WNA Members Share Holiday Spirit in Communities There Are Many Ways Wisconsin Newspaper Than 90 Food Pantries and Programs
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THE News and information for the Wisconsin newspaper industry November/December 2013Bulletin ... among the world’s oldest press associations WNA members share holiday spirit in communities There are many ways Wisconsin Newspaper than 90 food pantries and programs. These floats cost thousands of dollars and are Association members are sharing and spreading Read more >> http://www.green- built to last years. Hundreds of hours of donated holiday cheer in our communities this year. baypressgazette.com/article/20131012/ labor and time go into making each float and GPG0101/310120520 costume. There is no advertising on the floats, We’ve listed just a small sampling of the gen- no political messages, just good family fun. erous efforts underway this Christmas season in A new gift for Christmas Wisconsin below. The Wisconsin State Journal Empty Stocking The Waukesha Freeman is among sponsors of Club, a symbol of Madison’s generosity since the Waukesha Christmas Parade, set for Sunday, Want to share the story of how your newspa- 1918, opens its annual fund drive today. Nov. 24 at 4 p.m. The parade is in its 51st year. per gives back? Tell us what your newspaper is up to (email [email protected]) and The club will provide new Christmas gifts Community artists we’ll tell your story, too! to more than 10,000 children from more than The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began a tra- 4,000 families this year. The goal of the club is dition six years ago by offering readers the gift Keeping kids warm to assure that no child, no matter how needy, of art on Christmas Day. In the space normally Donations to Warm The Children, a program goes without at least one new Christmas gift. reserved for the top news of the day, we present to provide winter clothing to qualified families readers with a work of art by a Wisconsin artist. and sponsored by the Vilas County News- The money to purchase those gifts comes Review, have been steadily coming in and are mostly from contributions from State Journal The tradition will continue for 2013 as the almost one-quarter to goal, according to News- readers and friends. The Empty Stocking Club paper is seeking an image appropriate for Review Publisher Kurt Krueger. is one of Madison’s oldest and most treasured Christmas Day and made by a Wisconsin artist, charities. It began in 1918 when families of the living or dead. The artworks should be paint- Because the program is in its 17th year, local newspaper’s staff collected old toys and distrib- ings, prints or drawings. We are not accepting parents are aware it exists and have hopes to uted them to needy families. Read more >> photographs or images of three-dimensional obtain warm clothing for their children. The http://host.madison.com/special-section/ artworks. Read more >> News-Review picks up all administrative fees empty_stocking_club/ and every donation, no matter how large or http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/arts/ small, is greatly appreciated. Christmas Parades Front page of the Christmas Day Milwaukee Nominate-art-for-the-Christmas-Day-front- Led by Publisher Carol O’Leary, The Journal Sentinel, 2012. page-232073821.html#ixzz2l8EkyNUJ Filling food pantries Tribune-Phonograph in Abbotsford has worked Gannett Wisconsin Media markets have with local businesses to host the Annual Tri-County News (Kiel) publishes Christmas established a total goal of $659,000 for the Christmas Parade in downtown Abbotsford. This isn’t your typical parade with tractors, and New Years Greetings in a Holiday Kids’ 2013 “Stock the Shelves” Do It! Community The 2013 parade, set for Dec. 7, will mark the candy and politicians. The parade committee Album. Children are encouraged to submit Challenge. The fundraising effort will help more event’s 43rd year. builds and owns all of the costumes and floats. drawings for publication. Partnership will deliver multimedia press releases The Wisconsin Newspaper Association is one of 25 U.S. press associations to partner with California-based GistCloud to distribute locally targeted news releases. GistCloud Wisconsin will offer customers a new online platform to issue targeted releases that include text, photos, logos, videos, audio, web links and more. The easy-to-use electronic format puts all of the information for a brief or story at a reporter’s fingertips. Wisconsin.gistcloud.com will allow customers to enhance the stan- dard, text-based releases that WNA currently distributes through its WisconsinNewsTracker.com service. Customers purchasing GistCloud Wisconsin releases have the option to include video, audio, docu–ments, logos, photos, websites and social media links. “The GistCloud Wisconsin service offers a level of sophistication and options that will benefit not only communication professionals, but newspa- pers,” WNA Media Services Director Denise Guttery said. “The format offers multimedia content to use across platforms, giving more options to meet jour- nalists’ requirements for news and it also improves the exposure of companies using the service.” Editors can expect to see releases from GistCloud Wisconsinin their email inboxes, and reporters will be able to sign up to receive releases associated with their beats (more details on this to come). Newspapers are under no obli- gation to use press releases from GistCloud Wisconsin, Guttery said. Revenue created from Wisconsin Newspaper Association Services, Inc. is used to enhance and expand offerings to the WNA membership. GistCloud is a Redwood City, Calif.