Headline speakers include Vice President Joe Biden, internationally known wildlife expert Jack Hanna, and newspaper executive and Major League Baseball owner Bob Nutting. The convention’s numerous panels and sessions will cover topics such as the latest market research on Ohio news consumers, the radical new press facility being planned by The Columbus Dispatch, new ways to use social media to build audiences, best advertising ideas and an update on the U.S. Postal Service with expert Max Heath.

To view the complete schedule and to register, go to http://www.ohionews.org/events/annual-convention.

Special schedule note: If you have already registered for the convention, please realize that due to the Vice President’s visit the schedule has changed. The updated schedule is available at the link above. In addition, if you plan to arrive for the convention on the morning of February 9, please be aware special traffic and parking restrictions may be in place related to the Vice President’s arrival.

In addition, don’t forget you can order discounted Bluejackets hockey tickets.

This year’s convention sponsors are The Blade; Reuters; Allegra Print & Marketing, Div. of Findlay Publishing; Block Electronic News Network (BENN); CNN Wire; Frost Brown Todd LLC; Graydon Head Ritchey LLP; Interlink, Inc.; MediaSpan Group Inc; Presteligence; Southern Lithoplate; Vision Data; Walterry Insurance Brokers; and The Associated Press.

These meetings, available at no-cost for convention attendees, will be held on Feb. 9 in ten minute increments between 10:30 and 11:20 a.m., and 1:40 and 2:30 p.m. The spots are available on a first-come, first-served basis. To register for a personal meeting, email your desired 10-minute spot between those times to Susan Bazzoli at sbazzoli@ohionews.org. You can also call Susan at 614-486-6677, ext. 18.

Everyone scheduling a personal meeting with Heath should bring their 3541 for Periodicals (newspapers) or 3602-R for Standard Mail shoppers, as submitted to the USPS. Heath will also be presenting a general session on the Postal Service at the convention on Feb. 9 from 3:40 to 4:20 p.m.

I’m cheating this week.

Given all the preparation for next week’s ONA convention, we are swamped. It’s a good kind of swamped, especially with Vice President Biden coming, but we’re swamped just the same.

It is going to be a great convention, and we are crossing our fingers that by the end of today – the last day to register – we will break through the 200 barrier in attendance.

For those attending the convention, please make sure to come to our opening night reception on Wednesday. We have a long list of influential state lawmakers joining us, including Attorney General Mike DeWine, Auditor Dave Yost, Senate President Bill Niehaus, Senate Minority Leader Eric Kearney, House Minority Leader Armond Budish and many more.

It’s a chance to not only mingle with the people we need to advance our issues but also remind them how much our local newspapers and websites matter.

For the rest of today’s column, I am mainly plagiarizing myself with an edited version of testimony I delivered this week to a Senate committee that is considering a bill to allow elected officials to meet by teleconference for follow-up hearings on ditch projects that cross jurisdictional lines. These “ditch hearings” are almost always routine.

I don’t think we should be knee-jerk against allowing public officials to carry out their duties this way, particularly with the advances in video technology. For one thing, it makes us look behind the times.  In education, distance learning brings new opportunities to many students. And, as I talk to colleagues in other states, they explain how, with good standards, this actually can result in greater public access. It certainly could help time-starved reporters if more public meetings were available on the Internet.

But I do believe that, ifOhiois going to get into teleconferencing, we should have good standards and not make piecemeal policy. That’s pretty much what I said in my testimony.

This is an important subject, and I would welcome comments from our members on what direction you think we should go. I am certain this will keep coming up in the Legislature.

So, here is my testimony from earlier this week on Senate Bill 207:

* * *

I want to first acknowledge the effort that has been made to keep this bill narrow in scope while still achieving the goal of simplifying a process that, as I have learned, tends to be routine but legally mandated. It involves time, energy and transportation cost for the officials involved to attend these meetings, and we are mindful of this as citizens and taxpayers.

However, there are legitimate concerns citizens and officials should have about teleconferencing, and I would like to suggest some ways to improve the bill to ensure the process remains at least as open and available to citizens as current requirements.  This can be done while still achieving the bill’s policy goals.

