On the 110th episode of Editor & Publisher Reports, Publisher and Host Mike Blinder sat down with the National Newspapers Association’s (NNA) chair, Brett Wesner, and E&P contributing editor Gretchen Peck to talk about the urgency for advocacy for the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA).

At the end of last week, word had come that at least part of the LJSA — payroll tax credits for newsrooms — remained in the Build Back Better Reconciliation bill being discussed in Congress.

It’s legislation that the NAA, America’s Newspapers, Report for America, and other industry associations have tenaciously lobbied for in Washington, DC, and press associations including NENPA have urged their members to support.

Read the full story on E&P

Deadline extended until, Friday, December 3, 2021!

The 2021 Better Newspaper Competition, New England’s largest and most comprehensive journalism recognition program features eight new editorial categories this year.

NENPA member publications from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont are invited to enter in six classes:

• Dailies with circulation under 15k
• Dailies with circulation more than 15k
• Weeklies with circulation under 5k
• Weeklies with circulation more than 5k
• Specialty and niche publications
• News Services and Online News Sites

Publications interested in joining NENPA can find out more information at this link.

Work published during the August 1, 2020, to July 31, 2021 contest year is eligible for this competition.

The deadline to submit entries is Friday, December 3, 2021.

Awards will be presented during the annual New England Newspaper Convention, which will be held in Spring 2022.

Download 2021 BC Editorial Categories and Rules

For further information please contact Linda Conway at l.conway@nenpa.com.

New or modified categories for 2021:

Coverage of Protests and Rallies – Judges will be asked to consider the quality, accuracy and context of reporting on protests and rallies as well as effects on the local community. Entries may consist of a single article or series of articles that are part of ongoing coverage.

Combatting Misinformation and Restoring Trust – This award recognizes a news organization’s efforts to reach, inform and engage with audiences to build trust and recognize misinformation. Entries should include a cover letter detailing efforts as well as material published in print and/or online. Judges will be asked to consider how well the information clarified the integrity of the journalistic process for greater citizen awareness and the quality of writing.

Climate Change or Weather Reporting – Judges will be asked to consider the quality of writing and depth of coverage of weather events or climate change and its impact. Entries may consist of a single article or series of articles that are part of ongoing coverage.

Presidential Election Coverage – Entries should include stories, features, candidate profiles, editorials, letters to the editor, etc. published during the contest period of prior to and following the 2020 Presidential Election. Judges will be asked to consider the quality of writing and depth of coverage, as well as the presentation of the information.

Racial, Ethnic, or Gender Issue Coverage – A story that heightens awareness of a racial, ethnic, or gender community and its issues. Foreign language entries should be accompanied by an English translation. Judges will be asked to consider news value, quality and sensitivity of writing, and presentation.

Pandemic Photo – Any photo showing life in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include heroes of the pandemic, isolation, family, lockdown life, etc.

Sports Action Photo – An action photo that captures the spirit of a sports competition.

Sports Feature Photo – A sports-related feature photo captured outside the action of the game.

Breaking news, the LJSA is back in the Build Back Better Act. H. Dean Ridings, CAE
CEO, America’s Newspapers reported that as of this afternoon, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act is back in the Build Back Better Act (budget reconciliation bill). The LJSA was removed last Thursday along with many other measures but was put back in as a result of the strong support from the bill’s sponsors and cosponsors, members of the Ways and Means Committee, and House and Senate leadership.

NENPA is joining with America’s Newspapers and asking newspapers in New England to help with a last-minute push of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA). Reach out to your members of Congress today, particularly if they are a Senate co-sponsor of the LJSA, and ask them to let Sen. Schumer and Speaker Pelosi know how important it is to include the LJSA in the reconciliation bill.

The LJSA, a comprehensive legislative effort championed by America’s Newspapers and other leading media groups, is no longer included in the House of Representatives “Build Back Better” reconciliation bill.

The following updated editorial written by Steven Waldman, chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition and the co-founder and president of Report for America is available for reprint. Additional resources and editorials are available at www.newspapers.org/ljsa.

Local news hangs in the balance

STEVE WALDMAN | REPORT FOR AMERICA

The Senate is now deciding the fate of local news.

As part of the Build Back Better Act, the Senate is in the next few days considering an important proposal: providing a payroll tax credit to local news organizations to retain or hire local journalists.

Why? Local news is in a deep crisis. The internet has fundamentally broken the business model of most local newspapers. The number of reporters has dropped by more than half since 2000.

There are at least 1,800 total “news deserts” — communities with no local newspapers at all — and thousands more have “ghost newspapers” that have been so gutted that they barely cover the community.

Professor Penny Abernathy, the leading authority on news deserts, this week projected that if past patterns continue more than 100 newspapers will close next year and 500 will shut in the next five years if Congress doesn’t act.

This is having catastrophic consequences. Studies have shown that when local news declines, communities have more corruption, more waste, lower voting, and even lower bond ratings. It cripples the community’s ability to solve their own problems.

How can residents know how to fix their schools if no one is providing them accurate independent information about how their local tax dollars are being spent? How can you address economic development, crime, or health care without knowing the facts? Where will people learn accurate information about local COVID vaccinations?

The decline of local news has fostered division and polarization. The vacuums that have been created have been increasingly filled by misinformation, national cable news, and fake local news sites. The only way to combat misinformation is with trusted, accurate information.

