Volume 27 – Number 2 An information publication of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, Brookings, SD July/August 2013

Members of the South Dakota and North Dakota Newspaper Associations pose

for the “money shot” on the veranda at Mt. Rushmore during the fi rst-ever joint

convention of the two associations in April. See SDNA’s Facebook page for more

convention photos. More than 225 South Dakota and North Dakota newspaper

journalists attended the two-day event, which culminated with a dinner and program

at Mt. Rushmore. The convention was the result of a joint meeting of the two

state association boards three years ago. SDNA and NDNA will meet again jointly

in 2015 in Bismarck. (Photo by Jeremy Waltner, Freeman Courier)

by Ed Henninger,Design Consultant,

Henninger Consulting

It’s amazing what we can learn over the course of a career. So many people have taught me so much. And then, there are the many things I’ve learned by observing newspaper people at work.

In more than 45 years in newspapering, one of the most important things I’ve learned: Small newspapers are a gift. But the real gift is the people who work at those newspapers.

Here’s why:The folks who work at small newspapers

live in the town. Many of them grew up there. They go to church there. They shop there. Their kids go to school there. They know who’s who and who would-like-to-be-but-isn’t.

You’ll not fi nd harder workers than those who work at small newspapers. They put in long hours and rarely (if ever) complain, they’ll visit an advertiser before sunrise and they’ll report on those high school football games that run into double-overtime...at an opponent’s stadium 28 miles away.

They try to improve with every issue. If they hear about a better way to do things, whether i t ’s new sof tware , digital photography, the web—whatever—most are willing to give the new technology a shot. Granted, some are old dogs. But even they are willing to learn new tricks.

They have the best interests of the newspaper—and the town—at heart. They want to see both succeed and fl ourish and they are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

They are boosters. They will offer a balanced report on how things are going in town. They’ll tell the bad along with the good, but they look for the good and they focus on that because they fi rmly believe the town itself is a good place to live and work.

They are courageous. When that diffi cult story comes along, the one where they must hold up a mirror to the town and point out an ugly spot, they’re not afraid to tell the unvarnished truth. And they do that because they know that the truth is what makes the town and its people stronger.

They lead. Perhaps the town needs a nudge in the right direction.

There’s a chance for growth—if the people are willing to take it. The publisher and editor will take up the cause and help to generate the momentum needed for positive change.

They appreciate core values. They’re too busy for offi ce politics and they really don’t care for the gossip and back-biting that goes on at larger newspapers. They have no desire to go write for The New York Times or The Washington Post because they realize they are making a positive difference right where they are.

They treat each other like family. From the publisher on down, everyone on the staff at a small newspaper is “family.” They know each other’s kids. They talk about the things that bring them together. They trust each other. And when one of them is hurting, they care for each other.

Small newspapers are part of the lifeblood of their town. Whether it’s a report on a hotly-argued county tax increase or a few sentences about a party for a bride-to-be, the people at a small newspaper take the time to get all the facts and fi gures correct, and all the names of the partygoers right. And...they work hard to give advertisers the

service and support they need to be successful.

A town without the bright, dedicated people who work at a small newspaper is a town that struggles.

W A N T A F R E E e v a l u a t i o n o f y o u r newspaper ’s design? Just contact Ed: edh@henningerconsulting.com | 803-327-3322.

Newspapers: A gift to the community

The National Newspaper Association greeted a comprehensive bill to reform the US Postal Service as a welcome step toward new legislation.

Merle Baranczyk, NNA president and publisher of the Salida (Colo.) Mountain-Mail, said NNA hoped Congress would complete work on a bill this year to avoid disruption in the mail and the threat of substantial postage rates increases.

“We appreciate the leadership of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in pulling together a legislative package that reaches out to all postal stakeholders. It is a daunting job to reform an organization with 490,000 employees and underpinning more than $1 trillion in private sector economic activity. More importantly to community newspapers, it provides the network we count on to deliver the news,” Baranczyk said.

The bill would prompt numerous changes in the way USPS operates, including:

•Gradually end “to the door” mail delivery and replace it with cluster or curbside boxes;

•End Saturday delivery of newspapers,

NNA welcomes next step in postal reform

(Continued to page 4)

2 • July/August 2013 South Dakota Newspapers

(USPS Permit #003537)

© Copyright 2013

By South Dakota Newspaper Association

David C. Bordewyk ....... Publisher/Editor Sandy DeBeer .............. Pagination

Published bi-monthly by South Dakota Newspaper Association, 1125 32nd Ave., Brookings, SD 57006, and at additional offi ceTelephone: 800-658-3697Periodicals Class Postage paid at Brookings, SD 57006

Subscription price: $15 per year.

