKenzie said. preferred to initiate a subscription start. Tools including auto complete and She added that reader response to both the self-serve features and the Google Address API have been integrated in order to minimize the amount paywall has been positive. of data a user needs to input. “When we changed our paywall platform, readers had to reset their pass- Subscribe also integrates with publishers’ back-end systems for billing words,” she said. “But we created an effective marketing campaign to com- integration and to support credit card, ACH and other payment methods. It municate this change, and we didn’t lose any subscribers in the process.” can also integrate with authentication systems and circulation systems for Internally, the self-service features have made customer service functions billing, management and revenue recognition. much more seamless at The Gazette’s call center. McKenzie said the most utilized self-service features currently are sign-ups and subscription pay- New paywall in place ments. Finally, The Gazette is using Discover module of the Naviga suite to drive In tandem with subscription management, The Gazette replaced its existing subscriptions and increase subscriber retention via email and other digital paywall app with Naviga’s Engage. Readers hit the paywall after viewing four marketing campaigns. The Discover app provides the publisher with an ex- stories, and McKenzie said a good percentage are subscribing as a result. tensive database of information based on its subscription base. It provides The publisher also runs a number of different digital subscription promos in regular updates and integrity checks to give publishers a relevant picture of the print edition of the paper. A recent promo offered 20 weeks for $20, for campaigns, subscribers and engagements. p example. “We get a good mix of print and digital subscribers, but we are definitely seeing a lot of digital growth,” McKenzie said. “From launch up until today we have increased digital subscriptions 30 percent — so we’ve seen really good growth there.” ProImage develops innovative solutions that help publishers and printers reduce costs. Making Complex Publishing Simple

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•Increased durability extending the range of print performance •Use with UV/curable ink applications •Wider range of market applications while delivering reliable on-press performance To learn more visit Fujifilmgraphics.com The table has been set to make your offset printing more profitable with Superia ZDN plates. News & Tech March/April 2020 u 7 www.newsandtech.com Leveraging digital location tech to showcase the value of print advertising u Jonathan Muzio and Adam Shaffner The print advertising industry has grappled modeling and misleading results. Most major with the challenge of demonstrating return on players in the geolocation data space will source investment to its advertisers, especially when their raw data from the same place, with the key

Photo: Submitted Photo: compared with digital advertising and the myriad differentiators being how they vet, clean, store reporting and attribution metrics that are inherent and leverage the data that remains once the “bad” to that delivery method. By leveraging location- signals are removed. Be wary of results that sound based technology innate to the vast majority of too good to be true! smartphones and devices in the marketplace, As these device ID signals are collected and there now exists the ability to provide advanced stored over time, patterns begin to emerge in the analytics and attribution for print advertising ef- data that illuminate the behaviors of the user who forts. This technology opens the door for pub- owns the device, as users typically carry the de- lishers to digitize their subscriber base and show vices with them wherever they go. Of these pat- advertisers the lift in in-store visits as a result of terns, you can see where they spend their time, be running ads in the print publication. Essentially, that where they shop, where they hang out, where digital marketing technology has evolved to the they work, or perhaps most importantly, where point where it can bridge the gap between a print they live. advertisement and a physical visit to a business’s location. How can we use this tech to help showcase This tech tracks how many users entered a the value of print advertising? brick-and-mortar location who also received a The residential datapoint, or home address, un- print publication at their home. locks a great deal of benefits for the marketer. The benefits and potential applications of the These include audience insights tied to publicly technology are numerous. The bottom line: a pub- available Census and credit-reporting data, be- lisher can use the data to help sell and retain more ing able to identify other devices within the same print advertising. The benefits could be applied to home/address, and attribution for print advertis- current advertisers, new advertisers or be lever- ing. We can ask the database “Where does this de- aged to win back churned advertisers by show- vice live?” Or conversely, “Which devices live at ing the decrease in foot traffic after the print ads this address?” As such, a subscriber list of residen- stopped. tial addresses can be uploaded and converted to a list of device IDs. In short, given a list of residen- How does this tech work? tial addresses, we can identify all the devices that The key to making this all work is the robust geo- live there through their device ID. Using this list of spatial data shared by our smartphones every day. device IDs, we can start to track the behaviors of Most of us are familiar with location services on these specific users, namely whether or not they our smartphones and devices when it comes to are seen entering an advertiser’s brick-and-mortar apps that help navigate traffic, find nearby restau- location after a print advertisement was delivered rants or tell us about the weather. These location to their homes. signals (along with a timestamp and unique de- Naturally, some print subscribers will organi- vice identifier) are sent to the cloud and shared cally be visitors of a given advertiser’s location, so with marketers to help provide more relevant ad- it’s a best practice to determine the natural match vertising experiences for the users who own these rate before starting a print campaign. This allows devices. We all agree to share our location data you to show a more robust signal in the “lift” of when we click “agree” to the terms and conditions matched subscribers before and after a print ad of the apps that collect it. We can turn this on or is published. Over time, publishers can show the off in our device settings. As such, we are send- strong value of print efforts by showing the lift in ing our location history to the cloud on a regular matched subscriber visits, or conversely the drop basis, often thousands of times per day. The end off when print ads cease. Either way, it allows a result is a massive database of location histories publisher to have an informed conversation with that can be leveraged by marketers for a seem- the advertiser, demonstrate the value of the print ingly endless variety of advertising applications. advertising campaign and reinforce the impor- AdCellerant’s Jonathan Muzio (TOP) served as a panel speaker at February’s Mega Conference in Fort There are many out there who are clamoring tance of working with a publisher leveraging best- Worth. The chief business development officer for the to enable these types of services, so it’s important in-class digital technology. This also helps position Denver-based company spoke on the topic “Using to work with a data provider who values quality the publisher as a digital leader, as most publishers mobile and GPS data to drive sales on the print side.” and transparency. Oftentimes, precise 1:1 device these days have expanded their advertising portfo- News & Tech invited him and Chief Product Officer matching is sacrificed in the name of cost savings Adam Shaffner (ABOVE) to pen an educational piece lio to include digital marketing services. p on the subject. and scale, both of which lead to assumptive data

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Trends, tips from AI book author u News & Tech Staff Report

“Newsmakers” author Francesco Marconi.

Where will artificial intelligence, algorithms and smart machines take Distribution: AI paves the way for journalists to meet news consumers in journalism? Francesco Marconi, who led the development of the Associated emerging platforms by understanding their behaviors and optimizing pub- Press and Wall Street Journal’s use of AI in journalism, addresses that in his lishing and monetization strategies in real time. new “Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism,” from Columbia University Press. News & Tech: Do newsrooms have an analytics chief? What's the best The book argues that AI can augment — not automate — the industry, al- use of metrics in your view? lowing journalists to break more news faster while freeing up their time for Marconi: The implementation of many newsroom automation, analytics and deeper dives. AI processes requires significant human labor. As AI enters the newsroom, Marconi shared views with News & Tech on emerging newsroom roles, the tasks of creating and managing these tools will also change the makeup ways the tech can affect bottom line and how small and medium operations of the newsroom skillset. In the future, we will see more newsrooms asking can get into the game. for writers who understand how to work with AI, editors who understand how to oversee smart tools, programmers who can design journalistic com- News & Tech: What's the most common AI in use in newsrooms today? puter programs and designers who can evaluate the user experience of read- Marconi: AI is being used in newsrooms to perform different tasks. These are ing AI-generated content. In this sense, beyond analytics, editors will see the some examples of how smart technology is being deployed in the service of emergence of entirely new roles in the newsroom: journalism. Forbes developed an AI-powered content management system to auto- • Automation editor: Responsible for streamlining editorial tasks through matically suggest headlines or images that should go into a story. AI and ensuring its editorial reliability. The Washington Post uses a reporting bot that spots newsworthy data pat- terns, such as in financial trends or election results, so that journalists can • Computational journalist: Contribute to the newsroom by leveraging get ahead of the scoop. data science methods to run sophisticated analysis and conduct inves- The Associated Press uses smart technology to turn data into preview tigations. stories for every NBA game without human involvement, freeing up sports reporters’ time so they can focus on differentiated pieces such as investiga- • Newsroom tool manager: Coordinate the implementation of new tools tions. and train journalists on how to deploy them. And in an even more futuristic use case, China’s Xinhua News Agency created the world’s first AI news anchor, a digital replica that resembles a • AI ethics editor: Ensure transparency and explainability of AI as well as human journalist. the algorithms' use of training data. In other words, the rise of AI is quickly affecting three core newsroom activities: newsgathering, production and distribution. While newsrooms may hire new journalists, others might instead decide Newsgathering: Artificial intelligence allows sourcing of information and to integrate these emerging responsibilities into existing roles. For example, story ideas through new types of collection processes, including machine the standards and ethics editor may start looking into issues related to al- learning that finds outliers within data, that automatically detects trends gorithmic transparency, while the existing planning editor might become within social media user-generated content and that extracts information responsible for promoting the adoption of new tools. from documents. Production: Reporters can now explore opportunities to restructure and News & Tech: In what ways can AI, smart machines and analytics redefine content packages for distribution, employ algorithms to switch be- boost the bottom line of a newspaper or magazine? tween media formats turning data into text and text into video and repurpose Marconi: News organizations need audience reach, story volume and edi- content customized to various platforms. torial differentiation. Artificial intelligence is an important vehicle news or-

10 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com

ganizations can use to achieve the three goals. AI can help diversify content formats, create workflow efficiencies, distribute news across platforms and u News & Tech boost revenues. There are many success stories that illustrate the positive impact of AI on a news organization bottom line. Press Control Solutions For example, the AI-powered news agency Narrativa is able to create 18,000 distinct football news articles for different leagues and teams every week in English, Spanish as well as Arabic. These stories are then published For Any Press. by newspapers such as El Espanol, El Confidencial and El Periodico. Using the AI-powered platform News Tracer, Reuters has been able to sift through emerging topics on social media to determine if they are newswor- Print is always on the move. In dynamic markets, thy and truthful, which helps reporters monitor events and find relevant sto- printers need to adapt to new conditions, sometimes ries more quickly. The tool has been particularly relevant for breaking news without the investment of capital equipment costs. Our situations. In 2015, it revealed social media activity documenting a shooting in San Bernardino, California, before any other news organization. retrofits and upgrades for any press controls platform The Wall Street Journal’s paywall is powered by an algorithm that predicts can make presses of any brand new again, and provide when a new reader is likely to subscribe. This has enabled the business pub- the tools to develop new business models for a more lication to grow its revenues and its audience. Media organizations including Chicago Tribune, Hearst and CBS Interac- profitable future. tive deploy AI-powered content distribution platform True Anthem to deter- mine what stories should be recirculated and when they should be posted www.manrolandgoss.com across social media platforms. To make these decisions, the system tracks signals that predict performance including the level of audience engage- ment, publishing frequency and time of the day.

