KEENE, NH — Radically Rural, the annual two-day summit
focused on issues and opportunities in small cities and towns, opens Sept. 19
and is expected to attract 800 people from the Monadnock Region, the Northeast
and throughout the country.
The Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship and The Keene
Sentinel partner to present Radically Rural, which provides a uniquely rural
point-of-view for community-building, news coverage, entrepreneurship and
economic development. Radically Rural includes program tracks on
entrepreneurship, arts and culture, community journalism, Main Streets and
downtowns, working lands and renewable energy.
Terrence Williams, president and COO at The Keene Sentinel,
said, “Last year’s event exceeded all expectations in attendance and the
quality of programs. More is planned this year, and we are delighted with our
slate of speakers and panelists.”
He outlined this year’s journalism program:
Session One:
Collaboration – Competitive barriers drop; journalists work together on rural
issues
September
19 | 10 am. to Noon
Moderator:
Leah Todd, Regional Manager, New
England, Solutions Journalism Network
If
you live well outside the city of Bozeman, Montana, there’s a good chance
you’re living in a town with a contracting economy, shrinking population and
growing opioid and mental health issues. All under the radar. There’s no one to
cover the issues. That changed due a group of journalists from western Montana,
supported by High Country News and the Solutions Journalism Network. What was
produced was an exhaustive, comprehensive look at what many small towns across
the country face – and the coverage came with solutions.
Speakers:
Nick Ehli, managing editor, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Bozeman, Montana
Stefanie Murray, director, Center for Cooperative Media, Montclair State University
Panel discussion:
Melanie Plenda, Project Manager, Granite State News Collaborative
Dawn DeAngelis, Vice President, Chief Content Officer, NHPBS
Session Two: Solutions Journalism – Helping communities take the next steps
September 19 | 2-4 pm
Moderator: Leah Todd, Regional Manager, New
England, Solutions Journalism Network
News consumers these
days can come away from the experience feeling depressed, disengaged,
powerless, hopeless. Solutions journalism envisions a more productive
experience, one that builds engagement, trust and a renewed hope in democracy, by reporting rigorously on the responses to
social problems — in addition to the problems themselves. Find out how
this is being done in rural places, the training behind it and the encouraging
results from this disruptive approach.
An
interactive session featuring solutions journalists.
Speakers:
Leah Todd, Regional Manager, New England, Solutions Journalism Network
Amy Maestas, Digital Editor, Salt Lake Tribune
Session Three: Crazy Good – 50 ideas that will grow your audience
September
20 | 9-10:30 am
Moderator
and session leader: Tim Schmitt,
project manager, Gatehouse Media
We’ve
reached far and wide! Here are more than four dozen ways you can build better
bridges to your readers – from thought-provoking story ideas, to collaborative
ways to tackle big projects, to new newsroom structures. If you only have time
to do a few of these, you will be happy you did. A sneak peek: How we built
Radically Rural. Leave with a magazine that curates these ideas.
Bonus session Funding Journalism – Where to look for help
September
20 | 10:30-11 am
We
present the details on the growing number of funding sources for journalism
projects and initiatives.
For tickets, go to https://ticketelf.com/events/radically-rural-summit-2019 Early bird pricing is available
through July 5. And for additional information on all tracks, go to www.radicallyrural.org
Mary Ann Kristiansen, executive director at Hannah Grimes
said, “Broad shifts in demographics,
technology and values are creating opportunity for innovative thinkers,
entrepreneurs and community-builders who love their rural communities and know
their advantages.”
Kristiansen notes that recent studies indicate that people
are increasingly interested in living in rural areas and that technology
advances make living and working in rural areas easier than ever. “Radically
Rural spotlights and shares new ideas.”
Williams and Kristiansen noted that Radically Rural includes
the popular CONNECT event on Sept. 19, a major gathering that attracts local
business leaders and event attendees. This year’s theme is “What’s Next!,” with
a focus on the future in each track.
Hannah Grimes, for the second year, is featuring The PitchFork Challenge, a business pitch competition that will award the winning business a $10,000 cash prize.The summit also includes keynote presentations by Wendy Guillies, executive director and president of the Kauffmann Foundation, a major funder of entrepreneurship, and Art Markman, executive director of IC² at the University of Texas Austin, the oldest business incubator in the country.
“Rural communities have distinct challenges and opportunities
that are not adequately addressed by conventional economic development
conferences,” said Williams. “Radically Rural prioritizes innovative approaches
specifically designed for rural places.”
The summit transforms Keene’s downtown into a conference
center, utilizing small venues. Attendees will pass coffee houses, restaurants,
shops, and meeting places to find event
locales at The Colonial Theatre, old County Courthouse, the
Historical Society of Cheshire County, Keene State College, Keene Public
Library and the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship.