SDNA Offi cers

PresidentSteve Baker / Capital Journal, Pierre

First Vice PresidentPaul Buum / Alcester Union & Hudsonite

Second Vice PresidentJohn Suhr / Reporter & Farmer, Webster

Third Vice PresidentJanet Kittelson / Miller Press

At-large DirectorRandell Beck / Argus Leader Media, Sioux Falls

At-large DirectorBecky Tycz / Scotland Journal, Tyndall Tribune & Springfi eld Times

Past PresidentCharley Najacht / Custer County Chronicle, Hill City Prevailer & Winner Advocate

SDNA StaffDavid C. Bordewyk / General ManagerCherie Jensen / Assistant ManagerJohn Brooks / Advertising Sales ManagerSandy DeBeer Advertising AssistantDarla McCullough / Advertising AssistantPat Leary / Tearsheeting

SOUTH DAKOTA NEWSPAPERS is the offi cial trade publication for the South Dakota Newspaper Association, representing daily and weekly newspapers in the state.

Postmaster: Send change of address to South Dakota Newspaper Association, 1125 32nd Ave., Brookings, SD 57006

Presidential PerspectivesSteve BakerPresident / SDNACapital Journal, Pierre

We are hosting a member meeting Aug. 21 at the SDNA office to plan for the fi rst-ever “Public Notices in Newspapers” month in October. Throughout the month of October, SDNA and member newspapers will be highlighting the important role that public notices play in our everyday lives.

We hope you can make it to the Aug. 21 planning meeting. Look for more details coming about that meeting. All members are invited to attend. Let’s make October a great month to tell the story about the importance of public notices published in South Dakota newspapers.

■ Online contest platform

We are f ina l i z ing a con t rac t w i th I l l i no i s Press Association to use their online platform for next year’s SDNA Better Newspapers Contest. If all goes as plan, this December when the call for entries in our contest begins, member newspapers will submit most of their entries online in a pdf fi le format. A few categories such as general excellence will still be entered by submitting the printed paper version of the entire newspaper.

S D N A h a s b e e n researching the move to an online contest platform much of this summer. Many state a s s o c i a t i o n s h a v e already made the move. We hear from more and more members, some of whom are already entering other contests via an online platform, about when SDNA will make the move.

It looks like this coming year’s contest will be the time for us to make switch. Illinois Press Association last year developed its own online platform after looking at other vendors. They decided they could build a platform that would suit their own needs better. We have looked at it and also like it.

No doubt there will be some glitches and questions along the way as we make this transition. However, we are doing all

we can to make the transition as smooth as possible and assist member newspapers with any questions or problems that may occur.

Perhaps the best thing about moving to an online contest platform? No more lost entries in the mail.

For now, be thinking about the various pdf fi les you will want to save for entry in the upcoming SDNA Better Newspapers Contest.

Look for more information coming from SDNA this fall.

■ Exceeded expectations

The SDNA Basic Journalism Skills Workshop in July was a hit.

For proof, here is a response from one of the 30 participants when asked in a follow-up survey what she thought of the workshop: “This was a great workshop and my takeaway far exceeded my expectations.

Don’t be so wordy and get story ideas f rom (new or overlooked) locations; work in modular designs and use white space as a design element of the page; get close to your photo subject and use the rule of thirds; social media is another venue to connect with your readers. I feel I’m a much more competent journalist now and feel my paper will be greatly improved because of this training.”

Or, how abou t t h i s response: “Yes it was very worthwhile! I can’t pick which were best because I liked them all. I almost felt guilty getting to be there when some of my co-workers were stuck “back at the offi ce” getting the paper out.”

Look for more basic skills workshops in the future. In fact, we are working on one

right now that will focus on advertising sales for community newspapers.

■ SDNA building

I t was enjoyable and gratifying to host the two-day workshop at the SDNA offi ce. Gratifying because we were able to host our own meeting

in our own building. Gratifying because of the vision, generosity and work of so many SDNA members who helped make the SDNA offi ce building come to be.

Hosting this meeting in our own building helped us save money that otherwise would have been needed for meeting room rent and much higher costs for food and beverages. Savings that allowed us to invest more in programming and speakers. And, as the follow-up surveys showed, the investment paid off.

Celebrating public notices in October

It’s the rumor that just won’t go away: “Newspapers are dying.”