We also are concerned about “the camel’s nose under the tent” phenomenon. While the policy interest in making it easier to manage these hearings is legitimate, this should not be a precedent for other public meetings without a comprehensive look at the subject of teleconferencing. As we have researched what other states are doing, the range is huge. Some states have very specific and smart requirements for these types of meetings while others have done nothing. However, there is a rough consensus emerging that a good policy on teleconferencing should involve several principles.

The first principle is to recognize that the best meetings, whether in the public or private sectors, are the ones in which everyone is physically present. The digital world doesn’t change that.

The second principle is that there is a major, qualitative difference between audio-only conferences and video conferences. Audio-only conferences are far less desirable and only should be allowed in unusual or extenuating circumstances.  The reasons are obvious to anyone who has ever been in a telephone meeting. You can’t see body language or expressions. You miss handouts and visual presentations unless there is advance preparation. All of us are human. All of us multi-task during phone meetings. We check email or do other things while we should be paying attention. And the public may not have access to everything that is happening in the meeting, particularly if there are audio limitations.

The third principle is to have smart standards and requirements. Here is a list of some issues that should be considered in any policy regarding teleconferences for public meetings:

• Consider a geographic or impairment requirement, meaning that the tele-participant must be physically located more than a certain number of miles from the actual location of the meeting or have some type of significant impairment as defined by the board.  We would suggest 25 miles as a reasonable minimum. The minutes should note all members who are participating by teleconference.
• There should be a primary public meeting location in which a minimum number of board members are physically present. Many states demand a quorum.
• Materials and presentations in the meeting should be available and visible to all participants and spectators in a logical manner at all sites.  At remote sites, the public should have access to the same “feed, signal or stream” that the board member is receiving.
• While members may vote remotely, the identity of board members who are participating but not physically present should be recorded in the minutes.  All votes taken when teleconferencing is used should be by roll call.
• Nothing in the legislation should be construed in a way that would limit public participation or public testimony. As the current bill requires, there should be a provision for public attendance at all locations involved in the proceeding.
• The statutory language should say there is a clear preference for video over audio-only teleconferencing.
• If there is a live feed being created of the proceeding, it should be made available to the general public on the Internet and for broadcast.

During testimony last week, reference was made to standards set for teleconferencing of meetings with the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council.  Contained in the state budget passed last spring was a continuation of the pilot project that allows the ODDC to conduct such meetings.  Their specific circumstances make the need for this pretty compelling.  Some of the standards are as follows: a member must reside 35 miles or more from the meeting location or require a disability accommodation. Roll call votes are required and chairpersons must be physically present at the primary location. A minimum of three council members have to be present at the designated public meeting site. There are time requirements for the distribution of meeting materials in advance. There are rules to verify identities. Overall, it’s a strong, thoughtful policy.

When SB 207’s companion bill was moving through the House, we proposed the following amendment to HB 308 in an effort to deal with some of the issues I have raised. Here is the language we offered:

The proceedings shall be clearly audible in the case of teleconferencing and both clearly visible and clearly audible to public members in attendance. A primary location for the meeting shall be designated, which is the location where the meeting would be held if teleconferencing or video conferencing were not allowed.  Commissioners wishing to participate by teleconference or video conference must be located at least 25 miles from the primary location or have an impairment that does not allow them to be physically present.  If video conferencing is available as a method, it shall be used and not teleconferencing.  Minutes of the meeting shall record those commissioners who participated remotely, and all votes taken shall be by roll call.

We hope that committee members will amend SB 207 to strengthen the requirements for these meetings.

And, as Sen. (Bill) Seitz and others have suggested, we agree that it would be a good idea at some point to have a comprehensive discussion on policy regarding meeting by teleconferences so policy is not being set on a piecemeal basis. The ONA would welcome the opportunity to be at the table for such discussions.

One of your reporters denigrates your news organization on Twitter and you fire him. Are you prepared for the wrongful termination lawsuit that follows?

