Uncomfortable ideas sought at session designed to develop new products for newspapers

Rebekah Patton
Bulletin Correspondent

Continuing a theme from his earlier keynote speech, Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, encouraged his audience at another session at the recent New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention to get uncomfortable in their ways of thinking and storytelling.

The session featured an interactive, team-building component, during which three groups of 10 to 15 people collaborated to pitch an idea to Mark French and George Arwady of The Republican of Springfield, Mass.

French, the Republican’s advertising director, and Arwady, its publisher and chief executive officer, stressed the need for members of the audience to pitch innovative and practical ideas, because the two of them would seriously consider using the new ideas at the Republican.

“We are in an industry where traditional revenue is in decline, so how will we more than replace that?” Arwady asked.

Arwady said a lot of the Republican’s own entrepreneurial ideas have focused on brand extension. Newspapers are the most powerful brand in the market, and there is an amazing ability to extend the brand in multiple directions, he said.

French discussed previously uncomfortable ideas that are now used at the Republican.

“We are absurdly entrepreneurial,” Arwady joked.

One of French’s examples: The potential for revenue growth from obituaries by maximizing the experience for readers and for funeral directors, because obits are the most-read feature of the paper.

To take advantage of that potential, French introduced what he called the funeral director spotlight.

The spotlight provides a funeral director with a plaque memorializing the Republican obituary placed by the funeral director.

Families of the deceased complain about the cost of obituaries, and often these complaints fall first on the funeral director, French said. The obituary plaque can help mitigate the pain of losing a loved one and provide tangible memorabilia from the obituary. That satisfies the families and the funeral directors, French said.

“For every single obit we (publish), we have a wooden plaque made with the obituary and photo mounted on it,” French said. The plaques are then delivered to the families of the deceased, he said.

French said Republican staff members showed the plaques in visits to funeral home directors. They told the directors: Next time a family complains or has concerns about the cost of an obituary — the average cost is $350 for a relatively small obit, French said — show the family the plaque as a way to enhance the value of the cost of the obituary and to help the family cope with the loss of a loved one.

He said the Republican has received more thank-you notes about the plaques than imaginable. The funeral directors get accolades too because sometimes they get the credit for the plaques, French said.

Since instituting the funeral director spotlight and other changes, there has been a six-figure increase in revenue from obituaries, Arwady said.

Arwady and French encouraged members of the audience to brainstorm about innovative ways to increase their newspapers’ revenue,

The three groups created to pitch ideas considered ideas for about 40 minutes before Feifer asked each to pitch their thoughts to Arwady and French.

The first group offered an idea of uniting the community of Springfield, and all of the different cultures that embody it.

“You have always been the center of Springfield; be the community center of Springfield,” said Jennifer Zarate, a multimedia journalist with The Wellesley (Mass.) Townsman.

That group suggested that the Republican could host language classes, offer child care, or bring the community together online. The revenue would come from paid sponsorships by sports leagues, business developers and others.

“It’s a way to make the newspaper a thought leader and something the community wants to be involved in. It might not be something you can put a dollar amount on immediately, but it’s something that builds trust,” said a member of the group.

The second team, represented by freelancer Carolyn Shapiro of Burlington, Vt., said the Republican should allow companies to pay to “take over” the newspaper’s social media feed. The payment would be based on how long the company takes over the feed, she said.

Shapiro proposed other obituary-related innovations for the Republican beyond what it has already added, and discussed how her group brainstormed the idea of rebuttal obits, in which people could write brutally honest and vulgar pieces about themselves that will not be published until they are dead.

The panel and members of the audience shared a laugh, but Shapiro was serious, and Arwady and French noted that there was a lot of merit to the idea.

“The column should be called ‘Peace Out’,” Feifer joked.

“I’m feeling really uncomfortable, like I’m wearing burlap underwear,” French said.

