Kevin Slimp
Kevin Slimp is director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology.
Email questions to him at
kevin@kevinslimp.com
Convention season has been a lot of fun for me this year. I just returned from visits with associations across the Midwest United States and Western Canada, and there is a definite intensity brewing among community newspaper publishers. There were more publishers wanting a private moment to discuss their thoughts, and longer lines of folks waiting to talk to me after sessions.
As I entered the ballroom at the Illinois Press Association convention, I couldn’t help but smile. I was scheduled to speak on the topic, “What’s Going on at Newspapers Today,” and I had a feeling there would be a need for more chairs and it was inspiring to see every seat filled and more chairs brought into the room as I spoke. Still, a dozen or so folks stood in the back to hear what I had to say about the mood of the industry.
In the vendors area at that convention, I was greeted by Virginia publisher Matt Paxton and Wisconsin publisher Andrew Johnson, both representing the National Newspaper Association. We probably could have talked for hours, but time was limited because I had to lead a session. We continued the discussion, centered around the crucial need for more honest conversations about the state of the industry, during breaks the next two days.
As I see at so many places I visit, both Matt and Andrew are at healthy newspapers and weren’t surprised to hear that most of the papers I visit are reporting steady or improved health the past three years. I have a feeling we will meet together soon to continue that discussion.
Stan Schwartz, editor of Publishers’ Auxiliary, was also in the audience in Illinois. At one point, while helping me distribute some materials, he said: “You know what people like? They love your Question and Answer columns.”
Stan knows what he’s doing. If he says readers like Question and Answer columns, I believe him.
Here are some of the questions I’ve received from readers and friends recently:
From Janet in Tennessee
I know you’re on the road, but we really need your help. Our production Mac has a white screen and we’ve tried restarting it. Nothing seems to work. Please help.
In the old days, Janet, it seemed like restarting a computer fixed most problems. It still fixes some, but in this case it takes a little more work. When restarting a computer doesn’t work, unplugging the computer for several minutes, then restarting, sometimes does the trick.
Both Macs and PCs sometimes need to be unplugged. These are the steps I sent to Janet that got her computer up and running: Turn off the computer for several minutes, then restart while pressing the Option+R keys immediately after hearing the Apple chimes. When the computer starts up, you should see the OS X utilities menu. Select “Disk Utility” and click “Continue.” Select your start-up disk and click “Repair Disk.” Then reboot your Mac.
From Mark in Ohio
We have “lost” an important folder of InDesign pages on our Mac server. This is the only thing missing. We do use the Amazon backup service every night. We were using the folder four nights ago, but now it has vanished. Is there any “back door” way to find this file? Or anything else you can think of?
I’m glad you have the daily backup, Mark. As long as the folder is there, you’ve lost a few hours at the most.
My conversation with Mark highlights the importance of running Time Machine, which creates an hourly backup of your Macs, and the importance of having an off-site backup. There are many good cloud backup services out there, and most cost about $5 a month per computer or even less if you subscribe for an entire network of computers.
From Ken in Manitoba
What’s the best way to back up our email? If we ever lose it, we’d be in a bind.
If you take a look at Mark’s question, you’ll find your answer. It’s important to use Time Machine or some other local backup, in addition to an off-site backup. Many cloud (off-site) systems offer both off-site and local backups (to a USB drive or other device). Carbonite (carbonite.com) is one of many such systems.
From Buddy in Georgia
I’d like to pick your brain for a moment. Many of our printing customers are having a similar problem: black text printing on all four plates. Do you have any suggestions to help with this issue?
Yes, Buddy, I do. Most folks see a file like this and think the problem was caused by using “registration” instead of black in the text. That’s usually not the case. This happens primarily when the text has been converted to RGB. This can happen in two places, but usually happens when converting the file to PDF. Check the settings in either InDesign or Acrobat and make sure nothing is set to convert to RGB. The safest setting is “Leave Color Unchanged.”
What is the key to creating an award-winning piece of journalism?
Montana millionaire charged with journalist assault – and headed for Congress?
Gene Policinski
Inside the First Amendment
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org.