Another reporter, in a race to publish a juicy item about a local newsmaker ahead of the competition, puts it on Twitter and gets it wrong. Can you be sued for defamation?

Issues like these will be addressed next Thursday, Feb. 9 at 2 p.m. EDT in “How Not to Get Sued: Legal Issues Affecting Social Networking,” a webinar presented by ASNE legal counsel Kevin Goldberg. The presentation is designed for editors who may not be aware of the legal perils just coming into focus on this new frontier in news publishing, including issues relating to defamation and copyright.

For More Information and to Register>>

There’s no compelling reason for U.S. District Court Judge Christopher A. Boyko to maintain the seal on evidence submitted in a religious and race discrimination lawsuit, other than it was agreed to by the parties.

The suit, filed by Assistant Youngstown City Prosecutor Bassil Ally against his boss, city Prosecutor Jay Macejko, and the city of Youngstown, was settled last fall — just before trial was to begin. The sealing of documents and audiotapes relating to the case was part of the settlement that resulted in Ally’s receiving a $110,000 lump sum payment and an annual pay raise of $4,000. His salary is now $65,621.

Macejko wrote a letter of apology to his employee.

Given that the case is over, the Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown has filed a motion with Judge Boyko to have the seal removed. It can be, if the parties to the settlement agree.

Read the Full Story>>

The Ohio House has voted to give the state’s top law enforcer beefed-up powers to go after online scammers who use sites such as eBay and Craigslist to rip people off.

The bill approved 83-10 on Tuesday allows the state’s attorney general to seek records on phone and Internet activity by suspected cyber fraudsters. Online payment information also could be requested.

Read the Full Story>>

Editor & Publisher would like to recognize the next generation of newspaper publishing leaders, and we need your help. We’re talking about people who are young, bright, and capable of tackling whatever the changing newspaper climate throws at them. People with business acumen to lead through trying times and vision to implement bold, new strategies to move their newspapers forward.

Please help us by nominating a newspaper up-and-comer (or yourself) for our “Publishing Leaders — 25 Under 35” feature article that will appear in E&P’s April issue. Deadline is Feb. 24, 2012.

Read the Full Story or Make a Nomination>>

Nearly one year after introducing a new digital subscription plan, The New York Times company websites have about 406,000 paid subscribers. That’s 390,000 for the Times and the International Herald Tribune, and 16,000 for The Boston Globe, which introduced its new fee structure in the fall. Traffic to NYTimes.com has been flat since the paywall went up, based on figures provided by the Times. The new strategy may also be boosting the news organization’s Sunday circulation figures.

But revenues remain down. The Times revealed in its release of fourth quarter earnings that it is selling about one-third of its remaining shares in the Boston Red Sox for $30 million.

Read the Full Story>>

Do you shove lots of ads at the top of your web pages? Think again. Tired of doing a Google search and landing on these types of pages? Rejoice. Google has announced that it will penalize sites with pages that are top-heavy with ads.

The change — called the “page layout algorithm” — takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads.

From Google’s post on its Inside Search blog today:

We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.

So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.

Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

Google also posted the same information to its Google Webmaster Central blog.

Sites using pop-ups, pop-unders or overlay ads are not impacted by this. It only applies to static ads in fixed positions on pages themselves, Google told me.

Read the Full Story>>

American Consolidated Media, home to more than 80 print and digital publications in nine states, recently launched the Digital Reporter Project as a way to allow reporters to provide news updates on their newspaper’s websites from the field using an iPad2 workstation.

The project, led by Rick Rogers, director of product development with ACM, put an iPad2 workstation in the hands of 10 reporters in nine different news operations. The reporters are taking part in a 90-day beta test to see if the mobile workstation, complete with wi-fi and 3G data plan access, will allow them to post more content to their newspaper’s website from the field as news happens.

The 10 reporters have a varying degree of digital news experience, and are based at both small-to-midsize market daily and weekly newspapers.

Read the Full Story>>

One area that search engines have made a number of significant advancements in recent years is in how they evaluate content on a website. So what does a perfectly optimized page look like in 2012? Let’s look at 10 elements.

