Kevin Slimp
Kevin Slimp is director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology.
Email questions to him at
kevin@kevinslimp.com
“We need to find ways to give our staff the tools they need to get the job done. Training is necessary if we are going to have successful ad reps, editors and writers.”
While I was attending the Tennessee Press Association Convention recently, Jack Fishman of Morristown, Tenn., said those words to me as we sat at the corner of a long table, waiting for a board meeting to begin.
I’m pretty sure that he knew that he was preaching to the choir. What followed were emails, phone conversations and, eventually, a face-to-face meeting among Mike Fishman, publisher of the Citizen Tribune of Morristown, Jack and me.
As I’ve written many times, there are correlations between successful newspapers and business practices. Fishman was right. Training is a necessary ingredient if we are going to have a successful staff.
‘People are responding. They want to advertise, and I help them get the best advertising for their money.’
— Hala Watson, Advertising staff, Greeneville (Tenn.) Sun
One week after my visit to Morristown to discuss training, I traveled to Greeneville, Tenn., just 30 miles away. The reason for the trip was to do some tests and work with the staff of The Greeneville Sun to improve the reproduction quality in photos.
While there, I ran into a familiar face. Hala Watson has attended several of my design classes through the years.
Hala was quick to tell me that she had recently moved from the production area to the advertising staff. I told her I wasn’t surprised because she has the personality of a salesperson.
I also was not surprised to learn that she is loving sales and has gained quite a reputation as a successful ad rep after just four months on the job.
“You know what I do? The publisher dares me to go out and make a particular sale, then I go out and make the sale. It’s that simple,” Watson said.
I’ve been working quite a bit lately on training ad reps, and I knew that it surely wasn’t that easy. But maybe it was.
She told me that there was a new yoga studio in town. I later passed it on the way to lunch with some of the newspaper’s managers.
“Gregg Jones (the Sun’s publisher) dared me to go out and sell them a double truck, so that’s what I’m going to do,” Hala told me just before lunch.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a “double truck” refers to a pair of facing pages with content that stretches over both pages. This usually occurs in the center spread of a newspaper.
As our group walked into the dining room at the General Morgan Inn, I saw Hala having lunch with the owner of the studio. They were deep in conversation. I didn’t see any computers, folders or sales sheets. Just the two of them talking.
Two hours later, back at the newspaper, I saw Hala.
“Did you sell the double truck?” I asked.
“No, but let me show you what I did sell!” she said.
She pulled out a 52-week contract. That isn’t a typo. She sold a 52-week contract over lunch. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t surprised.
Later, I called Hala and asked if she would share some secrets to her success. She was more than happy to share her insights.
“I just try to be me. I like people. I enjoy talking to people and they seem to respond,” Watson said.
When asked how she approaches a potential advertiser, she made it sound simple.
“I don’t take papers or a folder or anything with me. We just have conversations. I don’t push. No one likes to be pushed,” she said.
Asked what she did on her first day as a salesperson, she said: “I just left the office and went out and started meeting people. And guess what. It worked.”
I told Hala that she was an interviewer’s dream. She just kept feeding me one great quote after another. But those weren’t canned lines; she meant what she was saying. She loves selling, and advertisers are responding.
“At first, I didn’t think I would be a good salesperson. When they showed me the paperwork, it was overwhelming,” Watson said.
I asked how she got over that.
“I just started going out. I love meeting people and visiting with them. I just decided to be me,” she said.
During our phone conversation, I learned that the yoga studio contract wasn’t her first. She had signed another year-long contract a few weeks earlier.
Artie Wehenkel, advertising director at the Sun, told me: “I worked closely with Hala when she was in the newsroom. I always thought she was a natural salesperson, and I was right. If someone has a selling personality, we can teach them the rest.”
What is the key to creating an award-winning piece of photojournalism?
Survey: More Americans see less media bias — but why?
Gene Policinski
Inside the First Amendment
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute. He can be reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org. Follow him on Twitter:
@genefac
Attention, you so-called “enemies of the people” and alleged purveyors of biased reporting: There’s reason to think fewer people than last year might see you that way, despite the ongoing, politicized attacks from multiple quarters on the news media’s credibility.
President Donald Trump hurled that “enemies” epithet at journalists some time ago, and continues to complain about biased news coverage nearly every time there are news accounts about contacts with Russian officials by his administration.
But such criticism comes with varying levels of vitriol from a variety of quarters, and started long before Trump took office. Often, the harshest criticism of the news media comes just as much from those who consume news as from those who make it. This year, however, there are signs that the public’s disdain for the press has somewhat abated.
The 2017 “State of the First Amendment” survey, released over the July 4 holiday by the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute in partnership with the Fors Marsh Group, found that:
There are some likely reasons for this shift: A significant amount of TV, online and print journalism has shifted from the softer “horse race” focus of the 2016 election to this year’s focus on hard news and complex issues.
And — with more than a bit of irony — as more Americans are inclined only to consume news from sources that line up with their individual perspectives, there’s a likely parallel increase in the “trust factor” in those sources, even if they resemble echo chambers more than truth-tellers.
Among those who believe that news media tries to report unbiased information, most expressed a preference for news information that aligns with their own views (60.7 percent). Those more critical of media efforts to report news without bias were also less prone to report a preference for news aligned with their own views (49.1 percent).
So, no celebratory back flips in the nation’s newsrooms, please, especially since the uptick only puts the “bias” figure roughly back to levels seen in 2013 and 2014 (46 percent and 41 percent, respectively).
Those inclined to support the work of today’s journalists hope that the drop in those who perceive press bias generally stems from that combination of dramatically increased visibility of news operations and their reporting on serious news, such as health care reform and investigations of Russian influence in the 2016 election.
For my part, I believe that more people saw reporting of real news, not fluffy “click-bait” features and dramatic but mostly meaningless polling reports, and it earned back some of their lost approval and trust. Here’s an idea for journalists nationwide: Keep trying hard news, accountability reporting on issues that — while not necessarily “sexy” — matter the most to people and their communities, such as jobs, health care, education, and local and state government.
For years, news industry moguls and newsroom leaders have sought ways to reverse their dwindling income, which has led to fewer newsrooms resources and less real journalism, and which in turn has prompted additional loss of consumers. Clearly, mushy stories about the travails of celebrities, feel-good stories, and valuing tweets over investigative reporting are not working out that well. Acting on that realization will mean putting an emphasis on innovation and finding new ways to report on subjects that, in themselves, don’t necessarily draw in a new generation of readers.
But therein is the opportunity for those who will be the news media success stories of the 21st century. This year’s survey results show that the opportunity is there, that news consumers are hungry for imaginative reporting on issues that directly impact their lives.
But we can still take comfort in the 20 percent drop in those who presume journalists are incapable of reporting without bias: Attitudes can change, and trust can be regained.
Editor’s Note: A version of this column appeared earlier on the Newseum Institute website as part of the 2017 State of the First Amendment report.