September 19, 2023

Eight additional bipartisan co-sponsors announced for Community News Act

Eight additional legislators — on both sides of the aisle — have signed on as co-sponsors of the Community News & Small Business Support Act (HR 4756). The act was introduced in the 118^th Congress by Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-24) and Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-1), both members of the Ways and Means Committee.

Do you need a hotel room for the America's Newspapers Senior Leadership Conference?

While the deadline has passed to reserve hotel rooms in our block at The Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago, it still may be possible to get a room at the hotel.

Here is the reservations link.

Solution Showcase: Highlighting revenue-producing and expense-saving programs

At the Senior Leadership Conference, attendees will learn the latest revenue-producing and expense-saving programs from the industry’s leading companies. Today, we highlight one of those sessions. Additional sessions will be highlighted in upcoming newsletters.

Solving Today's Newsroom Challenges: Newsday's success story

Join us for an interactive presentation with Jack Millrod, director of editorial technology at Newsday, and Chris Freeman of Atex. Learn how Newsday has overcome newsroom challenges with innovative solutions such as content budgeting, multichannel workflows and visual storytelling tools. We'll discuss how Newsday is able to excel in today's leaner environment and get a preview of their next steps, including the introduction of AI-assisted SEO tools. Discover how to reach and engage audiences in the digital age and get insights that you can apply to your own newsroom.

View the full agenda here

LEARN MORE about the Senior Leadership Conference

Download the agenda for Senior Leadership Conference; it's filled with reasons you should be in Chicago Oct. 8-10

Download the agenda

Newspaper Executives:

Solutions Partners: Register Here

Reserve Your Hotel Room

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

DOWNLOAD THE AGENDA

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

Family and Independent Owners Meeting takes place prior to Senior Leadership Conf.

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

People news

Observer Media Group executive editor, co-owner Lisa Walsh dies at 69

Lisa Walsh was a pillar in the Sarasota-Manatee community; a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, sister and daughter; and the backbone of one of the most successful media companies in Florida.

What we're reading ...

Millions depend on local paper

Nearly 220 million American adults turn to their local newspapers regularly for news and information they need to stay informed, feel more connected to their neighbors and improve their lives and communities.

That readership number is based on a recent national study by independent research firm Coda Ventures for the America’s Newspapers organization.

Most likely, the number of readers is higher. Many people who say they receive news on their phone or from social media instead of newspapers fail to understand the sources for those stories are often journalists at U.S. newspapers. We sometimes take the work of journalists for granted, but those who work at newspapers are filling an important role in the health of our communities and country.

Everyone, even non-readers, benefits from the work of journalists. News coverage has led to improvements in food safety, decreases in traffic and plane fatalities, better care for veterans and nursing home patients, support for victims of natural disasters and exposure of all sorts of wrongdoing.

Editorial: AI wrote this editorial. It offers persuasive arguments for why that’s a bad idea.

Editor’s note (The Post-Dispatch): With artificial intelligence creating such controversy in journalism these days, the Post-Dispatch Editorial Board was curious how Microsoft’s Bing Chat AI program would handle the command, “Write a newspaper editorial arguing that artificial intelligence should not be used in journalism.”

Below is the result, lightly edited for style but otherwise straight from the program.

We found that Bing Chat made lucid and persuasive arguments for keeping AI out of journalism. It’s an ironic and disturbing success to the experiment — but one that we hope will generate discussion among our fellow humans.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful technology that can perform various tasks, such as data analysis, image recognition, natural language processing, and more. AI has been used in many fields, such as medicine, education, entertainment, and even journalism.

However, while AI may have some benefits, it also poses serious threats to the quality, integrity, and ethics of journalism. In this editorial, I will argue that AI should not be used in journalism, and that human journalists should remain the primary source of news and information.

America's Newspapers calendar

October 6-7 - Family and Independent Owners Meeting, Chicago, Illinois

October 8-10 - Senior Leadership Conference, Chicago, Illinois

April 14-16, 2024 - News Industry Mega-Conference, Phoenix, Arizona

Get Involved. Be Heard. Invest In Your Future.

Keep up with the latest news, schedule of upcoming events and other information specifically for the newspaper industry. Learn more about America’s Newspapers at www.newspapers.org. And connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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