News & Tech: what's the most practical way for small or medium-sized media operations to use these technologies? Marconi: Small and medium-sized newsrooms, in particular, are at great risk of falling behind if they don’t make artificial intelligence a key element in their transformation roadmap — and this will not require a big financial commitment but instead added attention to partnerships, training and cul- tural change. The best way for these news organizations to get started is to partner with startups. For example, I’m currently at New Lab building a new AI venture developing tools for the media industry with the goal of democratizing its use across the industry. My approach is to focus on applications that have real impact in newsrooms and offer these tools at a cost that is accessible to newsrooms of any size. Another approach to make AI more accessible is through academic col- laborations. These partnerships can be established by hosting university re- search fellows in the newsroom and by establishing capstone courses with journalism schools. A third avenue for underfinanced news organizations looking to innovate in a cost-effective manner is by seeking grants from foundations. News or- ganizations such as The Seattle Times received financing from Knight Foun- dation’s AI and the News Open Challenge to develop a reporting project evaluating the implications of machine learning on work and labor.

News & Tech: where do you see AI, smart machines and metrics ten years from now? Marconi: It’s hard to predict, but here are some ideas. Quantum computing will allow AI models to perform complex computa- tional tasks to be performed very quickly and at scale. This will be particu- larly impactful for investigative journalism, such as analyzing millions of documents and finding hidden insights like never before. On the other hand, 5G networks will make data collection through sensors much more efficient. This in turn will power new forms of journalism directly from the field. New types of news feeds will emerge. For example, real-time climate reports (collected through environmental sensors) and even stories produced from data collected through athletes’ helmets and gear. Regardless of what happens, I’m sure of one thing: Technology always changes, but journalistic standards will remain the same. The book is available through Amazon. p

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 11 www.newsandtech.com marc... my words Survival guide: Audience and content the new ‘must haves’ u By Marc Wilson columnist

The first time I spoke at a press associa- I have a good friend who preaches that if “you have customers tion convention, I asked the executive di- and if you have content, you can develop a successful business rector, Dennis Merrell of the Alberta Week- model.” Survival. ly Newspapers Association, what I should The owners of the four news outlets I cite above have maintained speak about. their content producers and their audiences. He said there only one topic that publish- Elsewhere, the survival rate is not so good; often bleak. ers care about — “survival.” That was al- Pew Research reports that between 2008 and 2018, newspapers most 30 years ago, but his comment is even reduced their editorial staffs by 47 percent, from 71,000 to 38,000. more true today than ever. Headcounts have continued to decline at companies that somehow So, let’s resume a discussion about how believe that survival can be found by reducing the quality of their news outlets can survive. products. Morale in many newsrooms is generally poor. Editors Let’s look at who is flourishing and why. and reporters expect further layoffs and cost-cutting. Newsrooms The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and employees are more than twice as likely as other U.S. workers to be the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette are examples that pop to mind. college graduates, but they tend to make less money — and have The New York Times recently reported a 26 percent year-over- less job security — than college-educated workers in other fields. year increase in digital subscriptions, now totaling 3,429,000. The Staffers flee these newsrooms. Times reported revenues increased one percent over the previous Quality suffers. Content is reduced. Audiences decline. year. These wounds are too often self-inflicted. Sometimes by igno- The Wall Street Journal announced last month that it had passed rance, sometimes by inventors who hope simply to pick clean the the 2 million mark in digital subscriptions and increased revenues carcasses of once strong news outlets. by 4 percent over the previous year. I’ve attended hundreds of media conventions. My memory is that The Washington Post is privately owned (by Jeff Bezos), and most of the sessions were about advertising sales, followed by ses- doesn’t report circulation numbers. Leaked internal memos have sions on cost containment, maximizing circulation revenue, and indicated that the Post has well over 1 million digital subscribers alternative revenue products. boosted by its alliance with Bezos’ Amazon Prime, which offers a Rarely were their sessions about product and quality control. discounted Post subscription to Prime members. The Post seems to News content/journalism were afterthoughts left to second-tier staff be thriving, thanks to Bezos’ backing of a great newsroom. members. Walter Hussman’s Democrat-Gazette has adopted the unprec- At media company headquarters, content and quality control edented survival strategy of giving iPads to readers who agree to were too often given little more than lip service. Top executives subscribe to the newspaper in a digital-only (plus Sunday print) almost always had risen through the advertising ranks. format. Hussman says the adoption rate of the plan is close to 90 But advertising is no longer king. Facebook, Google and Amazon percent. Key to success is maintaining (and growing) the company’s now control most advertising. newsroom. Hussman predicts that the Democrat-Gazette will re- Content and audience are today’s paths to survival. p turn to profitability this year after a couple of non-profitable years. What do these four news organizations have in common? Marc Wilson is chairman emeritus of TownNews. He worked as a reporter for three daily They have protected (even grown) their newsrooms. And they’ve newspapers and five bureaus of The Associated Press. He co-owned and was editor and adopted digital delivery technologies that have greatly reduced publisher of the weekly Bigfork (Montana) Eagle for 14 years. His columns run regularly in printing and circulation costs. They understand that the public will News & Tech. pay for a good news report.

12 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 13 www.newsandtech.com

Mega vendor roundup u News & Tech Staff Report A slew of vendors showcased their products and services at the Key Executives Mega-Conference, which took place Feb. 17-19 in Texas, at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel. The conference provides network opportunities and explores new solutions to issues facing the newspaper industry. Hosts were America's Newspapers, Local Media Association and News Media Alliance. Texas Press Association was a local partner. Below is taste of companies on hand and announcements made at the event.

Mike Phillips, vice president newspapers, Brent Murray, newspaper account manager, and Gil Mike Monter, vice president operations, and Rick Shafranek, vice president sales and marketing, Green, regional sales manager, all from Agfa. New ProImage Americas.

Vineet Panjabi, vice president sales, and Ajay Appaden, manager business expansion, both of Adam Carroll, sales and marketing executive, and Mitch McKinnon, vice president sales and Quintype. marketing, Phoenix Vision.

Ben Gold, director, Rene Zelanda, director account management and advertising operations, Adrian Dawson-Becker, product owner, and Devlyn Brooks, president, Modulist. Roger Juntilla, vice president business development and strategy, Insticator.

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u News & Tech Staff Report

• Agfa was on hand with its new and pat- story widgets. Partners include Ancestry, Dis- category type, beta-testing a public notices ented print screening technology, SPIR@L. qus, Evolve Media, All K Pop and Shmoop, (legals) content type and has scheduled a Based on the fundamentals of Sublima according to the company. Squawk-It, now consumer classifieds content type for release screening, SPIR@L allows users to hold a called Insticator Commenting, monetizes in late spring. Modulist processes 13 differ- 1-99% dot. The result is striking image quality comments through ads. The feature has 24/7 ent content categories, including obituaries, with reduced image slur, Agfa says. SPIR@L human moderation. celebrations, business announcements, paid falls in line with Agfa’s ECO3 program for letters to the editor and pet milestones, and sustainable innovation, and saves ink dur- • ProImage announces that Tribune Pub- returns publish-ready files back to papers for ing the printing process, the company says. lishing is rolling out ProImage’s NewsWayX print and digital. Agfa’s parent company is headquartered in browser-based production workflow in a Mortsel, Belgium. The company has sales of- centralized environment for its printing • Innocode has introduced the scalable fices and distribution centers throughout the plants at the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Hyperlocal bundle for newspapers. The plat- U.S. Sun Sentinel (Florida), New York Daily News form allows newspapers to add hyperlocal, and Hartford Courant. Each plant will have personalized content to their existing news • Founded in California and headquar- a customized workflow and only see their product or CMS, without adding burdens tered in the tech hub of Bangalore, India, publications. Production can be monitored on the newsroom, and provides new rev- comes Quintype. The company, which main- via a standard browser to check the progress enue models that make hyperlocal viable, tains a California presence in San Mateo, of all pages and plates. the company says. The bundle also works for offers a suite of products: Bold: a headless setting up new, local, digital-only news op- CMS; Accesstype, a subscription manage- • The Anchorage Daily News is the latest erations, Innocode says. ment platform; Ahead, a front-end website newspaper to launch a digital out-of-home platform built on Quintype’s open-source video network using the Phoenix Vision Site- • Iowa-based TownNews is launching two Malibu framework; and Metype, an engage- View system. The new location-based video products: iQ Audience+ and Data Insights. ment platform that allows readers to weigh advertising tool, delivered via displays on Data Insights will give media companies in with opinions and content. “We are also stand-alone newspaper racks positioned at new tools for gathering and acting upon the launching a page builder on our Ahead high-traffic retail locations, is a means for the multitude of data that impacts their busi- framework that makes it easy for news orga- newspaper to reach consumers at the point nesses. The product is a weapon against nizations to experiment with layouts and de- of purchase. The initial network will consist “analysis paralysis,” says CEO Brad Ward. iQ signs without having to involve developers of 100 rack-mounted displays and roll out in Audience+ is an audience acquisition and in the process,” says Quintype’s Anand Sub- the coming months. Phoenix Vision is based retention platform that enables publishers, ramanian, head of marketing. “We try to get in San Diego. broadcasters and digital-native media orga- the best in terms of infrastructure and sup- nizations to tailor their conversion funnels port to all publishers, regardless of their size, • Ancestry and Adpay | Memoriams, an An- using machine learning and proven industry whether a college magazine, a weekly news- cestry company, has a new solution for obitu- best practices, according to TownNews. letter, a county newspaper, a national media aries. Leveraging the free We Remember by publisher or even an international behemoth Ancestry digital memorial, consumers and fu- • Making a presentation at Mega was vid- of a publisher,” says Ajay Appaden, manager neral homes can now place and search obitu- eo intelligence, with a North American HQ business expansion. Much of Quintype’s cli- aries through a unified interface. The solution in New York and head office in Zurich. The ent base is in Asia. On the platform is Bettors will allow media companies to offer a per- company’s vi stories combs the editorial con- Insider, a Philadelphia-based sports betting petual search that will ultimately link to the tent on digital pages, finding keywords and insights portal. More will be going live short- world’s largest database of ancestral informa- meta-data, to match a relevant video from ly in the U.S., according to Appaden. tion, according to Colorado-based Adpay. vi’s library of over 800,000 videos. “Video intelligence’s contextual video platform is • An outfit calledInsticator recently made • Showing their wares at the conference a turn-key solution for publishers who lack news when it bought commenting platform was Fargo-based Modulist, specializing in the good quality video content,” says Sal Cac- Squawk-It, as TechCrunch reported. Instica- paid content sector. The company says it’s ciato, managing director North America. The tor, which has teams in the U.S., Canada, pushing toward a couple of new content cat- company revenue-shares on ads served by the Philippines and India, is a monetization egory releases in the coming months. Modu- vi. The company counts TEGNA among its platform featuring polls, trivia and suggested list is client-testing a new paid press release U.S. clients. p

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 15 www.newsandtech.com USA Today goes with Tecnavia’s NewsMemory u News & Tech Staff Report