The final group suggested turning the newsroom into a multi-disciplinary makerspace where people with common interests could come together to explore ideas or work on projects together. The makerspace could include options to rent conference rooms and pay fees to use equipment. The space could be a startup incubator, where new companies could establish themselves and rent the space until they have enough revenue to expand independently or own their own space.

The final group also recommended that the newspaper host events, similar to the first group’s community center proposal. Examples given included bridal expos and workshops for high school and college students. Guests would pay fees to attend.

Feifer asked the panelists which idea was the most feasible.

French said that although all of the ideas were great and definitely entrepreneurial, the one that was most feasible was a community-centered makerspace and event hosting. Arwady said he especially would want to cater to the Spanish-speaking community.

Arwady also said he loves the idea of rebuttal obits, and could even transform it to apply to companies going out of business, where they could feel as though they could tell the whole world why it isn’t fair that they had to shut down.

All of the ideas offered multiple ways to engage the community and to show that newspapers are inseparable from the community, French said.

“Having that kind of core value is priceless; there’s no way you could put a monetary value on that,” French said.

The session, titled “LIVE: Creating a New Product,” was held Friday, Feb. 23, at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.

Math can be as powerful
in journalism as grammar

By Jess DeWitt
Bulletin Staff

Grammar is underrated, and is the road map to writing, according to John Ruddy, copy desk chief of The Day of New London, Conn.

He was on a panel that discussed “How to be your own copy editor” at the New England Newspaper and Press Association’s recent winter convention. Grammar was one of the main topics. So was mathematic

The panelists were Ruddy; Tom Zuppa, managing editor of The Sun of Lowell, Mass., Emily Sweeney, a reporter for The Boston Globe; and Charles St. Amand, a journalism teacher at Suffolk University and secretary of the New England Society of News Editors.

St. Amand quizzed the more than 30 people who attended on the Associated Press Stylebook, which is the book he recommends for all grammar questions, mainly because he has found it helpful for the topics he covered, including capitalization, indefinite pronouns, and words that sound the same, such as “there, their, and they’re.”

But St. Amand’s favorite feature in the AP Stylebook is one of which he said many people are unaware.

“There’s this great feature, Ask the Editor, that has never failed me,” St. Amand said. “I get pretty deep into whether this is correct, or that is correct. The editor sometimes contradicts (himself or herself), and someone will say, ‘You said three years ago that it was this, and now you’re saying it’s that. And the editor will say, ‘My bad, I’ve done that and fixed it.’ ” 

On the Ask the Editor feature on the AP Stylebook’s website, questions, corrections and other communications can be sent to the Stylebook editor.

That is not the only feature of the AP Stylebook that St. Amand applauded.

“Style changes every year,” St. Amand said. “The nice thing is, if you have a 2017 Stylebook and they come out with a new one this year, the new one has, at the very beginning of it, the changes or the additions that they’ve made.”

St. Amand tells his journalism students at Suffolk that there is no need to buy a new AP Stylebook every year because of that feature. It allows them to see all of the updates as long as they know another student with the newest edition.

Zuppa took the discussion in a different direction and quizzed the audience on mathematics. He explained the power that math can have in certain forms of journalism, particularly when reporting on taxes.

“Tax rates have two components: the change in the tax rate and the change in home valuation,” Zuppa said. “You’re sitting in that city council meeting, and they announce the tax rate is going down. And the city council applauds the manager, and the manager applauds the assessors, and the assessors take a bow and everyone did a great job. And then, quarter three bills come out and your phone starts ringing because you reported on the tax rate going down (when taxes actually went up).”

Zuppa said the tax rate is only one part of the tax equation. If your home valuation goes up and your tax rate goes down, then taxes can go up, because it’s possible for the rate to go down but for valuations to go up enough that the taxes go up.

“Math can be really challenging, and if you learn some really rudimentary things and do small things to start off, you can get into projects like (the explanation about taxes) eventually, and get the kinds of stories that will really explain things for your community,” Zuppa said.

The session was held Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in South Boston.