-based company that provides a suite of multimedia communication tools and press release distribution methods. 2 WNA BULLETIN | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 WNA news Knight report includes Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a non- profit and nonpartisan center based in Madison, is part of an updated report recently released from the Knight Foundation. The report explores how 18 orga- nizations raise and spend money and the role that reach and engage- ment play in their efforts to connect with audiences and derive revenue from those connections. Organizations that partici- pated in the study fall into three broad categories: Some focus primarily on local city or town news, some on statewide reporting and others on investigative projects at the regional or national level. Andy Hall, the center’s executive director and founder, is a sustaining member of WNA. The report is organized into three sections that reflect areas considered essential to sustainability: Social value creation – The ability to create unique and relevant content, and to attract, understand and engage audiences in ways that produce mea- surable impact. Economic value creation – The ability to grow multiple revenue streams to support the mission of creating content, engagement and impact. Organizational capacity – The infrastructure, resource allocation and skills that enable an organization to adapt and innovate as it creates social Wisconsin publishers help stall and economic value. Data and analysis in these areas builds on a review that Knight Foundation produced two years ago, Postal Reform Act Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability, which S. 1486, the Postal Reform Act of 2013, stalled in the Senate Homeland discounts designed to entice newspaper advertising into Valassis mail pack- examined eight local news startups. Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, after many WNA-member ages, the notion of giving USPS even more freedom to favor chosen mailers Two years later, the 18 organizations publishers joined a National Newspaper Association (NNA) petition to block has drawn intense fire from NNA members and others. in this study demonstrate significant efforts to give USPS a free hand in setting rates. progress, but they still face some Sen. Carper had planned for his committee to pass the bill on to the Senate challenges. As such, the report pro- The bill, sponsored by Sens. Tom Carper, D-DE, and Tom Coburn, R-OK, floor this week, Nov. 20. But the bill abruptly was removed from the calendar vides a benchmark for nonprofit proposes letting USPS decide on its own rates through its politically-appointed on Nov. 18. Carper staff say they will try again after Thanksgiving. news organizations and funders to board of governors. The Postal Regulatory Commission, which has the power develop new strategies and models to review rates for fairness before they go into effect, would be largely nulli- NNA supports postal reform legislation. USPS needs fine-tuning of laws for future growth. fied by S. 1486. The bill also would let USPS change its service levels with- requiring unrealistic payments into its retiree health accounts and more ability out going to the PRC first. to control labor costs. NNA’s CEO Tonda Rush says she is optimistic that after The report findings are online here: Sens. Carper and Coburn realize that deregulating the government monopoly is http://knightfoundation.org/features/ The so-called deregulation is controversial, supported primarily by the Postal unwise, a more moderate bill can be passed quickly. nonprofitnews/ Service itself. Newspapers and others dependent upon the mail fear that USPS will jack up rates on mail it considers captive—like Periodicals—while unfair- ly lowering rates for newspaper competitors. Coming on the heels of a federal court’s approval of USPS’s decision to give Valassis Direct Mail, Inc., deep 3 WNA BULLETIN | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 WNA news Johnston to retire Bill Johnston, third vice presi- dent of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Board of Directors and publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal since 2006, is retiring in December and moving with his wife, Shannon, to Mexico. “It’s a dream,” said Johnston, 63, who bought a home in Puerto Vallarta in March after traveling there for years. “It’s time to do it.” Johnston, a Janesville native and UW-Madison Bill Johnston graduate, began his newspaper career 40 years ago delivering ad proofs for Madison Newspapers.