MissouriMissouri NewsNews Your inside story for Press October 2003 Journalism School 9 may get vacant building. 10 St. Louis American receives Missouri Honor Medal. (School of Journalism photo) Contest awards presented in Kansas City. A list of winners City honors a favorite son is inside. The community of Boonville unveiled a bust of Walter Williams, the first 19 dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, on Sept. 14. Sculptor Sabra Tull Meyer was among those attending the ceremony. An account of the event with more photos is on page 8. (Photo by Jim Sterling) Regular Jean Maneke 24 Features Obituaries 25 President 2 Housekeeping 26 On the Move 13 Kitchell on NIE 27 Scrapbook 16 Nostalgia 29 www.mopress.com Survey should help sell ads Candidates would do well to include newspapers in campaigns e have much cause to have faith in the efforts of our ahead of all but one source of information for help in deciding More in ’04 committee to garner more political ad- how to vote, so keep publishing those political stories (not to be Wvertising for Missouri newspapers. confused with candidate news releases). Only voter pamphlets Of course, no one should expect us to turn the world upside rank ahead of newspaper articles, but don’t mistake that for an down overnight. We didn’t get in the position we are in over the endorsement of direct mail. Only television news finished below span of two years or even four years. Decades of take-it-for- brochures mailed directly to the home. granted attitude on our part got us to where we The survey also identifies newspapers as be- are and it will take decades of hard work to ing a great source for reaching the 39 percent change it. But we should be able to agree that of Missouri voters who identify themselves as we’ve made a big push to get the pendulum ticket splitters. swinging in the right direction. Our advertising is a helpful source for mak- Your board has spent some Association money ing voting decisions, too, ranking ahead of on a survey to determine the condition we are in television and far ahead of radio. The same and to benchmark voter attitudes. Convention goes for which ads voters find to be more be- attendees got a good look at the fresh results lievable. from the survey. More info will continue to nd here is one of my favorites, based on come your way in this medium and others. A what I see so much of in southwest Mis- Some of what the survey tells us is that the souri. What do you suppose voters find to be voters’ state of mind is ripe for what we have to Dave Berry the most offensive forms of political advertis- offer. We’ve known that all along, but it’s been a Vice President / Publisher ing? tough sell to the handlers of political war chests. Community Publishers of The most recent major election did a lot to Missouri, Inc. Now we have a tool to help make the case. cause the number one response, as 32 percent MPA President Still, it won’t be easy. Of course, who would said phone calls from the candidate campaigns know better than campaign managers how sur- turned them off more than anything else. And veys can be skewed to get desired results, so we we’ll all be happy to know that television ads can expect them to be plenty skeptical, but they also should rec- were right up there with the unwanted calls, with 30 percent ognize valid results when they see them. finding them to be a huge turn off. But one of my pet peeves was he survey tells us — and will tell campaign planners — that third: lawn signs. T83 percent of Missouri voters strongly agree “that politi- Meanwhile, only one percent said they found newspaper po- cians spend too much money to get elected” and that 49 percent litical ads to be offensive. Of course, we have to admit that our strongly agree “that television and radio political ads tend to be political ad counts are not high enough to offend many people. negative,” which is something that turns them off. In that regard, we could stand to be found more offensive. Voters think there are too many political ads on television and Bottom line: The survey says we have a great story to tell cam- radio. At the same time, newspaper political articles come out paign budget handlers, and it will help us tell it.