USA Today is now publishing revamped digital print replica editions for readers to access,” says Amato. of the daily USA Today, USA Today Sports Weekly and specials using Tecnavia’s NewsMemory technology. App combines services The Austin American-Statesman, Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach The 2-in-One App is another service Tecnavia provides. True to its name, Daily News also recently went live with the print replica services, ac- this feature allows for real-time news and print replica in one place. cording to Tecnavia. All three are Gannett papers. 2-in-One was designed to give consumers an avenue to access their Burnsville, Minnesota-based Tecnavia manages over 2,000 titles and news and print replica on one app instead of two. processes over eight million pages per year for large and small publish- “Readers can personalize the app to their reading preference, choose ers, says the company. Gannett has been using Tecnavia’s services for whether they want to see real time news or the digital replica when almost 15 years, says Diane Amato, vice president of sales. they open the app. They can easily switch between both quickly. In ad- Tecnavia has been in business for 45 years, 20 of which have been dition, readers can share articles, photos and local events on social spent providing e-publishing and digital print services. According networks. There are three viewing modes for readers to view live news to Amato, their most well-known product is the print replica service, from grid, list and card view. A simple tap changes the view and displays NewsMemory. NewsMemory replicates the print version of a publica- the reader’s preference. You can have the stories read to you, save to your tion into an interactive digital version. Amato said that NewsMemory favorites and even create your own ‘My News’ page that will update on helps to drive new audiences and revenues and cuts back on delivery the story categories you like to follow,” says Amato. issues and costs. The app can be accessed through Apple, Google Play and Amazon. “Tecnavia’s digital replica is the platform of choice by readers as it has The Albuquerque Journal recently implemented the 2-in-One App multiple viewing modes for the users including single-page, two-page along with the e-edition. The Journal Publishing Company owns the pa- spreads, index mode and thumbnails. Selection of content can be done per. by section, date, page or zone. Adding multiple sections and pages to “Readers love the digital replica as we see a 20% increase YOY in ac- Tecnavia’s platform with our compression methods does not limit the cess and page views. Tecnavia’s interface without a lot of navigational capacity. Tecnavia has developed multiple custom configurations for clutter and intrusive pop-ups to read an article translates into a better groups and for publishers to provide many other features that enhance reading experience for the publisher’s audience,” Amato says. p the product, including e-edition Extra pages, inserts, puzzles and more

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16 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com

Mega-Conferencing in Texas — The annual Key Executives Mega-Conference took place Feb. 17-19, in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel. Here are some of the faces Off the Record that popped up at the event. p

Chris Reen, publisher, The Gazette, Colorado Springs. Doug Phares, senior associate, Grimes, McGovern & Associ- Terry Hall, director of revenue transformation, BH Media Group. ates, and John Rung, president and CEO, Shaw Media.

Blazé and Ray Carlsen, former executive director Inland Press Association. Trent Covert, chief technology officer, Swift Communications.

Bill Barker, regional president-Florida, Gannett/Division of USA Rex Rust, co-president, Rust Communications, and wife Don Bricker, chief operating officer, Shaw Media. Today Network/LOCALiQ. Sherry. Off the record continues on page 19

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 17 www.newsandtech.com

Registration walls get buzzy u News & Tech Staff RepoRt registration walls have gotten a fair amount of ink lately. Registration Knowing who is accessing the material may be valuable. Registration walls walls prompt users to register and provide an email before accessing con- can result in 10-times higher subscriber conversion rates, said Michael Sil- tent. berman, senior vice president of strategy at Piano, a New York-based soft- In an August earnings call, New York Times Company president and CEO ware company that aims to help media companies monetize their content. Mark Thompson talked about his company’s experiment with the walls. In The increase in conversion rate for registered users vs. anonymous users is July, NYT launched more extensive testing of registration and log-in and is based on tests and data analysis across several Piano customers who have prepared to play the long game to see gains. “The tests play out differently on used registration and guest passes, Silberman says. different platforms, and we plan to experiment with a range of parameters Among Piano clients that use the walls are Gannett (the former Gatehouse and business rules — how many free articles a given user is able to read, newspapers are on the platform), AdAge and The Economist. for example, in return for registration — over the coming months. We don’t “We see a lot of value in using registration walls, and that tactic has increased expect this testing to have a dramatic near-term effect on net subscription in value with the increased importance of first-party data and having logged-in additions. Over time, however, we believe that the growing numbers of reg- users as regulations like GDPR (the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation) istered and logged in users of The Times will help us maintain or increase our and CCPA (the California Consumer Privacy Act) and browser policies that momentum inbuilding out our subscription base. block third-party cookies become more prevalent,” says Silberman. “When a user is registered and logged-in, we can communicate with them He explains that publishers have an opportunity to collect explicit data and understand their preferences and patterns of consumption more effec- (email, name, address, content preferences) users volunteer when they reg- tively than if they are anonymous. That typically leads to higher engagement ister. The industry term for that kind of information is "zero-party" data. First- and subscription conversion,” Thompson said. party data includes that, plus implicit data gathered from user behavior on a Hearst, the Chicago Tribune and Forbes have recently tried registration website (what articles they read, what device do they visit from, what time walls or planned to, according to a story from Digiday. of day do they visit, etc.) That data is valuable in both subscriptions and in Vendors have reacted. “Recently we have seen more and more publish- advertising sales. ers adding a new step to their subscription journeys: the registration wall,” What of concerns that the walls drive people off? “I think the industry is wrote Mary-Katharine Phillips, a media innovation analyst at Belgium-based becoming less concerned about registration walls driving users away. For tech firm Twipe. She cites a study involving a number of European publish- example, The New York Times requires you to register on your second article ers including The Irish Times and Le Parisien that found that 75% of paywalls view. The earlier point — about the value of zero- and first-party data — will can be gotten around relatively easily. “While we saw some publishers move also be a motivator for publishers to use registration walls,” Silberman told towards hard paywalls to allay these concerns, registration walls are also a News & Tech. strong option,” she writes. Time will tell if registration walls boost subscription numbers. p

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Mega-Conferencing in Texas — The annual Key Executives Mega-Conference took place Feb. 17-19, in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel. Here are some of the faces Off the Record that popped up at the event. p

Bret Jacomet, digital director, M. Roberts Media. Ryan Stewart, strategic partnerships executive, and Rafa Guerrero, principal solutions archi- tect, both from Marfeel.

Mike Kline, senior account manager Acqir/Maps.com. EC Umberger, account manager, Nielsen.

Ben Bouslog, director of business development, AdCellerant. Andrei Grigorean, chief operating officer, John C. Baldwin, business development representa- tive, Mihai Ciucu, chief executive officer, Blink Ledger Systems.

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 19 www.newsandtech.com

Mega-Conferencing in Texas — The annual Key Executives Mega-Conference took place Feb. 17-19, in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel. Here are some of the faces Off the Record that popped up at the event. p

Dan Martini, vice president sales, VoicePort. Stephanie Donovan, senior vice president/publisher development North America, Triton Digital.

Marc W. Thompson, sales director strategic accounts, Naviga Global. Julie Bergman, vice president newspaper group, and Doug Phares, senior associate, Grimes, McGovern & Associates.

Peter M. Zollman, founding principal, AIM Group. Kathy Lafferty, sales executive, Allen Press.

20 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com

NinjaCat wrangles the data u News & Tech Staff Report “At the end of the month, if they’ve got hundreds of advertisers, they’ve got to

an Meter log into each of these individual platforms, download campaign performance data, compile it, wrangle it and put it together into something that they can go back to their advertiser with and explain what worked and what didn’t, and try

Photo: MaryPhoto: V and get them to reinvest in different places to retain and grow that business,” Hoeft told News & Tech. ‘Looking for efficiencies’ A paper may use Google Ad Manager for their own website, for example, and may also be running pay-per-click through Google, Google Display network John Hoeft, vice president strategic for display campaigns, Simplify for audience extension, BirdEye for reputation partnerships, and John McCabe, account management and Facebook for paid social media. executive, NinjaCat, at the Key Executives Mega-Conference, which took place Feb. With so many sources, processing data platform-by-platform is time-consum- 17-19 in Texas at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel. ing and producing a month-end result can take days if not weeks depending on the extent of the campaign, says Hoeft. “Manual, cobbled reporting is now a “This Valentine’s Day, break up with your Excel sheets and start using Nin- thing of the past,” says NinjaCat’s website. jaCat,” reads a recent tweet from NinjaCat. The types of campaign performance data that comes out of each platform The company’s scaleable reporting and data story platform ingests campaign varies, but for the most part it’s how many times an ad was delivered, how many performance data from hundreds of sources, stores it and prepares it for review impressions it got, how many clickthroughs and what happened as a result of through customizable and editable PowerPoints, PDFs and dashboards. that clickthrough. The company provides weekly and monthly reports that go beyond “data- “Newspaper companies are looking for efficiencies, and that’s where we help vomit,” according to John Hoeft, vice president strategic partnerships, who was them,” says Hoeft. representing NinjaCat at the Key Executives Mega Conference in Fort Worth in NinjaCat is an all-in-one platform that’s made up of a variety of services. The February. company’s Ninjatrack call-tracking solution can be incorporated into the plat- The platform is meant for agencies, newspapers, media companies and other form or sold independently. operations that have relationships with multiple vendors. Among clients are Paul Deraval is NinjaCat’s CEO. The company has an HQ in Manhattan and ThriveHive, DenverPost and Gray TV. people working remotely throughout the U.S. and Canada. p

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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 21 www.newsandtech.com Tribune Publishing reports earnings Tribune Publishing Company announced financial results March 4 for the fourth quarter and full year ending December 29, 2019. The reported excluded operations Tribune no longer owns, including the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and other assets of the California News Group and forsalebyowner.com. Fourth quarter 2019 total revenues were $252.3 million, down $31.2 million or 11% compared to $283.5 million for fourth quarter 2018. The decrease primarily reflects M segment (composed of the company’s media groups excluding their digital revenues and related expenses, except digital subscription revenues when bundled with a print subscription) revenue declines of $30.1 million and a $4.9 mil- lion revenue decrease associated with the company's transition ser- vice agreement with the California properties, partially offset by $2.9 million in increased digital-only subscription revenue. Total revenues for the full year 2019 were $983.1 million, down 4.6% from 2018. Fourth quarter 2019 total advertising revenue and digital adver- tising revenue were $105.8 million and $25.8 million, respectively. Excluding the impact associated with the 2018 agreement with Cars. com to convert Tribune Publishing's eight affiliate markets into Cars. com's direct retail channel, total digital advertising revenue would Ron Ehrhardt have increased 4% year-over-year. [email protected] Adjusted EBITDA was $30.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, 717 329 4231 versus $46.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. Full year adjusted EBITDA of $101.4 million increased $7.5 million or 8% over 2018. Digital-only subscribers increased 33.6% to 334,000 at the end of the fourth quarter 2019, up from 250,000 at the end of the fourth quarter 2018. PIA, TAGA cancel events Printing Industries of America (PIA) and the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA) announced that the TAGA Annual Technical Conference slated for March 15-18 in Oklahoma City was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. PIA has also canceled the 2020 Continuous Improvement Confer- ence set for April 5-8 in Columbus, Ohio. PIA and TAGA are working to organize virtual options. Updates will be posted at taga.org/conference and ci.printing.