We Once Went “MAD” for the Magazine — and It Was Fun and Funny
The world is soon going to be a little bit less MAD — and the poorer for it.
The quintessential baby boomer-era satire mag, MAD magazine has announced it will soon contain only re-published content, on a monthly basis — industry-speak for trying to garner what nostalgia-tinged profits might still be obtained from those who recall better days.
Playboy, Rolling Stone and now MAD: The nameplates may remain on repurposed products and in digital or slicker formats, but as each announced its essential demise in the past year or so, the print-and-ink-on-paper soul of each, like Elvis, “has left the building”
The first two publications in that trio appealed, in very different ways, to the hip and fashionable of their respective social spheres — or, at least, to those who wanted to be “hip.”
Far too many people to be truthful claimed only to read Playboy for the articles, but the works of respected authors and discussions of controversial social issues were tucked in and around the centerfolds. (For those too young to know what a “centerfold” is … never mind).
Rolling Stone brought counter-culture to the masses — an interesting social sleight-of-hand — and documented decades of societal change along with the authors and photographers who ushered us into a new kind of journalism populated by master storytellers and photo artistry.
MAD, on the other hand, remained for much of its life the same as it was when launched in 1952 — a wonderfully juvenile, cleverly illustrated, delightfully snickering means of mocking adult foibles, politics and cultural institutions that were way too full of themselves.
Unabashedly egalitarian, it did not matter if its pages mocked Democrats or Republicans, beloved or despicable characters, Hollywood celebrities, literary giants or cultural icons. Linking any and all to a good joke involving flatulence worked every time.
The magazine’s apolitical satirical range may well have been captured best in an October 1968 cover in which perennially grinning MAD icon Alfred E. Neuman (catch phrase: “What, me worry?”) was shown holding a bevy of balloons, each bearing the names and faces of eight politicians from Richard Nixon to George Wallace to then-President Lyndon Johnson, in one hand — and a large hatpin in the other.
MAD and Neuman recently popped back into the nation’s headlines, but it was a mixed blessing. President Trump compared Democratic presidential hopeful, Pete Buttigieg, to the gap-toothed, youthful character and said, “Alfred E. Neuman cannot be president of the United States.” But 37-year-old Buttigieg said he didn’t know what 72-year old Trump was talking about, “I’ll be honest. I had to Google that,” he said. “I guess it’s just a generational thing. I didn’t get the reference. It’s kind of funny, I guess.”
Unlike European nations, where published satire to this day often carries a heavy intellectual tone and poses existential questions of life and death, MAD would hold up a goofy, slightly bent mirror to make fun of serious absurdities in American life. It spoofed the Cold War via a silly cartoon strip titled “Spy vs. Spy,” in which each side would attempt to foil the other, always ending in mutual death.
All the while, we eventually realized, it also was parodying the acronym for nuclear war’s likely outcome of “mutually-assured destruction” or “MAD.”
The magazine’s writers — the “usual gang of idiots each issue noted — made fun of movies, TV shows, political figures, social mores and often touched on subjects not often touched on in regular media, from drug abuse in the military to sexism in the workplace.
In that manner, it led the way for a more topical, edgy style of entertainment linked to the news, from TV’s “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in the 1960s and “Saturday Night Live” beginning in 1975 to The Onion and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” today.
MAD took a baser approach than some. Esquire magazine’s annual “Dubious Achievement Awards,” which began in 1962 and continue to this day, manage to convey a much more sophisticated tone in its photo-and-punch line format, even though a hallmark image was Richard Nixon, mouth agape, with the repeated line, “Why is this man laughing?”
Both magazines managed to transmit the sense to several generations of readers that pomposity deserves to be deflated, the arrogant warrant comeuppance, politicians are not always to be believed — and that it was good to be skeptical, but not so cynical you couldn’t laugh at life.
Once, MAD even helped develop legal precedent: In 1961, music publishers who represented famous songwriters and composers sued MAD for $25 million, claiming copyright infringement — the words were changed, but the parody was to be sung to the tune of the original composition. One example: To the award-winning tune, “The Last Time I Saw Paris”, MAD had rewritten it to poke fun at a baseball player who endorsed razor blades and beer on TV, in “The Last Time I Saw Maris.”
The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals found for the magazine — in Berlin v. EC Publications, Inc. (219 F. Supp. 911, S.D.N.Y., 1963) — setting the precedent that has protected musical parodies since — as long as all or most of the original lyrics are changed.
Still, if we are honest, much of MAD content was just aimed at getting a good guffaw out of its fans. For example, one cartoon series showed two men mocking unseen dogs for barking at passing cars. As I recall, one said something like, “Hey, let’s see what they do with the car if they catch up with it.” Cut to the closing panel, where the other man says, “Well, now we know … so let’s find a car wash.”
I can still hear my fellow fifth-graders roaring with laughter over that one.