The cutoff for reserving hotel rooms in our room block for the Senior Leadership Conference is 5 p.m. (Central time) TODAY. 

Rooms may be difficult to reserve after today due to the Chicago Marathon. 

If you have not reserved your room yet, please do so now at this link.

The agenda for the America's Newspapers Senior Leadership Conference, which is just three weeks away, is filled with reasons you should register to attend. The conference will be held Oct. 8-10 in Chicago.

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In addition to networking opportunities with your industry colleagues as well as hallway and dinner conversations, here's what you will miss if you aren't with us for the Senior Leadership Conference:

Advocacy in Action: Strategies for Success

This session will focus on the critical issues impacting advocacy efforts and what publishers should do to improve the chances for success. Attendees will come away with powerful information to help them make local decisions and a road map on how to build relationships with legislators and readers for success.

Medill Local News Accelerator:

Spurring innovation and improving sustainability of Chicago news organizations

Learn how partnerships between one of America’s leading journalism schools and five Chicago-area news organizations are yielding encouraging new performance outcomes in the key areas of research and insights, content strategy, business strategy, product design and leadership development. You’ll hear from Mackenzie Warren, a longtime news executive at Gannett who now leads Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Accelerator. He’ll be joined by leaders from La Raza, which has served Hispanic Chicagoans for 53 years, and the Daily Herald, whose history in the region stretches back almost to the time of Abraham Lincoln.

Revenue 2024

This fast-paced session will feature some of the industry’s leading voices discussing the hottest issues and opportunities in revenue management, development and diversification opportunities, including events, digital revenue, sales training & recruitment and more.

Content 2024

Editorial leaders from across the industry will discuss the hottest issues and opportunities in building strong local news products in the coming year, including digital content, diversity, trust in media, revenue-producing content and more.

Generative AI: The latest innovations and setting guidelines to maintain trust with sources and readers.

Local news publishers need to push through the hype and the fear and realize they have NO choice but to think about generative AI now. This session will highlight the latest innovations in AI and, most critically, the need for publishers to set clear guidelines for use to maintain trust with their sources and audiences.

Legal Impacts of Generative AI on the Newspaper Industry

This session will focus on the basics and the risks and benefits of generative AI, and emerging legal issues.

What’s Next for AI?

The expert panel of specialists leads this open discussion on the future opportunities and challenges AI will bring to local newspapers.

Solution Showcase

Six fast-paced Solution Showcases will highlight solutions that are positively impacting newspaper organizations – success stories with real-results!

View the full agenda here

LEARN MORE about the Senior Leadership Conference

The Family & Independent Owners meeting is a unique opportunity to gather and collaborate with other newspaper families that have similar business organizations, challenges and opportunities.

The Family & Independent Owners meeting is about sharing experiences and learning from other organizations like yours. In Chicago we’ll hear directly from executives at several family owned operations who will share their stories on how they’re making it work, their unique structures and the communities they serve, and their plans for the future, including:

Diversifying business plans

Structures with family and non-family owners

Revenue strategies and successes

And more!

LEARN MORE and REGISTER

Borrell forecasts ‘healthy’ 4.4% growth in local advertising for 2024

U.S. local advertising will grow a healthy 4.4% in 2024, to $157.1 billion, according to Borrell Associates. While demand for digital formats drive much of the growth, Borrell also noted that traditional forms of media appear to be stabilizing.

Borrell will outline its full forecasts during a webinar Thursday, Sept. 21, at 1 p.m. Eastern. You can register here.

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Atlanta news outlet aims for half a million digital subscribers in under four years

The leader of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wants to increase the publication’s digital subscribers more than eightfold by the end of 2026, an ambitious goal he aims to reach through expanded local-news coverage and new products.

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Shaw Media continues investing in local journalism, announces key editorial leadership hires

Two former Chicago Tribune editors will join Shaw Media in prime leadership roles for the company’s Northern Illinois news operation.

Diana Wallace, a former senior content editor, and Mark Hume, a former deputy senior content editor, joined Shaw Media on Sept. 11. Wallace took over as editor of The Northwest Herald, and Hume stated as the West Suburban Editor — a new position overseeing a group of Shaw newspapers and websites covering key markets in Northern Illinois.

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West Virginia Press Association names director

The next executive director has been named for the West Virginia Press Association.

Betsy Miles has been assistant executive director and advertising director at the press association since 2018 after serving as the association’s accountant since 2012.

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