How journalists can cover
the disability beat more ably

By Julia Hutchins
Bulletin Correspondent

Race and gender issues might be the more hot-button topics, but disabled people are one of the largest minority groups that face discrimination, according to a panel at the recent New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention.

The “Covering the disability beat” panel featured Lauren Appelbaum, communications director at RespectAbility, a nonprofit based in Rockville, Md., that counters disability stigmas; David D’Arcangelo, director of the Massachusetts Office on Disability; and Wendy Lu, a freelance reporter who focuses on health disparities and social issues in disability communities.

“This is a topic that is often ignored,” Appelbaum said. “Not deliberately, but because of lack of thought.”

Appelbaum provided a number of tips to be followed in covering people with disabilities. Asking people how they prefer to be described is one of them, because some people with disabilities do not wish for their disability to be a main form of identification.

“As journalists, we’re asked to be objective,” Lu said. “This includes asking people how they identify.”

Reporters should also be careful how they portray disability, Lu said. Stories often “portray people with disabilities as inspirations or heroes” simply for doing regular tasks. That genre of reporting was coined “inspiration porn” by disability activist Stella Young in 2014.

“The idea with inspiration porn is that we are ignoring the disability-focused stories,” Appelbaum said. “It detracts from real issues.”

One of those “real issues” on which the panel agreed is that people with disabilities are grossly underrepresented. A U.S. Census Bureau study from 2010 found that one in five Americans had some form of disability, but it is rare that a person with a disability makes the news other than in crime statistics.

D’Arcangelo asked the audience to keep the underrepresentation in mind and “consider if it was any other minority, … it would be front page news of every outlet.”

Reporters should keep an open mind when finding sources, panelists advised. People with disabilities cross every minority group, and it is the only minority group someone can join anytime, usually through aging, accident or illness. Most disabilities do not inhibit people’s ability to contribute to a story, even if many journalists assume that people with disabilities cannot speak.

“Just walk up to the person with the disability and talk to them,” Lu said. “People with disabilities are still people.”

Even though journalists might encounter “gatekeepers,” such as concerned family members or protective friends, there is no need to detour for permission to speak to a disabled person unless the person with a disability is a child, which is a common protocol regardless.

Mincing around disability or avoiding the topic entirely does a disservice to the community, panelists said.

Misrepresentation and underrepresentation can hurt the disabled community.

“It’s not going to help us move forward as a society,” D’Arcangelo said. “And it’s not going to help your story.”

The panel discussion was held Saturday, Feb. 24. About 15 people attended.

A slick way to add revenue at
newspapers: Add glossy mags 

By Nadine El-Bawab
Bulletin Correspondent

Al Getler, division sales manager at Advantage Newspaper Consultants in Burlington, Vt., began his talk by telling people that he is a very digital person and isn’t asking people to abandon digital media, but that he is “talking about pushing the envelope a bit and challenging the newsroom folks to do things a little differently to maximize their print revenue.”

Getler asked his audience a question: “Where do you make the most amount of your money?”

The answer was print.

Getler’s talk, titled “Maximizing your print products,” was held at the recent New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention.

Getler referred the audience to “Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give up in Order to Move Forward” by Henry Cloud, a psychologist and author, for guidance on working together in their businesses — a book that Getler has personally recommended to those with whom he works.

Getler talked from experience about the glossy magazines and updated forms of television books that he introduced at newspapers where he was publisher, including the Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass. Getler said he wouldn’t have introduced those products unless they made profit margins of 50 percent or more, and they began bringing in a lot of money for the businesses.

Those new glossy magazines that were produced at the Eagle-Tribune didn’t require the hiring of any new staff. Getler and his staff brought in writers from numerous departments to do stories and profiles for the new magazines.

Because of the glossy paper that was chosen for the publications, the Eagle-Tribune began getting ads from more high-end businesses, including jewelers, that didn’t usually place ads with the Eagle-Tribune’s publications, Getler said. That gave the company an opportunity to be selective when it came to choosing what ads to publish, he said.