Plain Dealer to cut 22 The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) will be cutting 22 newsroom employ-

AH Tensor International LLC ees, the paper reported. The employees will be notified on March 10330 Argonne Woods Dr. 23. Suite 300 “The reason is strictly financial,” read a March 9 note from Tim War- Woodridge, IL 60517 Phone: (630) 739 9600 sinskey, editor. The paper will still be printed every day and delivered www.ustensor.com on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Advance Publications owns the paper.

22 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com

can often be created and accessed remotely. the city of Dusseldorf on March 11 that gen- News Media Alli- However, there are still a large number of erally prohibits major events with more than readers who rely exclusively on the produc- 1,000 participants present at the same time. ance on shutdowns, tion of our print products. Therefore, when Those needing more info on drupa 2021 issuing these orders, we would urge public should contact Messe Dusseldorf North news industry officials to clarify that all news publishing America at [email protected] or visit www. operations are ‘essential,’ akin to grocery, drupa.com or www.mdna.com News Media Alliance President and CEO pharmacy and other businesses critical to David Chavern provided the following the public’s welfare.” statement March 16 in response to public officials across the country ordering the Publishers re- shut-down of "non-essential" businesses for periods of time in response to the COVID-19 Drupa trade fair move paywalls on health crisis: “Public officials across the country have postponed until begun ordering the shut-down of ‘non-es- COVID-19 content sential’ businesses for periods of time. The April 2021 Publishers including The Atlantic, Phila- goal of these orders is to appropriately react delphia Inquirer, New York Times, Wall to our COVID-19 health crisis. However, The drupa trade fair scheduled for June Street Journal and Bloomberg News have these orders can also lead to some confusion 16-26 has been postponed until April 20-30, put coronavirus-related material outside of about their application to news publishing 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic. paywalls so non-subscribers can access it, operations. With the postponement, organizer Messe Adweek reported. “It should be readily apparent that local Dusseldorf is following the recommendation “As a public service to our readers and news publishers are carrying out an abso- of the crisis management team of the Ger- community, we have lowered the paywall lutely essential function in conveying accu- man federal government to take into account on some of our most critical stories so every- rate, reliable and critical information to the principles of the Robert Koch Institute (Ber- one can access this important information,” public at a time of great need. Many con- lin) when assessing the risk of major events. said a note from the Chicago Tribune. sumers are using our digital products, which In addition, there was a ruling issued by Many smaller papers are doing the same. 1HZ ,PSURYHG3UHVV'ULYH&RQWUROV 76&3UHVV'ULYH&RQWUROVZHUHGHYHORSHGWRUHSODFH\RXUREVROHWH)LQFRU GULYHV & most other brands & will virtually eliminate your press drive issues!

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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 23 www.newsandtech.com Agfa Graphics opens new offset tech center u News & Tech Staff Report Agfa Graphics has opened a new center for offset technology in product introductions. The TCC is open to all printers for demonstra- Wilmington, Massachusetts. tions. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the OEM’s Offset Technical “Agfa’s investment in offset focuses on lowering the total cost of Competence Center (TCC) on Feb. 26, with Agfa’s North American print manufacturing for our customers,” said Mertens. “Customers Regional President Gunther Mertens and Guido Hauquier, global appreciate our unique partnering approach whereby we use innova- director offset applications, leading the celebration. tive solutions — including software — to increase profits for print- The TCC is a fully-equipped lab that features Agfa’s integrated pre- ers and create value for their business and for the offset industry press and pressroom solutions to demonstrate numerous commer- as a whole. Agfa continually develops new solutions for the offset cial, packaging, newspaper and UV printing applications. marketplace. One of the latest examples is SPIR@L screening,” he The TCC will showcase innovations that reduce waste, eliminate added. chemicals and lower ink consumption while also saving on energy Agfa’s parent company is headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium. The costs, Agfa says. It was designed to provide a library of application company has sales offices and distribution centers throughout the knowledge and quality customer support for Agfa systems and new- U.S. p U.K., Indian publishers launch digital puzzles u News & Tech Staff Report Publishers con- reported on last year, allows publishers to embed puzzles anywhere on a The Guardian and The Hindu are among publishers to launch paid puzzles with the Amuse Labs platform. tinue to leverage website. Puzzles are tailored to look like a publisher’s native page. online puzzles to The Guardian launched Guardian Puzzles on iOS and Android for cross- increase reader word and Sudoku puzzles. The publisher said the app features novel ele- engagement and ments including offline play and a two-player mode and it makes available revenues. And re- an archive of 15,000 crosswords and puzzles. Subscribers can play one of cently, San-Fran- six new crosswords each day, or choose from five games of Sudoku of in- cisco-based Amuse creasing difficulty. Labs added three The Hindu first partnered with Amuse Labs last November. more publishers to “The Amuse Labs team is great and it is a pleasure to work with them,” its list of PuzzleMe Pradeep Gairola, head of digital media at The Hindu told News & Tech. He users. said The Hindu still has some tweaks to make on its end and then can begin “In less than six to evaluate how to best monetize its daily puzzles. months, we’ve launched The Hindu, the Los Angeles Times and now The In addition to The Guardian and The Hindu, Amuse Labs supports puzzles Guardian has gone live,” said John Temple, chairman of Amuse Labs. for The Washington Post and The New Yorker. The platform spans eight lan- PuzzleMe, the HTML5 based crossword platform that News & Tech first guages, from Norway to South Africa, and India to the U.S. p Torstar launching digital-only local news initiative u News & Tech Staff Report Torstar Corp. said it signed an exclusive agreement with Innocode cal organizations, and an events calendar. It will also feature online for a project aimed at revitalizing local media in communities across classified ads and cover local events including birthdays and engage- Canada. ments. Torstar’s initiative is the latest in a series of investments by the pub- “This initiative will create an integrated local product to serve the lisher to improve and launch digital products for consumers and cli- needs for news and information that residents in smaller commu- ents. Torstar said it is working to revitalize local media by proactively nities require,” Torstar President and CEO John Boynton said in a engaging different community groups and providing them with an company-issued press release. “We believe it will play a vital role in efficient, effective means to communicate with their local commu- these communities by combining a quality local news experience nities. with a community hub environment, thus helping to provide the lo- Innocode’s digital products are designed to help newspapers es- cal ties that hold communities together.” tablish themselves as local community hubs and develop new rev- Boynton said consumer feedback will help drive future changes to enue streams through social media channels. the business model. Torstar will test its digital-only initiative in North Bay, Ontario. The Straus News is among the other North American newspaper opera- North Bay app features local news and community information, such tions to have leveraged the Innocode platform. Established in 2011, as road closures, local sports scores, stories and pictures about lo- Innocode also works with Norway’s three largest newspapers. p

24 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Execs urge newspapers to highlight value to local communities u News & Tech Staff Report Images: The Dallas Morning News Images: FORT WORTH, Texas – At- tendees of the 2020 Key Execu- tives Mega-Conference were re- minded of the indispensable role newspapers play in their respec- tive communities as executives from top U.S. dailies emphasized the value of keeping that mes- sage top of mind with readers. In a session titled, “Value Prop- osition: Spread the Word About Your Newspaper’s Worth to Your Community,” executives from USA Today, The Dallas Morn- ing News and The Seattle Times shared their own campaigns The Dallas Morning News emphasized the important role it dedicated to communicating plays in its community through its What Matters Campaign. value, engaging existing readers and courting new subscribers. Alan Fisco, president and chief financial Jessica Baldwin, director of officer, The Seattle Times and Jessica brand marketing for The Dallas Baldwin, director of brand marketing, The Dallas Morning News. Morning News, shared the daily’s new marketing push, which asks readers what matters to them. The campaign touts “real local journalism,” and features a vari- ety of ads across the newspaper’s print and digital properties and in other places throughout the Dallas area, including billboards and buses. The paper cited attributes in- cluding truth, trust, accountabil- ity, loyalty and its local impact through initiatives such as clean air and voter registration. Specifi- cally, The Dallas Morning News’ “Vote About It” voter registration project helped to increase voter turnout by 3 percent. Alan Fisco, president and chief financial officer for The Seattle The Seattle Times Photo: Times, told conference attend- ees how special coverage-re- lated events and an end-of-year message from him and Publisher Frank Blethen helped forge deep- er reader connections. The publisher’s campaign highlights the paper’s 123-year The Seattle Times engaged readers history of family ownership, and through a campaign that included events as well as emails like this one, which thanks subscribers, funders and provided a behind-the-scenes look at supporters for their support. p its journalists and journalism.

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 25 www.newsandtech.com imPRESSions installs, Trib Total Media gets updates presses new controls u News & Tech Staff RepoRt u News & Tech Staff RepoRt It’s been a busy season for imPRESSions Worldwide, including press Trib Total Media (Tarentum, Pennsylvania), a family of community sales, installations and service. daily and weekly papers, a weekly shopper, commercial printing, • The company is installing a 32-unit Goss SSC Magnum pressline at the promotional products, direct mail and digital services, is in the final new facility of Northwest Offset Printing. The press purchased by the phase of the installation of all new press drive controls from TSC. The Cowles family consists of eight Magnum four-high towers and two Univer- controls replaced obsolete Goss Omnicon Siemens press drive con- sal folders. It will print The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington). trols, according to TSC. • The Central Oregonian bought a 13-unit Goss Community SSC press The installation is in the final commissioning phase. “We are in- supplied, delivered and installed by imPRESSions Worldwide. Upgrades stalling a completely new control system and the Trib management to the SSC press allowed Central Oregonian to go from a four-day work team did an excellent job shifting work schedules to accommodate week to seven days a week and with capacity to print 16-page broad- our necessary press access throughout the installation process. The sheet newspapers with 12 pages in full color. Additionally, imPRESSions project was thoroughly planned to make certain Trib Total Media has provided a short-term press operation expert under their RaP (Rent- a-Pressman) program to assist with the daily press run of The Bulletin never missed a day of production,” said TSC Automation Engineer (Bend, Oregon). Matt Clouser. • imPRESSions exported a 6-unit Goss Community SSC Press to Manila. “We’ve already seen improvements in our color registration,” said The press was loaded in a container and shipped to Manila, where it will Shawn Callahan, Trib Total Media production director. be installed at a book printer. Since 1989, TSC has completed more than 5,000 installation proj- • Stuart Web made an investment in their printing operation with three 22” ects in North America, including in the Caribbean. The company spe- cut-off DGM 430 towers added to their existing press. The towers were cializes in newspaper and commercial printing and the materials pro- updated by imPRESSions with motorized register, brush dampening and cessing industry. TSC's subsidiaries include Lion Web Components, new Perretta ink fountains in order to match the existing equipment in DR Press Equipment, DGM and Smith Pressroom Products. TSC is the Stuart. authorized QIPC-EAE sales, parts and service provider for the entire • imPRESSions again will be a vendor at the Metro Production Conference QIPC – EAE product and service offerings. p running from May 28-31 in Tampa. The 25-year-old imPRESSions offers second-hand single-wide newspaper and commercial presses and auxiliary equipment, as well as services includ- ing press room upgrades. imPRESSions is headquartered in Burlington, Wash- ington, and also has a facility in Tupelo, Mississippi. p APTech, Konica Minolta hold PRINT PACKAGING student design competition Full Service for Your Mailroom u News & Tech Staff RepoRt ● Operator Training The Association for Print Technologies (APTech) in partnership with Kon- ica Minolta, has announced its call for entries for the 12th Annual Student ● Equipment Audits and Repairs Design Competition. This year’s challenge, “Mail Matters,” focuses on the Inserters, Conveyors, Stackers, tactile component of marketing and the importance of personalization. APTech’s Student Design Competition expands awareness and interest in Strappers, etc. the print industry and exposes the future workforce to print beyond theory, ● Equipment Relocation APTech says. The competition encourages designers to go beyond digital renderings and showcase the use of printing enhancements to expand cre- ● NEW: Set up complete stand-alone ativity and impact. It’s frequently included in class curriculums, according packaging center* to APTech. The theme was chosen to underscore the importance of tactile marketing, with strong studies showing that printed material offers a deeper level of in- *Management services also available volvement and response for a call-to-action. In addition to industry exposure, students compete for six cash prizes and bragging rights. First place winners and their instructors will receive a travel stipend to attend Brand Print Americas 2020, September 15-17. Addition- www.thenetwork.net ally, the first place students will receive an award of $2,000 presented during Call Keith Hockenbery, 913-669-3646 Brand Print Americas. Second place winners will be awarded $1,500, and the third place winners will receive $1,000. p

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Oh, the tech we have known, vol. 2 u News & Tech Staff RepoRt

welcome back to our series on newspa- per tech through the decades. it’s a chance to enjoy the rich history of our industry and see how it adapted through monumental changes, as it continues to change today. it’s also fun to see the old tech.