Read the Full Story>>

Media Monitors has been doing an excellent job tracking political spending on radio – and other media – in the Republican primaries. The latest study released by Dwight Douglas and his team details how the Mitt Romney camp has saturated the sunshine state, leading his media effort with massive Television buys.

Read the Full Story>>

A state board violated Ohio’s open-meetings law last year by going into executive session to discuss a Columbus funeral home’s license application, a Franklin County judge ruled yesterday.

Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott ordered the Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors to pay a $500 civil penalty and attorney fees to Triplett Chapel of Peace, which operates a funeral home at 2500 Cleveland Ave.

The funeral home filed a complaint after the board emerged from executive session on Aug. 16, 2011, and voted to deny Triplett’s application to operate the business under the name of the previous owner, Marlan J. Gary Funeral Home.

Serrott ruled that the decision to deliberate about the license application behind closed doors “ is a direct violation of the public-meetings law.”

Read the Full Story>>

Newspaper websites in the fourth quarter of 2011 averaged more than 111 million monthly unique visitors, an increase of more than 6 million compared with the same period a year ago. The analysis, performed by the Newspaper Association of America based on data provided by comScore, also indicates continuing strong performance in other key engagement and demographic metrics important to advertisers, with 63 percent of all adult Internet users visiting newspaper websites.

A comparison of newspaper website usage data year-over-year for the fourth quarter showed that average daily visitors increased by more than 3 million, or nearly 15 percent. Unique visitors increased nearly 6 percent, while total minutes increased 14 percent.

“The comScore data for 2011 demonstrate the growing appeal of newspapers’ online content – particularly for engaged, informed and affluent users whom advertisers, especially those buying political advertising in an election year, seek to reach,” said Caroline Little, NAA president and CEO. “In fact, 70 percent of Internet users with household income above $60,000 are reached by newspaper websites, reach that climbs to 75 percent when looking at household incomes above $100,000.”

Read the Full Story>>

From ABC 24 website

If you are on a public street and take pictures or video of Memphis Police with your cell phone, you could end up in the back of a squad car and your pictures could be deleted.

ABC 24 News photographer Casey Monroe said that’s what happened to him Sunday morning. Police never charged Monroe with a crime, but this could happen to anyone with a cell phone camera.

Monroe said police went too far outside Thai Bistro Restaurant in downtown Memphis that morning, and that they violated his rights.

Read the full story>>

The Ohio Supreme Court is continuing a trend of rulings that declare personal information in government records as exempt from release under the state’s public records laws.

In a 5-2 ruling released today, the justices upheld an appellate court ruling that a Cleveland lawyer was entitled to receive parent-completed questionnaires concerning the possible lead poisoning of children living in public housing. However, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court in ruling that names, dates of birth and other personal identifying information should be redacted.

Read the Full Story>>

From Mel Taylor Media

Did this happen at your Newspaper, TV or Radio station? Consultants told you to hire a separate digital sales staff to win online. You were told that traditional staffs could never sell interactive marketing to local business. So, upon that consultant’s recommendation, you hastily hired a bunch of hip 20-somethings with i-Phones and limited sales chops to start knocking on doors.

Outside of a few success stories, this strategy is a money loser and massive time suck. Not because the digital reps are weak, (many are really great) but because they’ll likely be set up to fail by reporting up to a print manager. While newspapers waste precious resources trying to make this work, Reach Local, Google and the Yellow Pages actively steal local dollars right from under your nose.

We’ve seen it first hand. A newspaper hires a separate digital sales team and the print team immediately shuts down. The ‘burden’ of selling digital was taken off their shoulders. As time goes by, the print team falls even further behind with understanding digital. Why should they care? The digital reps do all of that really hard, icky stuff.

Read the Full Story>>

From The Columbus Dispatch

The Kasich administration’s decision to keep secret how it will determine whether Ohioans are getting a good deal from the $100 million a year that JobsOhio will spend on economic development did not stop the state Controlling Board from approving the contracts to formally get the privatized entity going yesterday.