Getler also discussed replacing traditional TV books, which contained times and dates of programs that will air on TV, with versions that had glossy pages. The new versions added puzzles and other catchy features besides just the TV grids. Getler said those new TV books added “$2 million in revenue to Ohio publications” where he introduced them.

Those publications tailored the new TV books to a readership above age 50.

Although TV books and glossy lifestyle magazines were the examples he talked the most about, Getler also suggested other magazines, such as ones on social life and pets. He discovered from his experience producing magazines at newspapers that “people genuinely enjoy writing features for these magazines.”

Getler said the number of copies of those magazines was limited to only what was needed to deliver the magazines to households, and that the magazines were of high quality. Getler said advertisers didn’t mind the number of copies printed being limited because those printed were sent directly to their target demographic.

Getler gave this final advice to the audience: “You are leaving money on the table if you don’t add some kind of (magazine) to your publication … (but) if it doesn’t work, cut it off and move on.”

His session was held Saturday, Feb. 24, in the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in South Boston.

Digital marketing services can help
newspapers help their advertising clients

By Alastair Pike
Bulletin Correspondent

Facebook and Google are projected to have captured more than 60 percent of all U.S. digital advertising spending in 2017, according to eMarketer. But the digital marketing professionals who were panelists at a discussion at the recent New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention think that there are still opportunities for marketing agencies to help businesses generate more revenue with advertising and marketing.

“There’s a lot of dollars going to digital; that’s no surprise. One of the things that we keep hearing from our friends at Google and Facebook is the share that they’re getting of those dollars,” said Daryl Hively, founder and chief executive officer of a Hartland, Wisc.-based digital marketing agency, Guarantee Digital. “And the good news is, we can get our piece of that action. We can help our advertisers facilitate how they’re spending their money on Google and Facebook.”

The advice was given at a panel discussion moderated by Tim Brady, director of advertising at the Concord (N.H.) Monitor. The discussion was titled “Digital marketing services – are you offering them to your clients?”

The goal of the discussion was to help newspaper advertising departments to establish digital marketing services as part of their offerings to advertising clients, or to improve such services if they’re already established. Those services include helping clients build websites, post on social media, and market on Google or Facebook.

Google and Facebook have gained their large shares of digital ads by Google’s targeting of ads to readers based on their search history and Facebook’s tailoring of relevant ads to users based on demographics, from job title to relationship status.

One challenge with their dominance is that when “Facebook says this, Google says this. And then you have to change the entire way you sell,” said Greg Ryan, another panelist and senior vice president of a Quincy, Mass.-based digital marketing agency, ThriveHive.

Despite that dominance, the panelists advised how to take advantage of the very tools that Google and Facebook provide.

“It’s all free stuff. There’s so much free data out there,” Ryan said about Google Trends, a tool that shows what search terms are entered and the relevant statistics that enable businesses to market their brand and products better.

Another tool is Google’s listings, where businesses can have their information posted so that their restaurant or store would show up in a Google search or on Google maps.

“Job one is making sure they’re making a good impression, and they’re getting found online,” Hively said about the businesses that marketing agencies serve. “So we talk about those mobile-friendly websites, and making sure their Google business listings are taken care of.”

Hively added a tip: “Avoid penalties from Google. These days if these businesses don’t have a mobile-friendly site, they’re going to get pushed farther back in search.”

He said digital marketing agencies should help businesses “tell their story” with content and have a consistent message across all platforms. That could mean placing a sponsored article in a print newspaper or a video ad on a news outlet’s home page, all with a clear, cohesive message about the business.

Ryan, whose agency he helped establish and which now has five locations in the United States, advised that digital marketing agencies should focus on their customer service and not price when attracting new clients and brands.

“Sell them on service. Some of you are probably staying in a hotel here. Why aren’t you staying at the $49 economy lodge down the street? Because of service,” Ryan said. “This hotel’s like Four Seasons, this hotel’s like this. It’s about service. I want to feel good. I want to be asked how my morning went. Think about that; it’s not price.”