We started last month with an installment focus- ing on typesetting. This month, we focus on the evolution of printing tech. Tune in next month for a lookback at newsprint. Photos and text for this series were drawn from “Changing Print: Turning Points in Newspaper Technology since 1970,” a wonderfully researched and illustrated report from the World Printers Fo- rum, the print community within the World Asso- ciation of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). Newspaper printing technology has undergone a number of key changes over the years.

2 1 NEwSPAPEr TECh ThrouGh ThE DECADES The first “Koebau” (Koenig & Bauer) Commander, 1969. The next turning point was the new press design of the four- a letterpress printing press, Koenig & Bauer Courier. The first and perhaps most important high tower. The four-high concept provided a cost-effective game-changer was coldset offset newspaper printing, which replaced letterpress printing. investment solution to mass newspaper color production. it By offering a clear improvement in print quality, offset helped newspapers attract more led to the simplification of press design, layout, electronics, readers, increase circulation and provide advertisers both reach and quality. installation and maintenance. By opening up the possibili- it was not easy for offset to get entrenched in newspaper printing. “although the basic prin- ties of semi-commercial printing, the four-high configuration ciple of offset printing, lithography, had been invented as early as 1797 by aloys Senefelder created additional revenue streams for any number of printing in Munich, more than one hundred years passed before offset printing technology was fur- companies. an iFRa Forum in 1985 was where the push to ther developed,” wrote Boris Fuchs in “iFRa — 40 years’ expertise for newspaper industry.” this concept became a shove. Despite the large number of “This invention is accredited to two people, both of whom came upon the idea around 1904 four-high tower units installed — one estimate put the figure of printing lithographic plates indirectly via a blanket cylinder. The two inventors of offset at 500 to 600 units between 1985 and 1990 — a long debate printing were an american, ira Washington Rubel, and a German immigrant to the United raged on its merits in comparison with the competing satellite States, Caspar Hermann,” Fuchs wrote. (Photo: Koenig & Bauer picture archive). unit design. (Photo: Koenig & Bauer picture archive). Newspaper Tech Through the Ages continues on page 30

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Newspaper Tech Through the Ages from page 28

The first mechanically-driven printing press— installed at The Times in london in 1814 — derived its power from a steam engine via a belt transmission system. The next clear game-changer was the adoption of the shaftless drive technology for newspaper rotary presses. Shaftless changed the game by making press construction and usage as flexible as pos- sible — thus positively impacting investment level and efficiency. “Shaftless” burst on to center-stage at the iFRa Expo in Munich in October 1994 when the Swiss press manufacturer WiFaG introduced the “Gearless Transmission Drive,” GTD, and made the claim, “Someday all rotary presses will be built that way.” (Graphic: Boris Fuchs)

3 NEwSPAPEr TECh ThrouGh ThE DECADES

4 at the heart of offset printing, rollers perform the task of continuously There were also game-changers in other parts of the press. Fly- transferring ink and fountain solution from the fountain to the plate, ing splicer technology evolved in the 1960s when the 2-arm splicer in the process smoothing them into a thin, even film.a rough patch was introduced with core braking to control unwinding tension. in hit in the mid-1990s with the advent of inks with reduced aromatic the 1990s, acceleration of the paper from the core was introduced. content, prompted by the desire to avoid having to declare news inks This technique, when combined with a simple straight pattern multi- as hazardous material under new EU regulations. Once recognized, function splicing tape, replaced complex splice patterns leading to the problem could be resolved, but not until many pressrooms had increased efficiency. encountered problems, including color down the edge of the paper, caused by the end flare or “trumpet” effect on the rollers.

The content above is modified from text written by Kasturi Balaji, Herbert Kaiser and Graham Macfarlane, found in WAN-IFRA’s “Changing Print: Turning Points in Newspaper Technology since 1970.”

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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 33 News You May Have Missed

NYT foresees ad drop due to coronavirus ciety of News Editors and Associated Press Media Editors. The The New York Times Company says it foresees a 10% drop in merger is still being completed, Poynter said. digital ad sales this quarter due to coronavirus. “We are still in the midst of a search for a new executive di- “Like many companies, in recent weeks we have begun to see rector,” Michael Days, the group’s chairman, told Poynter. some economic impact from the coronavirus,” said CEO Mark Thompson in a SEC filing with a March 2 date. Kansas City Star cuts Saturday print “Unlike many news publishers, our business is heavily skewed The Kansas City Star is cutting its Saturday print edition begin- towards subscriptions rather than advertising. We’ve seen no ning March 14, the paper reported. adverse impact on subscription growth, or on the expected rise The paper is expanding its Friday and Sunday print editions, in subscription revenue, which remains strong and consistent so subscribers will continue to get favorite Saturday features, with the guidance we gave in our most recent earnings call,” he including comics and puzzles. said. “However, we are seeing a slowdown in international and A version of the Saturday paper will be available as an e- domestic advertising bookings, which we associate with un- edition. certainty and anxiety about the virus. We therefore now expect McClatchy owns the paper. McClatchy has said it plans to total advertising revenues to decline in the mid-teens in the cut Saturday editions of all of its 30 publications in 14 states by current quarter, with digital advertising revenues expected to the end of 2020. McClatchy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in decline 10%. We remain broadly in line with all the other guid- February. ance numbers we gave in the call in early February.” Thompson planned to make the comments March 2 at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in LA Times offering buyouts Japan. The LA Times offered buyouts to employees with at least two years at the paper, CNN reported in February. Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the paper and the San Times Herald-Record moving print Diego Union-Tribune from Tribune Publishing for $500 million The Times Herald-Record (Middletown, New York) is relocat- in summer 2018. ing its newspaper printing and production from the Town of A “reliable source” said the LA Times has gone from making Wallkill to a sister facility in Rockaway, New Jersey, the paper $55 million in 2017 to losing $50 million last year, the New York reported. Post reported. The plant also prints the Daily Record. The Times unionized in January 2018. Gannett owns the papers. The move is set for May. Times Herald-Record news and advertising teams will stay in Middletown. The move will mean Kentucky papers cut sports departments earlier deadlines, the paper said. Sports reporters at four Kentucky newspapers were cut in Feb- The Times Herald-Record filed a notice with the New York ruary, WKYT reported. State Department of Labor in February indicating 94 employ- The Advocate-Messenger, Jessamine Journal, Interior Journal ees would lose their positions. and Winchester Sun cut their sports departments, according to “This was an enormously difficult decision, and we regret the WKYT. Boone Newspapers owns the papers. Ads for the Ad- impact it will have on our employees,” said Regional Vice Presi- vocate-Messenger have called for citizen submissions, WKYT dent Terry Cascioli. “The individuals who bring our newspaper reported. to life every day are incredibly skilled and dedicated, and this move was in no way a reflection on their work. We are so ap- Missouri paper cutting print days preciative of their many, many years of service.” The St. Joseph News-Press (Missouri) is cutting its days of print to four, the paper announced. The paper has been printing News Leaders Association cancels seven days a week. The paper will continue to publish seven days a week online conference and in its e-edition. “We’re not abandoning print, we’re evolving The News Leaders Association has canceled its 2020 annual the business model,” said Stacey Hill, chief operating officer for conference, Poynter reported. The event had been penciled in News-Press & Gazette Company, owner of the paper. for Nashville in the fall. The cancellation was decided on before coronavirus became an issue, Poynter says. The NLA is moving the event to spring 2021. The location and Layoffs at Gannett papers date are not yet set. A new round of layoffs hit numerous Gannett papers in late The group was created through a merger of the American So- February.

34 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com News You May Have Missed

Florida Times-Union reporter Andrew Pantazi has a spread- reports. sheet on which he attempts to keep count of the cuts. The The move should happen by the end of May, the Post said. spreadsheet shows more than 90 cuts at the time of this writing. The publication was bought by American Media in 2017. USA Today owner Gannett reported lower revenue and a net Around 20 editorial employees will be laid off, the paper said. loss in the fourth quarter of 2019. Revenues at the combined American Media recently sold Muscle & Fitness, Flex and company fell about 10% and print advertising dropped 18.4% Muscle & Fitness Hers and the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding com- compared to the same period a year ago. petition to businessman Jake Wood for some $70 million, the GateHouse parent New Media Investment Group completed Post said. The titles are going all digital in the wake of the sale. a $1.2 billion cash-and-stock buy of USA Today parent Gannett, American Media owns US Weekly and In Touch, among other the companies announced Nov. 19. The new company uses the titles. Its majority owner is Chatham Asset Management. Its name Gannett. recent efforts to sell the National Enquirer have hit snags, the Relying on comments from Gannett CEO Mike Reed, Poyn- Post has reported. ter’s Rick Edmonds in December estimated that some 4% of Gannett’s 24,000 employees, around 960, may be slated to be McClatchy files for bankruptcy; cut post-merger. This current round follows earlier cuts, includ- ing a large batch in late 2019. analyst reactions Industry experts chimed in after the Feb. 13 announcement New Yorker launches climate change that McClatchy, the second-biggest newspaper publisher in the country by circulation, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. newsletter If the court okays the plan, McClatchy would give control of The New Yorker has launched a weekly newsletter focused on the company to New Jersey-based hedge fund Chatham Asset climate change, Nieman Lab reported. The Climate Crisis news- Management. letter will be authored by environmental journalist Bill McKib- Ken Doctor, in his Newsonomics column at Nieman Lab, ben, an ex-New Yorker staffer. Among other things, McKibben is asks “Does Chatham want to be an operator of a newspaper known for writing the 1989 book “The End of Nature.” company for any period of time? Or will it try to transmute its The newsletter will be free. suddenly shinier asset through the alchemy of the hour, con- Every issue of the newsletter will have a short essay, links and solidation?” an interview called “Pass the Mic” to feature emerging perspec- “For Chatham, the main question is this: Can it make more tives on the topic, Nieman Lab said. money merging with Tribune/Alden — or maybe an again re- structured Gannett/GateHouse/Apollo — than it can operating Springfield News-Leader moves printing independently?” writes Doctor. “It is conjectural at this early stage how Chatham will run The Springfield News-Leader (Missouri) is relocating its print- the company,” writes Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business ing and production from Springfield to a sister facility in analyst. “This is not its first foray into scooping up a news orga- Columbia, the paper reported. The facility prints the Columbia nization in deep financial trouble. It controls American Media, Daily Tribune. Both are Gannett papers. a group of glossy magazines that includes Men’s Journal and Us The News-Leader news and advertising teams are staying in Weekly, and the National Enquirer (which it is trying to sell). Springfield, the paper said. And since 2016, it has also had a controlling stake in Postme- The move is set to take place at the end of March, the paper said. dia, a huge chain of Canadian dailies." The company aims to link workers with area resources to help Newsroom cuts could be in the cards but not for sure, Ed- with looking for new jobs, and opportunities will be extended, if monds writes. possible, at other company spots, according to the paper. “As our industry continues to evolve and transform, we are Details of the filing forced to make changes that allow us to be competitive in the The Chapter 11 filing provides immediate protection to the future marketplace. This is without a doubt one of the most company, which will continue to operate as usual as it pursues difficult decisions we’ve had to make to date,” said Allen Jones, approval of the restructuring plan with its secured lenders, upper Midwest regional president. bondholders and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the company says. McClatchy and each of its 53 wholly owned subsidiaries filed Men’s Journal cutting staff, moving their voluntary Chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy operation Court for the Southern District of New York. The company has obtained new $50 million debtor-in-pos- Men’s Journal is cutting all of its editorial staff and relocat- session financing from Encina Business Credit which, coupled ing the operation to Carlsbad, California, the New York Post