“Today we’re taking the next big step in a pretty significant change in how we’ve been dealing with economic development here in the state,” said Rep. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark. “Everyone agrees the status quo just clearly wasn’t sufficient.”

But Hottinger and his fellow legislators on the bipartisan spending-oversight board questioned the heads of the state Development and Commerce departments for nearly an hour yesterday about JobsOhio. When members of the panel asked what kind of results are expected, the answers were not clear.

Read the Full Story>>

The National Newspaper Association is pleased to announce that Phoenix, AZ, will be the destination for its 127th Annual Convention & Trade Show, Sept. 12-15, 2013. Phoenix is America’s sixth-largest city, and still has real cowboys and rugged mountains and the kind of cactus most people see only in cartoons. Phoenix is the gateway to the Grand Canyon, and its history is a testament to the spirit of puebloans, ranchers, miners and visionaries.

Read the Full Story>>

When Ridley Scott created Apple’s iconic “1984,” the company’s board didn’t want it to air. Newly hired CEO John Sculley, veteran of many a Super Bowl ad as CEO of Pepsi-Cola Co., agreed with the consensus: It’s a waste to run an ad that doesn’t even show the product.

Apple ended up selling off some of its planned Super Bowl ad time and ran “1984″ in the 60-second slot it couldn’t unload. The rest, as they say, is history. The Macintosh did change the world as Steve Jobs said it would, and Apple is the most valuable company on the planet.

The commercial also ushered in an era in Super Bowl advertising that we still inhabit: the ad as entertainment. That we expect ads during the Super Bowl to be as entertaining as the game itself can largely be traced back to “1984.” But if that were the end of the story, we’d all still be watching high-concept minimovies directed by auteurs that made us think or feel different.

But that didn’t happen…

Read the Full Story>>

S&P 500 component Gannett Co. Inc. reported its results for the fourth quarter. Gannett is an international news and information company operating mainly in the realms of publishing, digital and broadcasting.

Results: Net income for the publisher fell to $116.9 million (49 cents per share) vs. $174.1 million (72 cents per share) a year earlier. This is a decline of 32.8% from the year earlier quarter. Revenue: Fell 5.1% to $1.39 billion from the year earlier quarter.

Read the Full Story>>

Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility announced Thursday is likely to raise fears that Twitter’s commitment to free speech may be weakening as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or tweets, remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Read the Full Story>>

Almost three years after it suspended Monday publication as a cost-cutting measure, The Frederick News-Post in Frederick, MD is announcing a return to seven-day publication on Feb. 6.

The move runs counter to a nationwide trend of newspapers eliminating publication days to save money. Industry reports suggest that more than 100 papers around the country have cut publication days in recent years.

Read the Full Story>>

From the Dayton Daily News

Ohio lawmakers have taken a step to strengthen whistle-blower protections in an effort to get more public employees to report fraud, waste and abuse.

The Ohio House on Wednesday joined the Senate in unanimously passing a bill that would set up a system for tracking fraud reported to the Ohio auditor and extend protections to those who report it. It’s expected to reach the governor’s desk in the coming days.

Read the Full Story>>

The Postal Regulatory Commission has recommended that the U.S. Postal Service take another look at its approach to closing post offices, supporting many criticisms made by National Newspaper Association in its fall 2011 testimony.

The PRC released its opinion in the USPS proposal to close retail offices, laid out in the case Retail Access Optimization Initiative. The Postal Service is required to seek the PRC’s input whenever it embarks upon major service changes.

NNA participated in the case to argue that although it did not categorically oppose small post office changes, the selection of offices to be closed and the manner in which USPS sought public feedback were flawed. The PRC agreed with NNA and strongly suggested that USPS revise its plans. PRC Chair Ruth Goldway was particularly critical in a separate opinion, saying the proposals “reveal a pattern of inaccurate and overly optimistic economic savings calculations and of careless disregard of community concerns.”

Read the Full Story>>

“I am extremely disappointed in The Lantern for allowing this ad to run,” says Ohio State University student Jana Al-Akhras. (The ad lists 10 terror suspects under the headline: “Former Leaders of the Muslim Student Association (MSA): Where Are They Now?”) “It was paid for. It is not an op-ed, and they had every right to deny it as hate speech.”

