All About Newspapers

Not only surviving
but surging newspapers

After all, while word on the street is that newspapers are struggling for survival, here’s a group of newspapers that are not only surviving, but adding facilities, staff and soon, two new publications. Kevin Slimp briefs.

Kevin Slimp works with Amanda Smith-Millar, editor of The Winchester Press, at a training event in Prescott, Ontario.

spent a good bit of my afternoon thinking about the current state of newspapers. In a discussion with a trusted friend and colleague, I once again was challenged to rethink the traditional role newspapers have played and consider a world where most of what we read is provided online by other sources. Then I remembered a group of newspapers based in the small town of Prescott, Ontario. With a decrease in the number of industry-related conferences, I’ve found myself visiting more places like Prescott of late.

You might call Prescott, located about an hour south of Ottawa, the epicenter of a group of community newspapers that serve the towns in that area. That’s where I spent two days with Beth Morris and the staffs of the six newspapers that make up the Morris Group. Three of the papers are paid circulation; three are free.

I had dinner with the staff of the Prescott Journal my first night in Ontario. There was electricity in the air as the group talked about the new equipment waiting in the new building we would occupy for training. New computers, new software and a new press all awaited editors and designers from the six papers the next morning.

When the training was done, I asked Beth Morris if we could discuss her papers. After all, while word on the street is that newspapers are struggling for survival, here’s a group of newspapers that are not only surviving, but adding facilities, staff and soon, two new publications.

Networks wires can be seen as the staffs of newspapers in southern Ontario gather for training. The group trained in their new facility of Prescott Journal and the network wiring had yet to be completed.

Beth shared a very simple vision statement for the Morris Group of newspapers: “A place where people like to work and customers want to support.” She added that a key to a newspaper’s success is its staff. “It’s important to keep an eye toward staff. They all work hard. They know they have secure jobs. There is definitely a team spirit.” She wasn’t blowing smoke. The staff I met in Prescott was, in a word, impressive.

We first discussed the three free papers: The Barrhaven Independent, The Packet (serving South Ottawa) and Business News. I asked about the difference in free and paid newspapers. She noted that both have their place, but she doesn’t see many new paid newspapers in the future. Her two newpapers will be free. Beth emphasized the importance of customer service, which keeps advertisers returning. She noted this was a deciding factor for many advertisers who had several options when it comes to print.

Eventually, I turned the topic to The Manotick Messenger, a paid weekly with a circulation of 1,100. There are two people on staff, with the layout and production done in the Prescott facility.

I asked if it was possible to make a profit with a circulation of 1,100. “At best, it’s break even,” said Beth, “but it’s important to the people.” When pressed she added, “This paper is important to the thousand people who read it. All you have to do is look in the eyes of a parent when a child is in the paper. Then you’ll know why we do this.”

Playing the devil’s advocate, I pressed even further. I wanted to know why she even cared if there was no profit involved. “I care,” she said, “because I’m part of a long chain of newspaper people. It’s like a legacy. I’m not going to be the one to end it.”

If you’ve followed my work very long, you know that I was one of the first voices urging newspapers to resist the temptation to ignore online journalism. And you might know that I speak on topics related to online journalism at schools of journalism and industry-related events on a regular basis. However, it’s people like Beth Morris that give me optimism concerning the future of our business.

Following our earlier conversation, my friend sent the following email: “Don’t take my statements earlier today as my saying that newspapers will vanish. I don’t think that’s the case at all. However, I do believe that in order to maintain survival, both the printed paper and the online presence have to find a way to complement each other.” I think we might have found a point of agreement.

(Kevin Slimp is director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology and technology guru. Read past columns at www.kevinslimp.com. Newspapers can sign up to spend an hour with Kevin during live webinars at www.braincast.biz)

Adobe Soundbooth:
professional quality audio

At heart, I’m a print guy. Sure, I get invited to speak and write on online topics quite a bit, but it’s the written word that I love... written on paper. However, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck and I know the importance of having a website that doesn’t feel as if it was designed by a seventh grader.

Newspapers usually sense the importance of videos, animated ads and headlines on their sites. But they often overlook an important aspect: audio. There are lots of ways to create audio for websites. If you want to get past the sound created using freeware applications or the audio programmes that are built into most computers, consider Adobe Sound booth.

I could create a list of Soundbooth features, but as most of my readers aren’t professional sound engineers, let me keep it simple: audio created in Soundbooth sounds great. Whether you’re improving the sound in a video, creating a podcast or whatever, you’ll feel like you’re working in a professional sound studio when you hear what comes from Soundbooth.

For those audio pros out there, allow me to mention a few features - recording and mixing audio clips: record high-quality mono or stereo audio files, and work on more than one file at a time, match the volume levels within a single clip or across multiple audio files; fast audio cleanup: use powerful, sample-accurate tools to cut, copy, paste, fade, and stretch audio assets, and intuitive on-clip tools make common edits remarkably easy, as well as visual feedback keeps you informed at every step; multitrack support, allowing you to create sounds composed of multiple clips and to mix multiple tracks and scores; speech search: turn spoken dialogue into text-based metadata that makes your video searchable; visual tools for healing sound: use tools like those in Adobe Photoshop software to visually identify, select and remove unwanted sounds.

Combined with my Plantronics 355 multimedia headset and iMac, Soundbooth provides everything I need to create high-quality recordings. Soundbooth is available on both the Mac and PC platforms.