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 35 News You May Have Missed

with McClatchy's normal operating cash flows, provides liquid- has set a new record of 3.5 million subscriptions and The Wall ity for Sacramento-based McClatchy and all of its local news Street Journal crossed the 2 million digital subscriptions mark outlets to fulfill ongoing commitments to stakeholders, the for the first time. company says. The company aims to emerge from this process Dow Jones also surpassed The New York Times in revenue in the next few months, said a news release on the filing. growth in the final quarter of calendar year 2019, according to The plan would allow McClatchy to reorganize its over $700 the company. Dow Jones is publisher of The Wall Street Journal million in debt. Sixty percent of the debt would be eliminated and Barron’s Group, and its Professional Information Business under the plan, a McClatchy story said. includes Risk & Compliance, Newswires and Factiva. The new owners, led by Chatham, would run it as a privately “Dow Jones revenues increased by 4% in the most recent held company, so its shares would not be traded on the NYSE quarter, compared to 1% for The New York Times,” said Robert American stock exchange. The company is beginning the pro- Thomson, chief executive of News Corp. “Dow Jones is signifi- cess of being delisted, the story said. cantly more digital than The New York Times, with 62% digital revenues as we reported at fiscal year-end, including our grow- Munger pessimistic on newspapers ing Professional Information Business.” What about The Washington Post? Hard to determine be- Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger said U.S. cause of how it reports its numbers, says Joshua Benton at Nie- newspapers are “all going to die,” Bloomberg reported. Munger, man Lab. In December 2018, a memo said the Post had passed 96, made the comments Feb. 12 in Los Angeles at a meeting 1.5 million digital subscribers, he said. of Daily Journal Corp. Munger is chairman of the publishing company. “It’s a sad thing,” Munger said. He cited the New York Times Pew: Fifth of Democrats, Republicans get and Wall Street Journal as exceptions. politics news in bubble “Technological change is destroying the daily newspapers in Around a fifth of Democrats and Republicans get political news America,” Munger said. “The revenue goes away and the ex- only from outlets mainly used by people who side with them penses remain and they’re all dying.” politically, according to data from the Pew Research Center’s Berkshire Hathaway announced in January that it sold its BH Election News Pathways project. Media Group publications and The Buffalo News to Lee Enter- People were asked if they got political and election news in a prises for $140 million in cash. past week from 30 different sources from a range of news media BHMG owned the print and digital operations of 30 daily on various platforms. Researchers used the info gathered to newspapers as well as more than 49 paid weekly publications determine the political makeup of each source’s audience. with digital sites and 32 other print products. Pew reported that in total, 20% of all Democrats and inde- In the deal, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is providing pendents who lean Democratic get political news only from approximately $576 million in long-term financing to Lee at a 9 outlets with left-leaning audiences. Some 18% of all Republi- percent annual rate. cans and independents who lean Republican get their political news only from outlets with right-leaning audiences, accord- NYT, WSJ report record numbers ing to the survey of 12,043 U.S. adults who are members of the Large papers had some nice year-end and quarterly numbers to center’s American Trends Panel, conducted Oct. 29 to Nov. 11, report. 2019. The New York Times Company reported more than $800 mil- lion in digital revenues in 2019. Hearst invests in Martin Group In 2019, the company added more than a million net new Hearst Newspapers has made a strategic investment in The total digital-only subscriptions and as of year end, it had Martin Group, a marketing communications agency with offic- 5,251,000 total subscriptions across its print and digital prod- es in Albany, Buffalo and Rochester, New York. The announce- ucts. ment was made by Hearst Newspapers President Jeff Johnson Fourth-quarter digital advertising revenue decreased 10.8 and Times Union President and Publisher George R. Hearst III. percent, while print advertising revenue decreased 10.5 per- Terms were not disclosed. cent, the company said. Founded in 2001, The Martin Group provides research, strat- “2019 was a record setting year for The New York Times’s digi- egy, analytics, creative services, public relations, digital market- tal subscription business, the best since the company launched ing, paid media and advertising and social media solutions. digital subscriptions almost nine years ago,” said Mark Thomp- Notable clients include Under Armour, Wegmans, New Era Cap, son, president and chief executive officer of the company. Puma, ASICS and the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation. For its part, News Corp announced Feb. 7 that Dow Jones

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While the investment formalizes The Martin Group’s partner- Westfield News Group, last summer. The company has a num- ship with the Times Union, based in New York’s Capital Region, ber of publications in Massachusetts, including The Chicopee the entities first aligned in 2018, when the agency co-located its Herald, The East Longmeadow Reminder, The Pennysaver, The Capital Region offices within the Times Union headquarters. Springfield Reminder, The Westfield News and magazines Go Local and Prime. Rockford paper moving production to Overall, Smith is optimistic about Reminder’s future in the area, the Journal Inquirer said. “We’re in growth mode,” Smith Milwaukee said. “We expect to be adding more newspapers.” The Rockford Register Star (Illinois) is taking its newspaper printing and production operation from Rockford to a sister fa- Florida bill aimed at legal notices in cility in Milwaukee, the paper reported. The Register Star news and advertising teams are staying in Rockford. newspapers “This was a difficult decision to make, driven by a broad The Florida House approved a bill that allows local govern- transformation impacting the newspaper industry,” said Paul ments to publish legally required notices on publicly accessible Gaier, president and publisher. “With duplicative printing facili- websites in place of newspapers, Florida Politics reported. ties in the area, we are choosing to focus our precious resources The public notice ads involve matters such as tax raises, on the quality, local journalism our community depends on.” alterations to zoning law, government meetings and special The Freeport Journal-Standard (Illinois) will also print in elections, among other things. Milwaukee. Both will be printed at a facility that prints the Mil- The law now mandates that all meetings of a county, city, waukee Journal Sentinel. school board or special district at which public business is ad- The change is happening in April. dressed be announced in a local newspaper and on the paper’s Gannett owns the papers. website. The local government has to buy the ad, at discounted rates, and a group of papers publishes the notices at florida- Gannett paper in Pennsylvania moving publicnotices.com, a free website run by the Florida Press As- sociation, the Miami Herald reported. printing The House bill allows for direct mail. Under the legislation, The Bucks County Courier Times (Langhorne, Pennsylvania) governmental agencies would be required to purchase an ad is taking its newspaper printing and production from Fairless annually in a publication “delivered to all residents and proper- Hills to sister facilities at the Courier-Post in New Jersey and ty owners throughout the government’s jurisdiction” informing The News Journal in Delaware, the Bucks County paper report- them that they can register to get public notices through email ed. The Courier Times news and advertising teams are staying or snail mail, Florida Politics reported. in Langhorne, the paper said. Florida Press Association President Jim Fogler encouraged a Gannett owns the paper. House committee to not “reinvent the wheel” by having local The change was set for the end of March. governments replicate the site the papers created to gather the The paper didn’t say how many jobs would be lost. public notices. “We can’t make a decision like this without deep concern for It was unclear whether the state Senate would do anything our affected coworkers,” General Manager Brad Bailey said. with the House bill, Florida Politics reported. “We are committed to working with them through this dif- ficult transition,” he said. The facility in the Penn Warner Industrial Park in Fairless Hills was opened in 2004.

Enfield Press shutting down The Enfield Press (East Longmeadow, Massachusetts) was scheduled to produce its last paper on Feb. 20, company of- ficials said, the Journal Inquirer (Manchester, Connecticut) reported. Reminder Publishing owns The Enfield Press. Fran Smith, general manager of Reminder, said the weekly is not financially workable. Smith said other Reminder papers cover northern Connecticut, the Journal Inquirer reported. Reminder Publishing bought The Enfield Press’s parent, the

