INDUSTRY TAKES A CLOSE LOOK AT ITSELF AND THE FUTURE

Newspapers 2000 draws a heady mix of suppliers and key executives

SAN FRANCISCO – If there is a heaven-on-earth for newspaper junkies, it was here in mid-June. The Newspaper Association of America dubbed it "Newspapers 2000" and there very well may have been 2000 individual sessions, though I may be exaggerating.

For this year, the NAA elected to combine its popular NEXPO newspaper equipment exposition and conference with its popular Connections new media meeting, as well as the meetings of its Classified and Co-Op and Marketing federations. Sessions and exhibits were scheduled concurrently and sequentially over six days, June 15-20.

Adding to the hubbub, each of the federations had its own trade show attached to its conference. Everywhere you looked, you saw exhibit booths. (This caused consternation among some of the suppliers – for example, they wanted to exhibit at both NEXPO and Connections, and had trouble staffing two booths adequately.)

Although attendance was not up to expectations (the unofficial count was somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000), the trade show floors were full almost all the time and the conference sessions were well attended (some were standing room only).

What came of this great meeting of the newspaper minds? There was a lot of cheerleading, but there was soul-searching as well. Newspapers finally are beginning to understand that the way our fathers and grandfathers ran the business won't work in the 21st century. Newspapers must evolve before they die.

The first step in this evolution, it seems to me, is one of acknowledging that profits will come from growth and not from cutting or budgetary restraints. There was a lot of talk about how to increase revenues and not as much talk about how to save money. Such is the thinking in an era of relatively flush times.

There was a lot of talk about where the newspaper resides in the community's heart and mind, and how new media – be it the Internet, or cell phones and other wireless devices – may change the paper's relationship with its readers and customers. Nonetheless, nobody seemed averse to hearing a little bit about how to make the operation more efficient, or how to automate this task or that.

It would be difficult – nay, impossible – to capture all the details of Newspapers 2000 within the confines of our humble little newsletter here. But we can capture the essence, and that's what we've tried to do.

Senior Editor Pete Wetmore and Senior Correspondent Julius Duscha handled the Classified and Co-Op and Marketing federation meetings, while Senior Correspondent L. Carol Christopher took on the Connections event. (NEXPO, with its heavy tilt toward the toys, is the purview of our sibling publication, The Cole Papers; you can read all about the NEXPO antics in the July and August issues.)

We hope the NAA will put these meetings together again in the future; peering into our crystal ball, we suggest 2004. There were cries from smaller publishers that the combined events drained their operations of all their executives, but that is a management issue at the local level. Adding to that the complaints of the suppliers, and that attendance may not have met the organization's expectations, there's probably a movement afoot to curtail such combinations.

While those concerns are all valid, the dynamics of having so many newspaper people from so many disciplines in one place at one time is of great benefit to the industry.

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Housekeeping note: You'll see – on this page even – that we're instituting a policy of publishing the e-mail address of the writers at the end of their articles after their names. This is something we should have done months (if not years) ago, and we apologize for being so tardy.

Should you wish to comment about anything in NewsInc., please don't hesitate to contact the writers, or me.

-- David M. Cole, e-mail: dmc@newsinc.net

Inside ...

• New on-line, wireless opportunities depend on local franchise
• Market research crucial to Tacoma, Wash., News-Tribune redesign
• Wireless poses newest challenge to papers; partnering is key
• U.S. Census Bureau plans to roll out tools and information
• Wireless puts papers in costly position
• Persons

From NEWSINC., July 3, 2000, Copyright © 2000, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.