06/22/2017

New opportunities emerge as we say goodbye to NIE Committee

By Dennis Hetzel, President and Executive Director

At our recent Board of Trustees meeting, I told the ONMA trustees that we felt it was time to make a difficult decision: Eliminate our Newspapers in Education Committee and stop creation of an annual, Ohio-focused NIE program for ONMA members to use at no charge.

The trustees agreed, understanding that we are no different than our members in having to make the smartest use of available time, staff and resources.  Unfortunately, it gets harder every year to recruit members to serve on the committee, and fewer members download the NIE resources we offer at this link on our website.

Even if we had an active committee, fewer papers have NIE coordinators. At best, even at large papers, the norm today is that NIE is a small part of the duties for a circulation manager who has multiple, higher priorities.

All is not lost, however.  We will continue to offer NIE resources as part of what we do at the Ohio News Media Foundation, and we will pursue partnerships and other efforts that make sense in 2017. 

With that in mind, here are 5 things you should know about our Foundation:

1. The Columbus Dispatch just utilized the Foundation to award outside grant funds that support a year-long, journalism-focused project on the future of Columbus.  The use of non-traditional funding models to support local journalism is in its infancy, so we applaud the Dispatch for creative thinking. To read more about the Dispatch’s “CbusNext” project, click here. 
   
   
2. The Foundation remains an excellent conduit for donations for NIE programs for digital or print subscriptions for “newspapers in schools” programs. That’s because the Foundation is a 501 (c) 3, tax-exempt entity, providing donors with a tax advantage. Some of our members work with local donors to the tune of $50,000 or more per year to support such programs. 
   
   
3. We will continue to offer our NIE programs for use by members at any time. These programs are classroom-tested and also help teachers meet mandated requirements in Ohio – so you aren’t asking teachers to do something “extra.” Again, here’s the link.
   
   
4. We are initiating talks with high school and collegiate journalism educators to see if there are ways that ONMA and our members can partner effectively with them. For example, what if we made it easier for high schools to find class speakers or editors willing to critique student publications and mentor students? What if we helped students interested in sales, advertising or marketing?  Attracting bright, talented young people to our industry is critical to the future.
   
   
5. Meanwhile, the Foundation will continue to offer quality programming, including our annual convention, in-person training and webinars. All of our recent webinars have been free with an emphasis on Ohio-centric topics you won’t get elsewhere. We record and archive our webinars so they are available to you at any time. 

You can find a list of archived resources in the “members only” area of our website.  Archived webinars include topics such as these: growing revenue with private-party classifieds; update on Ohio’s sunshine laws; ways to make money with our BENN digital advertising program; critical independent contractor issues; and how to respond to requests to remove stories from your website or archives.

Long story short, the Ohio News Media Foundation is an excellent resource for you -- perhaps in some unexpected ways.  Brainstorm with us! To learn more, contact Sue Bazzoli, our manager of administrative services, at 614-486-6677 or sbazzoli@ohionews.org.