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 37 Mergers & Acquisitions

Times Media Group buys Arizona weekly Alden takes stake in Lee after BH Media Times Media Group (Tempe, Arizona) has bought The Foothills news Focus, a community news weekly in New River, the East Valley Hedge fund Alden Global Capital’s MNG Enterprises has taken Tribune reported. a 5.9% stake in Lee Enterprises. The move came on the heels of Along with New River, the paper covers several other com- the Jan. 29 announcement that Lee is bought Warren Buffett’s munities, including Anthem, Black Canyon City, Cave Creek and BH Media Group publications and The Buffalo News for $140 Carefree. million in cash. Times Media Group has community weekly newspapers and Various media watchers reacted to the news. websites around Arizona and California. Nieman Lab Director Joshua Benton took a dim view of the news, while the NewsGuild’s Julia Reynolds provided info on Alden’s MNG buys Greeley Tribune MNG’s background, parts of which are “shrouded in secrecy,” Swift Communications has sold the Greeley Tribune (Colorado) claims Reynolds. to MediaNews Group, the paper reported. In a filing with the SEC, MNG (MediaNews Group) said it in- Hedge fund Alden Global Capital owns MNG. Among MNG tended to talk to Lee about “the recently announced acquisition papers are The Denver Post and the Boulder Daily Camera. of Berkshire Hathaway’s newspaper operations” and matters The sale was due to be complete on March 1. pertaining to Lee’s 2020 annual meeting. “With this change, the Greeley Tribune, its staff and the com- The buy involved 3.4 million shares at $2.7173/share. munity will benefit from the many resources that MNG has in the region, as well as benefiting the long term interests of both BlackRock follows Alden, Franklin in Lee companies,” said Bill Waters, chairman and CEO, Swift Commu- nications. stock buys Left out of the sale was The Fence Post Company, an indepen- BlackRock has bought about 3.1 million shares of Lee Enterpris- dent Swift Communications company. es stock, for a 5.5% share of the company, the Quad-City Times reported, citing an SEC filing. Lee completes acquisition of Berkshire BlackRock, based in New York City, is the world’s biggest asset manager. Hathaway newspaper operations BlackRock’s purchase follows other players’ moves on Lee Lee Enterprises has completed its acquisition of BH Media stock. Group’s publications and The Buffalo News, Iowa-based Lee -an In January, hedge fund Alden Global Capital’s MNG Enterpris- nounced. es took a 5.9% stake in Iowa-based Lee. The move came on the The acquisition nearly doubled Lee’s audience size and added heels of the Jan. 29 announcement that Lee acquired Warren 30 daily newspapers, more than 49 paid weekly publications Buffett’s BH Media Group publications and The Buffalo News for with digital sites, and 32 other print products from BHMG, as $140 million in cash. well as The Buffalo News, to Lee’s portfolio of local publications. On Dec. 31, Franklin Mutual Advisers bought around 4.35 mil- Lee’s portfolio now consists of 77 publications in 77 communi- lion shares, or 7.4% of the company’s available stock, according ties. to an SEC filing dated Jan. 23. After the elimination of a Lee-BH Media management agree- ment and adding operating expenses from the lease agreement, MNG buys papers from Red Wing the transaction is expected to drive an 87% increase in revenue, MediaNews Group has bought a group of 11 community papers a 40% increase in adjusted EBITDA, and immediately reduce owned by Red Wing Publishing, the Star Tribune reported. Lee’s leverage to 3.5x, even before $20-25 million in anticipated MediaNews is owned by hedge fund Alden Global Capital. annual revenue and cost synergies, according to Lee. Terms of the deal weren’t made public. As previously announced, and in connection with the transac- In the sale, MNG bought the assets of a number of subur- tion, Berkshire Hathaway provided approximately $576 million ban Twin Cities papers as well as publications in Litchfield, in long-term financing to Lee at a 9% annual rate. The proceeds Hutchinson and International Falls, says the Star Tribune. from the financing were used to pay for the acquisition and Family-owned Red Wing Publishing’s Arlin Albrecht told the refinance Lee’s existing debt and also allowed Lee to terminate Star Tribune that following the sale, “there are certainly going its revolving credit facility. Berkshire Hathaway is now Lee’s sole to be changes that we will be melancholy about.” But he said the lender. “best prospect for sustainability for the staff is a large organiza- tion with financial wherewithal.”

38 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Mergers & Acquisitions

Red Wing Publishing is the parent of Big Fish Works, which PCM owns the Long Beach Post and its publisher, David Som- runs three news groups. mers, is taking on the role of publisher of the business journal. The acquisition also includes a digital marketing agency and PCM is a subsidiary of Pacific6, a Long Beach-based develop- two commercial printing plants. ment firm with six local partners, including businessman John Molina, says the journal. Cox buys back Dayton paper, others In June 2018, PCM bought the Long Beach Post, which has since quadrupled its editorial and business staff, according to Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises announced that it was buying the business journal. back the Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun and Jour- “I’m happy to sell to a fellow Long Beach booster,” Econo- nal-News from Apollo Global Management, the Dayton paper mides said. “John has vowed to treat our employees and the reported Feb 10. business’s legacy with respect, and he has the resources to That buyback means the papers can go on publishing seven implement additional offerings to our advertisers and readers days a week. That had been in doubt after the Federal Commu- that we’ve been wanting to start for years.” nications Commission said that Apollo could purchase Cox’s TV A major reason behind Economides selling his business was stations only if Cox did not publish a daily paper in Dayton. having a stroke in spring 2019, he said. “This is the best possible outcome for the newspapers, and it means we will continue to publish a printed newspaper seven days a week, uninterrupted,” said Jana Collier, interim opera- Rosenauers buy Savannah Reporter tions leader for the Ohio papers. “Our commitment to impor- The Savannah Reporter, a county-seat weekly in Savannah, tant local journalism has never waned, and we will continue to Missouri, has been sold by long-time owners Guy and Leslie serve our communities going forward.” Speckman to a local family. Ken Rosenauer and his son, Brent, The deal was expected to close in a matter of weeks. purchased the 2,500-circulation newspaper, effective Jan. 30. Cox Enterprises will own the papers. Apollo will own WHIO- Dennis DeRossett with Grimes, McGovern & Associates rep- TV and the Ohio radio stations and operate them under the resented the sellers. name Cox Media Group. Ken, a former mayor of Savannah, is a retired journalism pro- fessor, having taught 34 years at Missouri Western State Univer- Kelsey Media acquires Motorsport News sity in St. Joseph. Brent is a 2017 graduate of Missouri Western, where he earned a bachelor of science in convergent media. U.K.-based Kelsey Media has acquired weekly newspaper Mo- Ken will serve as publisher and Brent will be editor. Ken will torsport News from Motorsport Network, owners of Autosport, also return to writing each week his topical column “You Heard F1 Racing magazine and Motorsport.com, an online racing It Here,” which he previously wrote for several years. portal. The Speckmans bought the paper in 2001. Kelsey Media has offices in Peterborough and Kent and produces over 70 regular frequency publications, including four weekly products plus bookazines, supplements, websites and McElvy Media affiliate buys Texas papers live action events. Coastal Bend Publishing, an affiliate of McElvy Media Group “With its strong links to motoring, both classic and perfor- (Houston), was set to take ownership of the Beeville Bee-Pica- mance, plus its own live action events at iconic venues such as yune (Texas) effective Feb. 1. Silverstone, Donington and Mallory Park, Kelsey Media is the In addition to the Bee-Picayune, Coastal Bend Publishing perfect home for Motorsport News,” says a release from Kelsey purchased the other four papers owned by Beeville Publish- Media. ing Company — The News of San Patricio, The Progress, The “Kelsey Media is the right home for this long-standing en- Advance-Guard Press and Karnes Countywide. thusiast’s title that will see it surviving into a new decade. Our Brothers Jeff and Chip Latcham, who have 39 and 42 years, focus is very clear; digital first with a slimmed down portfolio respectively, working in this family business, expanded the com- of print titles, to reflect our customer’s needs,” said James Allen, pany during their years as co-publishers to include newspapers Motorsport Network president. in Live Oak, McMullen, San Patricio, Karnes, Refugio and Goliad counties. PCM buys Long Beach Business Journal Gary Borders with Grimes, McGovern & Associates represent- ed the sellers in the transaction. The Long Beach Business Journal (Signal Hill, California) has McElvy Media began in 2012 with one community newspaper been sold, publication owner George Economides announced. and eight employees. Today the company employs more than Effective Feb. 4, John Molina and his Pacific Community 100 people and publishes 25 print editions weekly. Media (PCM) company assumed ownership and management.

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 39 Vendor Insight

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40 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Vendor Insight

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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 41 Industry People

Change continues at the Chicago Tribune. Publisher and StarNews Executive Editor Pam Sander has been named Editor-in-Chief Bruce Dold will leave the Tribune April 30, one of Gannett’s 12 regional editors. She will oversee news- the paper announced. He’s been in those roles since early rooms across five Southeast states. Sander formerly served spring 2016. as the Southeast editor for GateHouse and was named the Colin McMahon has taken over as editor-in-chief. He company’s top editor in its circulation division in 2019. was Tribune Publishing’s chief content officer. The paper hadn’t appointed a publisher as of this writing. Cox Enterprises has named Jana Collier publisher of Peter Kendall, one of two managing editors at the pa- Cox's Ohio newspapers, which include the Dayton Daily per, is gone as of the end of February. His position won’t be News, the Springfield News-Sun and the Journal-News. filled, the paper said. Chrissy Taylor will continue to serve Collier recently served as vice president of Content at CMG as managing editor. Ohio, before stepping in as the interim executive editor and Also among recent changes, former chief financial officer operations leader of the Ohio newspapers. Terry Jimenez took over as CEO after Tim Knight left in February. Knight has been named president and CEO Digital news platform The Texas Tribune (Austin) has at McCormick Foundation, established in 1955 after Col. hired Stacy-Marie Ishmael as its new editorial director. Robert R. McCormick, the longtime editor and publisher Ishmael will replace Emily Ramshaw, who was editor at of the Chicago Tribune, died. the non-profit until January. Also on board is Millie Tran, The shakeups come on the heels of New York hedge fund deputy off-platform editor at The New York Times, who will Alden Global Capital’s taking a 32% stake in Tribune Pub- serve as be chief product officer. Ramshaw and Chief Audi- lishing last fall. Tribune Publishing then added two Alden ence Officer Amanda Zamora left the Tribune to launch representatives to the company’s board, making it eight The 19th, a news operation covering women and politics. members. Alden is barred from boosting its stake in the company to more than 33 percent until the end of June. Houston Chronicle's President and Chief Marketing Of- Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is the second-largest ficer Mark Medici has been named as interim publisher shareholder at Tribune Publishing, with a 24 percent stake. of the San Antonio Express-News. Medici replaces Michael Tribune also publishes the New York Daily News, the Sacks, who had served as publisher since July. Baltimore Sun and other publications. “The Trib folks are pretty shaken up. They are interpret- K. Robert Brink, a former executive vice president of ing this as very bad news,” a Tribune Publishing inside Hearst Magazines and past member of the company’s source told The New York Post about the shakeups. board, died Feb. 13 in Sarasota, Florida. He was 86. Brink The concern is that “metrics drives decisions on story joined Hearst in 1976 where he went on to serve as execu- coverage,” the source said, according to the Post. “We will tive vice president, publishing director of magazines and be using more syndicated copy. There will likely be staff group publisher. c u t s .” Tribune Publishing also recently announced that Robert Lee Enterprises announced that it has named Ian Caso York, editor of the Daily News, would be in charge of the president and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Post report- Caso succeeds Ray Farris, who has been moved up to ed. operating vice president and vice president of advertising at Lee. Katrice Hardy has been named Indianapolis Star execu- tive editor and USA Today Network regional editor. She will Former Cleburne Times-Review (Texas) publisher Bill oversee more than two dozen Gannett newsrooms in Indi- Rice has died. Rice started working at the Times-Review ana, Illinois and Kentucky as the Midwest regional editor. in 1981 as ad manager. After working at the Weatherford Hardy, who joined Gannett in 2016, also has served as the Democrat, he came back to Cleburne to serve as publisher USA TODAY Network’s regional editor for the South. from 1995 to 1998.