Follow him on Twitter:
@genefac
Sadly, shamefully, disgustingly, it has come to this: A Montana candidate for Congress was charged recently with assaulting a reporter who was asking him a question about the American Health Care Act.
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported that U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte, a Republican, was charged with misdemeanor assault for what witnesses and the reporter involved said was an unwarranted attack.
Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, who has reported for weeks on the state’s close race for its only House seat, tweeted that “Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses.”
Gianforte’s campaign issued its own statement, claiming Jacobs had entered an office where a TV taping was being set up, “aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face, and began asking badgering questions.” The statement claimed that both men fell to the floor in a struggle over Jacob’s cellphone, and that “this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene.”
Too bad for that set of “alternative facts” that several witnesses — including a Fox News television crew — were on hand to dispute them.
A Fox News reporter wrote that “Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him … I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top of the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of ‘I’m sick and tired of this!’”
Three of Montana’s major newspapers, The Billings Gazette, The Missoulian and The Helena Independent Record, quickly got “sick and tired” of Gianforte: By the morning after the incident, on the day of the state’s special congressional election, all three rescinded their endorsements of the GOP candidate.
We all should be “sick and tired” of attacks on journalists in recent weeks, from this Montana mess to a “manhandling” of a reporter by security guards after an FCC hearing, to the arrest of a public radio reporter in the West Virginia statehouse.
The incidents have much in common: The journalists were asking questions of public officials or candidates for office, outside the staged, controlled environments of news conferences. In each case, the journalists were labeled aggressors by those they were attempting to question.
Many defenders of a free press see all three incidents flowing from the stridently anti-press tone set by President Trump, both in office and on the campaign trail. He has called journalists “enemies of the people,” and on occasion verbally abused specific reporters at rallies and news conferences. The Gianforte account took pains to label Jacobs as a “liberal journalist,” continuing the candidate’s anti-press stance through a campaign that has drawn comparisons to Trump’s. In an effort to give Gianforte a boost in Montana’s close congressional race, Trump recorded a robocall in which he calls Gianforte “my good friend.”
For those who are more inclined to view politics as an opportunity for mud-slinging and chest-beating, rather than a spirited exchange of ideas, the Montana attack no doubt will produce appreciative chuckles and nods of endorsement.
Do not be fooled. It’s democracy that got “body slammed” in the Montana incident. It’s respect for the rule of law that was dealt a blow. It’s the First Amendment that was insulted by Gianforte’s attempt to justify what he did: attacking a reporter for asking a reasonable question, on a matter of great public interest, to a political candidate on the eve of an important election.
This recent spate of attacks is not the first time journalists have been hassled by thugs and bully-boys, or by security forces. Multiple attacks and beatings occurred as reporters and television correspondents covered the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s. Reporters covering the “Occupy” movement in recent years were hustled aside or held by police looking to prevent news coverage of protesters being forcibly removed from parks in New York City and elsewhere.
At national political conventions, journalist arrests have become so common that national press organizations regularly set up phone banks and offices to help individual reporters who have been taken into custody without cause.
Dangers to a free press have deep roots in this country. Just seven years after the 1791 ratification of the Bill of Rights, Congress passed the Sedition Act, allowing for the arrest and jailing of journalists for publishing political criticism. About 20 editors were thrown into jail.
In the Newseum in Washington, D.C., where I work, there is the starkly tragic exhibit of a lone Datsun sedan — notable because the floorboards at the driver’s seat are peeled up, the result of an explosion that fatally injured Phoenix newspaper reporter Don Bolles in 1976. A remotely detonated bomb had been planted by mobsters seeking to stop Bolles from reporting on organized crime in Arizona. The attack had the opposite effect, as reporters nationwide flocked to Phoenix to complete Bolles’ work, proclaiming that “you can kill a journalist but not journalism.”
The fear is now real that — as we saw after fake reports of a child sex ring in a Washington, D.C., restaurant prompted an armed man to appear on the premises — some disturbed person will decide to counter reporters with more than a “body slam.”
Let’s say again, for the sake of the nonpartisan, nonpolitical 45 words of the First Amendment, that this pattern of verbal abuse and physical attacks on journalists is an attack on all Americans, and that that these attacks must stop.