Lantern faculty adviser Dan Caterinicchia says the paper can reject ads that denigrate individuals, groups or organizations based on such things as race, nationality, ethnicity and religion, but “in this, the adviser and co-chair of the publications committee agreed that the ad did not violate the policy.”

Read the Full Story>>

The American Press Institute (API) and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation (NAAF) announced today that they will merge to create a dynamic new organization focused on meeting newspapers’ crucial multimedia training and development needs. The merger agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both organizations.

API and NAAF have complementary strengths and fulfill related missions in helping the newspaper industry navigate its ongoing digital transition. Because of this, the leadership of both organizations views the merger as an excellent opportunity to combine resources and better address digital revenue opportunities, while continuing to help newspapers draw upon the long-term strengths, such as quality journalism, that they demonstrate in the changing media landscape.

Over the course of the next several months, leadership of the new entity will map out the specifics of integrating existing API and NAA Foundation programs into the new organization. Organizational and related details will also be addressed through a comprehensive review process, under the direction of board governance that will be drawn from both the NAA Foundation Board of Trustees and the API Board of Directors.

“By combining, NAAF and API create a unique industry opportunity to intensify a critical focus on extending the strengths of our print, digital and niche assets in a changing media landscape,” said Tom Silvestri, chair of the API Board of Directors. “The new organization will better serve the newspaper industry with inspiration and help in an era of transformation.”

Read the Full Story>>

Businesses advertising job openings in Ohio no longer could say they are interested only in applicants who are employed if a proposal rolled out yesterday by a handful of House Democrats became law.

“There are still an enormous number of people who are getting a message that, because they are unemployed, they are not welcome to apply for jobs,” said state Rep. Ted Celeste, D-Grandview Heights, a joint sponsor of what he is calling the Ohio Fair Employment Act to “prevent unemployment discrimination.”

Legislators said they made a quick search on Craigslist sites throughout Ohio and found five employment ads limited to those currently employed.

“The message for people who have been out of work for weeks, months and years is that even though you may have terrific credentials, if you’re not working now, we don’t want you,” said Celeste, who is co-sponsoring the bill with Rep. Mike Foley, D-Cleveland.

Read the Full Story>>

A screen grab of the "Browser Warning" posted on the Ohio Means Jobs website. This warning occurred with the Google Chrome browser, but a similar warning also was seen with Mozilla Firefox. Click image for a larger view.

According to an Associated Press report, “A new mobile application from the state of Ohio allows jobseekers to search and apply for jobs using an iPhone, iPad or Android. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services announced the free OhioMeansJobs app on Monday, saying it allows users to search tens of thousands of job openings and internships using a job title, keyword or location.”

However, the Ohio Means Jobs app and associated website at https://ohiomeansjobs.com/omj/ will not fully work for many users. Instead, users of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome see a “Browser Alert” pop-up message which reads, “The browser that you are using is not supported by our website. You may continue to explore the site, but many features and layout elements may not work or display properly.” This message also appears on the mobile phone app.

Of the three browsers ONA tested with the Ohio Means Job website, only Internet Explorer did not display this warning message. According to StatCounter, between Dec. 2010 and Dec. 2011 Firefox and Chrome accounted for just over 48% of all web browser usage. Internet Explorer accounted for 43%. (For StatCounter’s methodology, click here.)

A screen grab of the "Browser Warning" which occurred while using the Ohio Means Jobs app on an iPhone. Click image for a larger view.

The same problem was encountered with the mobile app after the ONA downloaded the app to an iPhone 3GS for testing. After using the app to open one of the jobs specifically uploaded to the Ohio Means Jobs website–a job announcement for a Manager, Membership and Sales–the job page displayed the same warning message seen with Chrome and Firefox. The app also appears to lack an ability to render job announcements in easy-to-read copy for mobile phones, making it difficult to read the posting.

Screen grabs of these warning messages were captured, and are attached to this article.