42 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Contributor

AffinitySPEAKING Publisher OF and DIGITAL IDMarkz: OneTrying thumbs to determine up, what’s one working thumb at community sideways papers I spent my ideas about how papersissue, could but I only have 800 words for my col- of newspapers. trackmorning visits writto their- sitesumn, and so let me break it down to its simplest IDMarkz isn’t a plug-in. It’s an application critiquedi n g a websites b o u t of newselement.- In Affinity Publisher, PDF files are on its own. With IDMarkz, users can export by Kevin Slimp papersmergers, represented at theeditable ses- when placed on the page. That InDesign files in various formats including: [email protected] sion,buyouts, offering and helpful tipssounds and good. It’s not, for our purposes. As a Affinity Publisher, QuarkXpress, Illustrator, ideas to improve their sites. Hebankruptcies. was also clear that printresult, fonts are replaced, things move, and and PDF. 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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 43 Vendor Insight

Factorium www.factorium.com

44 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Vendor News

Poynter, Google partner on youth program service said. The Poynter Institute and Google News Initiative are partnering “The unprecedented impact of the digital platforms that take on a yearlong program called VidSpark, Poynter announced. The other people's content and distribute it for free has led to too many program will help three local newsrooms reach young audiences companies choosing to no longer use AAP's professional service. We through social video storytelling. have reached the point where it is no longer viable to continue,” said The Minneapolis Star Tribune, WGBH News in Boston and a release on the closing. 10News WTSP in Tampa will get guidance to create content on plat- AAP is owned by Nine, News Corp, The West Australian and Aus- forms that are a hit with teens through the program. tralian Community Media. “Smart, creative video storytelling may be a real path for local The Newswire will close at the end of June and Pagemasters at the news companies to reach younger audiences,” said Poynter Presi- end of August. dent Neil Brown. “Our VidSpark project with GNI can be a lab to try AAP's press release distribution business Medianet and its media new story forms and help newsrooms share their journalism with intelligence business Mediaverse will be put on sale. those who don’t currently feel compelled by the local news scene.” There will be job losses but job opportunities are also expected as The program will end with a template that newsrooms around the AAP's shareholders and other companies determine how they’ll get U.S. can use to engage younger people, Poynter says. and process news. News Corp and Nine will be making investments Google is currently a partner with Poynter on MediaWise, an in their own teams to replace some of the material they get from information literacy project that teaches teenagers to tell fact from AAP, the release said. fiction online. GNI has also helped with Poynter’s drone workshops, digital New York newsrooms using AP tool tools teaching and reporting, fact-checking initiatives and elections News organizations in New York state are using AP StoryShare in a reporting workshops. project supported by the Google News Initiative, the AP reports. “Poynter’s focus on sparking innovation in the news space is why The AP created the tool to encourage collaboration and boost they’ve been such a valuable partner for the GNI and our efforts sup- local news. porting quality journalism,” said Chrissy Towle, head of News and The effort started in January. Local Media, Global Partnerships at Google. More than 200 stories have been shared by outlets including The (Albany) Times Union, the (Utica) Observer-Dispatch and the Ni- Flint Group CPS provides COVID-19 update agara Gazette, AP says. Photos are also being shared. More than two Flint Group CPS sent customers an update on March 10 about the dozen news organizations are involved, according to AP. impact of coronavirus on supply to the industry. Participating newsrooms can republish each other’s stories and Michael Podd, chief procurement officer and senior VP commer- photos in their papers. cial, reports “Like many companies, we have observed some delays “We are delighted that AP StoryShare is helping newsrooms with in the supply of raw materials as a result of manufacturing and what they need most: more local and state news coverage for their freight disruptions within China. CPS presently continues to have communities,” said AP Deputy Managing Editor for U.S. News Nor- sufficient inventory to support your business, and has additional een Gillespie. “This platform provides an easy way for news outlets stock on the water inbound. Further, Flint CPS procurement and to connect with each other in the shared — and critical — interest of supply chain teams continue to activate alternative region sourcing preserving local news.” options to further mitigate any potential supply issues. “In the event this is insufficient, we will expedite raw material Automation House Sweden buys IGA Plauen shipments where feasible, and will be fully transparent with our cus- Automation House Sweden, the holding company of DCOS Sweden, tomers on any additional cost. We will of course prioritize existing Tensor International and Amal Webline, has acquired a majority of customers, particularly those with long term contracts.” shares in IGA Plauen, based in Plauen, Germany. The acquisition CPS Inks is a global Flint Group business unit offering offset and follows many years of cooperation between DCOS and IGA and the publication gravure inks, blankets and consumables to offset web company will be renamed DCOS IGA Automation. and offset sheetfed printers. Headquartered in Luxembourg, Flint IGA is an automation company with roots in the former Man- Group employs some 6,800 people. roland Plauen operation specializing in electrical design, software development, machine safety and project management. IGA is well Australian Associated Press closing established as a solution provider to printers and partners in the The Australian Associated Press (AAP) has announced the shut- global market. tering of the AAP Newswire and the Pagemasters editorial produc- “DCOS has a proven record of success in the seamless integration tion service. of press drives, controls, and closed loop density, register and cut-off The decision was prompted by the decline in the number of media control equipment to all existing OEM offset presses. The acquisi- companies subscribing to the news wire service in recent years, the tion of IGA further enhances our capabilities,” says a release on the

News & Tech March/April 2020 u 45 Vendor News

acquisition. trols automation systems to strengthen its collaboration with QIPC, DCOS completed its first retrofit project in the DACH region (Ger- the Dutch specialist in measurement and control equipment for the many, Austria and Switzerland) in 2011 and several presses in this printing industry. The local German newspaper will enhance the market have been equipped with DCOS automation. It has always automation of its press in the upgrade. been obvious that a local organization would be advantageous to The Cellesche Zeitung currently has a QIPC IRS system for color support sales, project and service efforts, partly due to language, register and cut-off control. The new mRC-3D will also control said the release. sidelay register. Nine mRC-3D cameras will be installed on the K&B Colora press CCI is now Stibo DX in Celle to replace the five IRS cameras. “We are counting on a professional and fast integration of the control of our press,” says CCI — maker of editorial content management systems and the Werner Heyer, site manager of Cellesche Zeitung. company behind the CUE publishing platform — has changed Besides the QIPC automation, Cellesche Zeitung uses operating its name to Stibo DX. With the new company brand, the software systems from Engineering Automation Electronics (EAE), a sister vendor takes a step closer to its parent company, Stibo Group, a company of QIPC. foundation-owned corporate group founded in 1794 and headquar- tered in Aarhus, Denmark. For more than three decades, the company has been a tech part- Legacy.com buys iPublish Media ner for media companies including The New York Times, Gannett, Legacy.com, provider of online obituary solutions in the U.S., has ac- Axel Springer in Germany, Times of India and The Economist. quired iPublish Media Solutions, a self-serve platform for placement In the current fiscal year (ending April 30, 2020), Stibo DX expects of obituaries and other announcements in U.S. newspapers. a growth in revenue of around 25%, the company says. The growth is Legacy.com has been in memorial publishing for two decades, driven by the company’s CUE publishing platform, which is gaining providing technologies and social engagement products to local market shares, according to the company. news organizations. As part of the rebranding process, Stibo DX will be merging with The acquisition will simplify the process of placing newspaper obit- its subsidiary company, Escenic. Stibo DX’s other subsidiary, Digital uaries and significantly expand access to self-serve publishing tools Collections, acquired in April 2019, will stay an independent brand. for funeral homes and consumers, said Legacy.com in a news release. Stibo DX has offices in Aarhus, Atlanta, Hamburg, Oslo and “Legacy is an open platform that integrates with any and all self- Dhaka, Bangladesh. serve solutions deployed by publishers, and we will enthusiastically continue to do so,” says Stopher Bartol, CEO of Legacy.com. “Yet our AIM Group: Craigslist revenue falls in 2019 view is that the iPublish team and technology are the absolute best- in-class.” After reaching $1 billion in 2018, Craigslist revenue fell sharply in IPublish will be run independently by its current leadership and 2019, according to an AIM Group report. the two companies’ customers will benefit from tighter alignment of An analysis of advertising on Craigslist, the most-visited classified their respective platforms, the release said. site in the U.S., showed 2019 revenue of $760 million, a drop of 27% from 2018. A 37% fall-off in job advertising, the highest revenue category on SendtoNews offers updating COVID-19 coverage Craigslist, outweighed increases in most other categories, including a SendtoNews, owner and operator of a digital video distribution new fee for commercial and office real estate ads, according to AIM. platform, has developed a video player with a playlist dedicated to “The AIM Group has been tracking Craigslist’s revenue since 2004, providing publishers and their readers up-to-the-minute coronavi- and this is the first time it has fallen,” said Peter M. Zollman, found- rus coverage, the company says. ing principal of Florida-based AIM Group. “And traffic at the site is The player features coronavirus-related video from trusted sourc- little more than half of what it was four years ago. Craigslist reached es like Associated Press, Bloomberg, GeoBeats Health, Rolling Stone, a billion dollars in revenue in 2018, so it’s a major change in fortunes Cheddar, the NBA, MLB, NFL and other major sports leagues and for the company.” more than a hundred others to deliver contextually relevant content “Craigslist is still a powerhouse and incredibly profitable. It’s just to publishers, updated every 20 minutes, the company says. less so than it was, and competitors are taking bigger and bigger To use the player, publishers paste the embed code wherever they bites out of the company’s income, most notably Facebook Market- want the coverage. The player then selects the most recent and rel- place,” said Zollman. evant coronavirus related content from STN’s library of over 600,000 videos. STN receives up to 5,000 new videos per day, the company says. Cellesche Zeitung works with Q.I. Press SendtoNews’s video players have been used by the New York Post, Chicago Tribune, SF Gate, Houston Chronicle and over 1,600 others, Controls according to the company. Cellesche Zeitung is using a needed update of its Q.I. Press Con-

46 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Marketing Partners

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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 47 Marketing Partners

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48 t March/April 2020 News & Tech www.newsandtech.com Vendor insight

Need Help? We’re on it! Flint Group - Mastering Ink / Water Balance

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News & Tech March/April 2020 u 49 Conference

The 2020 Metro Production Conference

We are fast approaching our 52nd annual Metro Production Conference scheduled to begin on May 28 at the Saddlebrook Resort in Wesley Chapel FL. As we all know there are continual changes and new challenges facing our industry, so we will continue to focus on the things that will be most relevant and timely. The agenda is taking shape as the speakers are being lined up. More info to come in the next few weeks. Our reception on Thursday May 28, will kick off the conference with a meet and greet with all the attendees.

We will have a full day scheduled on Friday May 29 providing an opportunity to meet and speak to a lot of our supporting vendors. Our vendors bring a wealth of information and knowledge to our Conference. “More to Come!”

With the constant Changes confronting our Industry, all roads lead to Saddlebrook. As always, the Metro Conference is free to our Delegates and registration is now open. Food will be provided for our Delegates and Vendors. Our open reception will be held Thursday night, May 28 at 6:00 pm. So, mark the conference dates on your calendar for May 28 through May 30. Take advantage of the early registration and lower fares.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Visit our website for more and future information: www.metroproduction.org

Metro Production Conference Board of Executives Nick Vangelos, Cleveland Plain Dealer Ray Walsh, Dow Jones Jason Birket, New York Times Alvin Nesmith, Tampa Bay Times David Stenstrom, New York Times Jeff Lansing, Rochester MN

50 t March/April 2020 News & Tech