❏ PRESIDENT: Dave Berry, Bolivar, DIRECTORS: Dane Vernon, Eldon Advertiser Community Publishers of Missouri, Inc. Wendell Lenhart, Trenton Republican-Times FIRST VICE PRESIDENT: Gary Sosniecki, William L. Miller, Sr., Washington Missourian The Vandalia Leader Steve Oldfield, The Adrian Journal SECOND VICE PRESIDENT: John Spaar, Shelly Arth, The Marshall Democrat-News VOL. 71, NO. 10 The Odessan, Odessa David Bradley, Jr., St. Joseph News-Press Jack Whitaker, Hannibal Courier-Post OCTOBER 2003 SECRETARY: Kevin Jones, The St. Louis American TREASURER: Vicki Russell, Columbia Daily Tribune NNA REPRESENTATIVE: Gary Beissenherz, Official publication of EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Doug Crews The Concordian, Concordia Missouri Press ADVERTISING: Michael Sell Association, Inc. EDITOR: Kent M. Ford MISSOURI PRESS NEWS (ISSN 00266671) is published every month for $7.50 per year by the Missouri Press Association, Inc., 802 Locust St., Columbia, MO 65201-7799; phone (573) 449-4167; fax (573) 874-5894; e-mail [email protected]; website www.mopress.com. Periodicals postage paid at Columbia, MO 65201-7799. (USPS No. 355620). POSTMASTER: Please send changes of address to Missouri Press Association, 802 Locust St., Columbia, MO 65201-7799. www.mopress.com Greg Gaffke Randy Knox (800) 634- (800) 449- 1705 4791 Jefferson City Maryville California Platte City Holts Summit Oak Grove Tipton Kearney Sweet Springs Odessa and Central Lexington Missouri and Northwest Missouri Ivan Claudia Sands Oestreich (800) 341-0476 (800) 449- Rolla 4789 Lebanon Warrensburg Salem Clinton St. Robert Harrisonville Waynesville Warsaw Ft. Leonard Wood Butler Richland and Pleasant Hill Newburg and West-Central Missouri Missouri Press News, October 2003 www.mopress.com 3 Survey results to be shown Attend workshop to learn about results of political advertising research f you want to know what Missouri- will be explained during the series of sive political ads?: ans are thinking, you’ve got to ask meetings. •1st: Phone calls from candidate cam- them. That’s what Missouri Press As- Here’s an interesting finding from the paigns (32%). I nd sociation did this summer. survey. More than 55% of respondents •2 : Television ads (30.3%). MPA commissioned Pulse Research, said they make up their minds how to •3rd: Lawn signs (19.3%). an independent market research firm vote within a week of the election and Only live speeches by the candidates based in Portland, ranked higher than newspaper ads as the Oregon, to con- most helpful kind of political advertising. duct an in-depth Only .5% of the people said they find survey of Missouri- radio ads to be most helpful. That’s two Kirksville ans who are regis- Oct. 10 out of 400! tered to vote. Responses to a question about which Pulse Research is Cameron Hannibal ads are most believable got similar re- one of the nation’s Oct. 17 Oct. 31 sponses. Except for live speeches, nearly largest publication re- twice as many people said newspaper search firms, having com- Troy ads are more believable than any pleted over 3,000 surveys for Oct. 30 other medium. more than 1,800 clients. These findings and the Harrisonville Columbia MPA’s survey focused on politi- Oct. 16 Oct. 9 other results of the survey cal advertising. will be presented in a series Results of the survey will be of workshops to be held presented in a series of meetings around Missouri be- throughout the state beginning ginning Oct. 9 in Co- in October. They also will be lumbia. Fill out the used by the Missouri Press staff Rolla form on the accom- Oct. 23 to help sell newspaper advertis- panying page and Cape Springfield ing to candidates. Newspapers Girardeau fax it to MPA or Oct. 24 will be encouraged to familiar- (pending, Nov. 7) email the in- ize themselves with the survey formation to findings and use them to sell ad- litty@ vertising to local candidates. socket.net. Pulse dialed nearly 7,000 ran- Missouri dom phone numbers to com- Press Foundation, plete 400 20-minute interviews with reg- sometimes in the ballot box. with the help of istered voters from every county in Mis- When asked where they get informa- the publishers in souri. tion to help them decide how they will the workshop loca- Among the questions and “agree” and vote, more than 25% read newspaper ar- tions, are sponsoring the workshops, so “strongly agree” responses: ticles. That ranked higher than debates there is no cost to members of your staff. •There are too many political ads on on TV (21%), television ads (12%), ra- Send as many as you want to the work- radio and television: 70%. dio ads (2%), TV news (4%) and infor- shop of your choice. •I don’t believe what politicians say in mation mailed into the home (5.3%). Missouri Press needs an accurate their ads: 79.5%. Only voter information pamphlets with count of the number who will attend to •Television and radio ads tend to be 40.3% ranked higher than reading the provide adequate seating and enough negative: 72%. newspaper. handout material. Please respond with •Negative television ads make me less This finding illustrates the value of your registration information as soon as likely to vote for that candidate or issue: newspaper advertising in the final days of you can.