We heard it fi rst on radio, then on TV. Now we read it on the Internet.

But it couldn’t be further from the truth. It is true industry-wide that circulation

has declined, but that hasn’t changed the fact that newspapers are still one of the main places people go to fi nd out what is happening in their communities. Contrary to what you may have heard, many community newspapers are actually on a climb upward in both circulation and employees.

Newspapers have had to adjust to the economy and changing readership habits, but we are a long way from dead and another batch of recently released statistics confi rms that.

A study from consultants McKinsey and Company found that when you measure the

amount of time people spend with a news source, rather than how many people view it, digital platforms are netting only 8 percent of the attention.

In contrast, newspapers account for 35 percent of the news consumption, while television takes 41 percent and radio another 16.

That essentially means people may quickly glance at news online or through

their smartphones, but when they really want to catch up on what’s happening, they will sit down with a newspaper or other legacy media for much longer periods of time.

All of these “legacy media platforms” that are supposedly in a downward spiral are proving they are actually on top in more ways the one.

What I’m fi nding is that younger people tend to gravitate toward technology in many aspects of their lives, including finding news. However, as they age they tend to make a move toward a more local and proven news source, often their newspaper.

I’ve even seen this change in my son. He was never an avid newspaper reader and certainly not a subscriber in college. But a few weeks ago, during a trip to visit him, his wife and new baby, I noticed he was now a

subscriber to his area daily newspaper.It may take a couple decades, but people

continue to support their local news sources. In some cases it appears that they grow into being newspaper readers the way they grow into citizenship.

At the same time, many newspapers are adjusting to digital platforms.

At the Capital Journal, we post nearly everything you find in the paper to our website, including additional items that couldn’t fit on the printed page, or the “extras,” such as videos.

As much as things change, the proven strength of newspapers has not.

Steve Baker is publisher of the Capital Journal. Reach him at steve.baker@capjournal.com.

Don’t believe the rumors: Newspapers thriving

Manager’s MessageDavid BordewykSDNA General Manager

PUBLIC NOTICES

IN THE NE W S PAPER

PUBLIC NOTICES

IN THE NE W S PAPER

SDNA is developing a “VIP: All Access Pass” theme for our

statewide public notices campaign this fall. Public notices are VIP:

Verifi able, Independent & Permanent. As well as Very Important

to the Public. SDNA members are invited to attend an Aug. 21

meeting at the SDNA offi ce to help plan for the October public

notices observance.

July/August 2013 • 3South Dakota Newspapers

Back to the basics in journalism

Thirty newspaper editors and

reporters from across the state

attended the SDNA Basic Journalism

Skills Workshop July 17-18 at the

SDNA offi ce.

LEFT: Del Bartels of The Pioneer

Review at Philip and Ross DuBray

of West River Eagle at Eagle Butte

listen as Amanda Fanger of Reporter

& Farmer at Webster demonstrates an

editing technique on her laptop.

MIDDLE: The SDNA meeting room

was at capacity with journalists

attending the two-day workshop that

focused on writing, reporting, design,

photography and digital media skills.

BOTTOM LEFT: Jeremy Waltner

of Freeman Courier goes one-on-one

with a participant during his session

on photography.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Ed Henninger

leads an afternoon session on basics

in newspaper design and layout.

4 • July/August 2013 South Dakota Newspapers

Kevin SlimpDirector, Institute of Newspaper Technologykevin@kevinslimp.com

QA

People seem to have a lot of questions concerning layout software these days. I suppose it’s only natural with all the changes at Adobe and Quark. Let’s look in my in-box and see what’s on people’s minds this month:

From Beverly in NebraskaThanks for your input on the Adobe Creative Cloud issue. It causes me to

wonder if there is any open source page layout software out there?

That’s a good question, Beverly. For those not familiar with the term, open source software is free. You

may have used OpenOffi ce or some other free application that fi ts under the open source heading. There’s one often-referred to application called Scribus that is used for page design. Unfortunately, as good as it is, it’s not nearly good enough for professional designers. With the type of pressure newspapers work under, dealing with quirks in applications and tools that just “don’t work right” aren’t luxuries we can afford.

Q

A

From John in New YorkKevin,Looking for your expert opinion. We publish six community papers and use

Creator for ad design and InDesign for pagination. Every time we hire someone, we have to train them in Creator. We’ve noticed that most are already experienced in InDesign. Are most newspapers staying with Creator or using Adobe suite for everything? Curious your thoughts...also we use word for our reporters - would you recommend InCopy? Thanks for your thoughts.