This is a thoroughly nonpartisan, bipartisan issue. The communities harmed are disproportionately Republican but every town and city suffers when people don’t have accurate information.

No journalist loves the idea of the government helping them out. The crisis has become so existential that temporary measures like this are necessary — and this particular provision is shrewdly constructed to avoid First Amendment problems. It’s a tax credit to all those newsrooms that cover local communities; there’s no federal bureaucracy dispensing grants to local newsrooms that the president likes. It’s content-neutral and would benefit newspapers, TV stations, websites, and public radio.

The cost is minuscule compared to the rest of the Build Back Better package — less than 0.1% of its total. But this provision is the only thing in the bill that would help save democracy.

Please urge your state’s senators and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer to support this nonpartisan provision to help save local news.

Sponsors and co-sponsors of the LJSA are:

Sen. Maria Cantwell [D-WA] sponsor
Sen. Kelly, Mark [D-AZ] original co-sponsor
Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR] original co-sponsor
Sen. Schatz, Brian [D-HI]
Sen. Markey, Edward [D-MA]
Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA]
Sen. Klobuchar, Amy [D-MN]
Sen. Schumer, Charles [D-NY]
Sen. Manchin, Joseph [D-WV]
Sen. Cortez Masto, Catherine [D-NV]
Sen. Sinema, Kyrsten [D-AZ]
Sen. Baldwin, Tammy [D-WI]
Sen. Lujan, Ben [D-NM]
Sen. Leahy, Patrick [D-VT]
Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT]

At America’s Newspapers Conference in Colorado Springs, CO, CherryRoad Media  (Parsippany, NJ) has signed contracts with SCS to implement the Community Advertising  System and Community Publishing System to standardize the advertising, production, and editorial workflows across its 27 community newspapers.  

With titles in seven states each coming from different ownership groups, CherryRoad and SCS  will be working closely on an implementation strategy that will provide a clear path toward a  centralized and consolidated workflow.  

“SCS is proud to work with Jeremy and his team at CherryRoad as the company embarks on its journey to give back to its communities with strong, local journalism,” says Phil Curatolo, Director of Sales at SCS. 

About SCS: 

SCS offers an extensive line of publishing-related applications, including Layout-8000™. More than 300 sites producing over 2,000 publications in 10 countries in 5 languages use SCS  mission-critical software every day. SCS is privately held by Kurt Jackson. You can learn more about SCS at www.newspapersystems.com. 

About CherryRoad Media: 

CherryRoad Media is a subsidiary of CherryRoad Technologies and owns and operates 27  community newspapers in Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, and  Alabama. You can learn more about CherryRoad Media at https://www.cherryroad.com/cherryroad-media.

The New England Newspaper and Press Association assisted with Radically Rural’s community journalism program run by The Keene Sentinel on Sept. 22-23.

Each year, the Radically Rural summit brings together experts to share ideas and network with attendees on topics of importance to small communities. The tracks include community journalism, rural health care, clean energy, land use, downtowns, entrepreneurship, and arts and culture.

The journalism sessions focused on building trust for local news, tapping philanthropy to support newsrooms, and tech and techniques that can help journalists do a better job, including investigative tools.

The event was staged in-person and online. Overall, Radically Rural attracted 457 registrants from 40 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. The journalism sessions drew 86 registrants from 27 states. A Knight Foundation sponsorship allowed 30 journalists to attend at no cost, and, of those who registered, 56 came from communities of less than 25,000 population.

Terrence Williams, president, and COO of The Sentinel thanked NENPA for its marketing support. Each year, NENPA members can attend Radically Rural at a discount.

“One of the wonderful aspects of belonging to NENPA is the staff’s willingness to help advance the cause of journalism in any manner possible,” Williams said. “The organization’s connections to the journalism community, not just in New England, but through associations throughout the country is an invaluable resource.”

Deadline extended until, Friday, December 3, 2021!

The New England Better Newspaper Competition is the largest, most comprehensive, and most competitive newspaper awards program in our region.

The competition has more than 100 award categories broken down into two divisions:

Editorial/Multimedia/Photography Division – Download Editorial Categories & Rules
Advertising/Circulation/Promotion Division – Download Advertising Categories & Rules

New or modified categories for 2021:
Coverage of Protests and Rallies, Climate Change or Weather Reporting, Presidential Election Coverage, Racial, Ethnic or Gender Issue Coverage, Pandemic Photo, Sports Action Photo, Sports Feature Photo, and Combatting Misinformation and Restoring Trust.

Instructions:
– The work that you’ve published between August 1, 2020, to July 31, 2021, is eligible.
– Contest participants will need to submit links and PDFs of their best work. Please note that judges prefer PDFs over links, so we encourage you to use PDFs whenever possible.
– When registering on the contest site please use the association code NENPA.
– The contest is open to all NENPA members in good standing.
– The deadline to submit entries is Friday, December 3, 2021.

The awards will be presented at the annual New England Newspaper Convention, which will be held in Spring 2022.

We encourage you to participate in this year’s Better Newspaper Competition to show off your best work, reward and recognize your staff, and share ideas so we can learn from each other!

For further information please contact Linda Conway, l.conway@nenpa.com.

Learn more about the Better Newspaper Competition

Submit Your Entries Now!