Hively also shared hiring tips on hiring for an effective digital marketing agency.

“You don’t need to hire the smartest person who knows social media backwards and forwards but can’t actually go out and talk to a shop owner in terms that they understand,” Hively said. “Hire for attitude. Hire for hustle. Those are the ones that are going to end up working for you for the long term.”

The panel discussion, took place Friday, Feb. 23, at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in Boston.

‘You don’t need to hire the smartest person who knows social media backwards and forwards but can’t actually go out and talk to a shop owner in terms that they understand. Hire for attitude. Hire for hustle. Those are the ones that are going to end up working for you for the long term.’
— Daryl Hively

At ‘Murder Ink 3’ launch, party’s over as series ends

By Julia Hutchins
Bulletin Correspondent

In a quiet room above the hubbub of the New England Newspaper and Press Association’s recent winter convention, industry professionals gathered for the launching of “Murder Ink 3.” The book is the third and final in a series of murder pulp fiction stories relating to New England newsrooms.

There was no podium or seated panel, unlike at other convention events. A microphone stand at the front of the room faced three rows of seats, but only five people were seated of about 20 people who attended the event. The rest were standing and greeting each other.

“My partner in crime! How have you been?” one woman asked in a group of fewer than 10 people.

The majority of those present were in groups at the back of the room exchanging hellos. The excited attitude set the tone for the readings of passages from the book and discussions that followed.

The “Murder Ink” series is a collection of short stories, all of which are pulp fiction murders relating to the newsroom, usually with reporters as the main characters. The first book was published in 2016 and premiered at that year’s annual NENPA winter convention. A number of the stories in the newest collection are continuations of previous stories, but “Murder Ink 3” also brought new authors to the launch on Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in South Boston.

George Geers, who in 2015 came up with the idea of a New England pulp fiction book, owns the company that publishes the series, Plaidswede Publishing Co. of Concord, N.H. After speaking about the book, he thanked the contributing authors for “a good run.” Previously, he and Dan Szczesny, who edited the series, have said that they always envisioned the series as one with three parts.

Of the 15 contributors to the book, nine were present:

Oreste P. “Rusty” D’Arconte, who writes under the pen name O. Lucio d’Arc, has written for the previous “Murder Ink” books. He is the retired publisher of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., and continues to write as a columnist for the paper, where he has worked for almost 50 years.

Amy Ray wrote for the first “Murder Ink” book. She has another short story in “Murder Ink 3,” and has had her debut mystery thriller novel published recently.

Jason Allard is a writer who was first published in “Live Free or Undead,” which focused on horror stories taking place in New Hampshire and which was the first book of the New Hampshire Pulp Fiction anthologies.

Mark Arsenault is a reporter at The Boston Globe, where he covers casino development and gambling issues. He has written for the previous “Murder Ink” books. He has experience with fiction writing and is the author of the Billy Povich suspense series.

Karen and Roxanne Dent, or as they call themselves, The Sisters Dent, have written for the previous “Murder Ink” books. As prize-winning novelists, screenwriters, short story writers and playwrights, they write for various genres, including mystery, horror, and paranormal fantasy.

Lisa Eckelbecker is a first-time writer for the “Murder Ink” books. She is a business reporter at the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass. She has more than three decades of experience in the newsroom.

Victor D. Infante has written for the previous “Murder Ink” books, and is entertainment editor for the Telegram & Gazette. He occasionally contributes to OC Weekly, a free weekly paper distributed in Orange County, Calif., and is the editor in chief of Radius, an online literary journal. He also writes poetry and short stories.

Tim Horvath is new to the “Murder Ink” lineup, but is an award-winning writer and teaches creative writing at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. He occasionally blogs for BIG OTHER, a book blog, and is an assistant prose editor for Camera Obscura Journal of Literature & Photography.

The anthology is available for $19.03 online through New Hampshire Booksellers and Plaidswede Publishing Co.