That’s an easy one, John.The majority of newspapers, large and small, use Adobe products to

do the bulk of their pre-press production. I love Creator. I always have. But it’s too easy to design ads in InDesign, with the help of Illustrator and Photoshop. Many larger newspapers keep Creator on one machine to deal with legacy ads and I’m sure there are a few papers out there that still do the bulk of their ad design in Creator. If it were my paper, I’d move the creative folks to InDesign and leave Creator on one machine to deal with legacy ads.

Q

A

From Mary in IowaHi Kevin. I am wondering if you might be able to help. We are in the process

of converting fi les from QuarkXPress to InDesign. Our editorial department has created templates for QuarkXPress, which we were able to convert to InDesign. The style sheets converted as well. What about libraries? Is it possible to convert Quark libraries to InDesign?

That’s a question for the ages, Mary. Unless there’s been a new plug-in created that I haven’t heard of - and

a Google search doesn’t lead to one - there’s never been an automatic way to convert QuarkXPress libraries to InDesign libraries.

I’ve visited a lot of newspapers to help them convert from QuarkXPress to InDesign over the years. Here’s the easiest solution I’ve found: Create a large document in Quark and drag each item from your library onto a page. Afterwards, save the QuarkXPress fi le and open it in InDesign. I would suggest you use Q2ID, a plug-in from Markzware, to make this happen.

Q

A

From Clay in ArkansasHey Kevin, We have been saving our photos at 300 dpi. We use Kodak

equipment, going straight from computer to plate on a chemical-free processor. We’ve been told that we should save everything at 1200 dpi. Isn’t that a bit much?

Indeed it is, Clay.I feel certain your sources were describing the resolution in dots per

inch, which is different than the resolutions used to measure photos. Photos, monitors and cameras, as well as many other devices, are measured in pixels per inch. A newspaper photo should generally be saved at a resolution in the 170-220 range. 200 seems to be the most common setting I see when I visit papers.

It may be tempting to save photos at a higher resolution, but that will actually decrease the quality of the printed photo. When resolution goes up, dot gain goes down. That causes darker, muddier pictures on newsprint.

And fi nally, a note to my readers using QuarkXPress. After a conversation I had with two Quark executives last month, I’m relatively certain Quark will be moving to a leasing model, much like Adobe, in the near future.

And for those of you subscribing to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, I hope you remembered to take advantage of their introductory pricing that ended July 31.

Layout software questions answered First-Class mail and advertising but continue

package delivery and would require opening rural mailboxes for publishers’ use on Saturdays;

•Prohibit no-layoff clauses in new workforce agreements and reform workers compensation rules;

•Ban Negotiated Service Agreements that would cause “unreasonable disruption of the marketplace; and

•Mandate 2 percent annual increases above inflation for mail currently not covering at least 90 percent of costs, such as Periodicals, but only after adjustments have been made for costs created solely by excess postal capacity.

•NNA Postal Committee Chairman Max Heath said the Issa bill is a welcome catalyst toward postal reform.

“This bill is a stronger piece of legislation than the one marked up in the House last Congress, and we welcome the progress. The enormity of what must be done to save universal service and keep the Postal Service running is not lost on any of us. Everyone is going to be affected. In fact, newspapers have already been deeply affected. We are looking for legislation that helps USPS management get costs under control without destroying service, and that is a very tall order. We also recognize that Congress has to stop the federal government from

spending postage money that may not have been rightly put into some of the workforce funds, and Chairman Issa is taking some steps in that direction. There are still some major concerns that our Postal Committee will be raising after we examine the bill more closely,” he said.

NNA has long expressed concern about the effect upon weekend newspapers if Saturday delivery ends. In addition, it has objected to the Postal Service’s direct interference in the local advertising marketplace and is a party in a federal court proceeding challenging discounted rates offered by USPS to Valassis, Inc.

“We appreciate Congressman Issa’s recognition that the Negotiated Service Agreement can be a disruption to the marketplace,” Baranczyk said. “That is an important step in getting to fairness while also permitting the Postal Service to support new business lines. I think we will have more work ahead of us in this area before we arrive at rules we consider fair. We are gratifi ed to have had a role in shaping this bill so far, including the new mailbox access. Our board, composed of community newspaper publishers around the nation, is looking forward to productive conversations with Congressional leadership this year. This is the time to get a law passed.”

Postal reform (Continued from page 1)

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