An ODJFS press release states that the Ohio Means Jobs app was created through a “partnership with Monster,” the online job search company.

See the complete memo>>

Other coverage from the Illinois Times

As many as ten newsroom employees at the State Journal-Register will lose their jobs as the newspaper’s parent company struggles to cut costs in the face of towering debt.

Publisher Walt Lafferty on Tuesday told employees that the newspaper’s copy desk, which designs pages, proofreads copy and writes headlines, will be eliminated this summer, with GateHouse Media, the corporate parent, establishing a central desk outside Springfield that will handling copy editing and headline writing for several publications

… Cox Media Group, which owns eight daily newspapers, announced in October that it will consolidate copy desks in Ohio and Florida, eliminating jobs at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Austin American-Statesman. The McClatchy Co., owner of 30 newspapers around the nation, has also announced that it is considering consolidation of copy desks. Already, copy editors at the Chicago Tribune proofread and write headlines for the Hartford Courant, a sister paper published in Connecticut. MediaNews Group, which owns 57 papers, began consolidating copy desks in 2007. Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper company, has also consolidated copy editing at some newspapers.

Read the Full Story>>

A partnership among Kentucky’s newspapers is extending in part to the state’s public radio stations.

More than two years ago, many newspapers across Kentucky began sharing stories written by their reporters through the Kentucky Press Association News Content Service. Now the KPA’s leadership has started a pilot program that allows some of that content to be shared with Kentucky’s public radio stations as long as it is credited to the individual newspaper.

The ultimate goal, though, is to find a new revenue stream for the long-struggling newspaper industry.

“My philosophy is simple: Radio stations in the past and future will probably continue to borrow content from newspapers,” said David Greer, director of the KPA News Content Service. “Why not set up a system where they will pay us for it?

“Newspapers spend a lot of money to staff and organize news departments. It’s only fair that folks who borrow our content help defray some of those expenses.”

However, the pilot project, which is to end in October, doesn’t have a revenue component.

Read the Full Story>>

The Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown has asked a federal judge to unseal documents and audiotapes submitted as evidence in a lawsuit by an assistant city prosecutor who alleged his boss and the city discriminated against him based on his Muslim faith.

The sealing order was agreed upon by the parties in the lawsuit by Bassil Ally, who is of Middle Eastern descent, against the city and its prosecutor, Jay Macejko. The suit was settled without a trial last fall.

Read the Full Story>>

After nearly nine years leading The Associated Press through a media landscape reshaped by unprecedented upheaval, President and CEO Tom Curley announced Monday that he will step down.

AP’s board of directors has set up a committee to find a replacement for Curley, who plans to defer his retirement until the transition is complete.

Curley, who has led AP since June 2003, spent his tenure working to transform the news cooperative for the digital era. He oversaw the launch of new platforms for multimedia content, led a search for fresh sources of revenue and vigorously protected the results of AP’s and the industry’s newsgathering efforts in a wide-open online marketplace.

“We’ve moved pretty aggressively, and arguably only time will tell if it has been aggressive enough,” Curley said in an interview in his office at AP’s New York headquarters.

“If you look at what’s had to happen, you really didn’t have much time to take a breath,” he said. “It’s happened very quickly.”

Read the Full Story>>

Wal­ter D. “Tom” Thom­son II, the for­mer pub­lisher of The Delaware Gazette and the man most cred­ited with mod­ern­iz­ing the Lit­tle Brown Jug harness race, has died. He was 73.

Thom­son, who had liver can­cer and was ill for sev­eral months, died Fri­day at home sur­rounded by his family.

Thom­son had a num­ber of accom­plish­ments through­out his life, includ­ing serv­ing as pres­i­dent of the Ohio News­pa­per Asso­ci­a­tion from 1996 to 1997, where he served on the board of direc­tors for many years. He received the association’s life­time achieve­ment award in 2001. He was a past pres­i­dent of the Ohio League of Home Daily’s. In 2001, Gov. Bob Taft rec­ognized the Thom­son fam­ily with the “First Fam­ily of Ohio News­pa­pers” award.

Read the Full Story>>