NAA'S 1998 CONFAB PROVIDES A SURPRISE: TEXAS-SIZE INTEREST

Publishers gather to assess their industry, and soak up self-criticism

DALLAS – A fellow traveler in the art of media coverage was chatting with me in a slow-moving elevator at the Wyndham Anatole Hotel.

"Boy, this convention is dull and boring," he said. I was taken aback. "Do you go to conferences very often?" I asked. He acknowledged he didn't. "Compared to most of the conferences I attend, this is a barn-burner," I said.

The Newspaper Association of America's 1998 annual convention, with more than 1200 in attendance here April 19-22, was jam-packed with ideas.

It wasn't all work. The opening night reception, held at the Texas Stadium (home of the Dallas Cowboys), gave newspaper publishers the opportunity to kick field goals, while one session was devoted to cartoonist Scott Adams talking about his popular strip, Dilbert. ("I got a call from an editor at United Media offering me a job, and since I never had heard of United Media, I thought I should get some references. She listed Peanuts, Marmaduke, Nancy ... when she got to the 12th name on the list, I realized my negotiating position had been compromised," Adams said).

Probably the meatiest session was a panel discussion on the Kerner Commission Report, which touched on some of the controversy in the industry about the progress newspapers have made in hiring people of color and providing minority coverage in the news report.

The Kerner Commission, chartered to uncover the issues behind the urban unrest of the summer of 1968, determined that the news media's inability to understand minority communities came in large part because newsrooms were composed almost exclusively of white males. It encouraged the newspaper industry specifically to hire more reporters and editors of color, in order to more accurately reflect the composition of a given community.

Chuck Stone, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a longtime editor in the black press as well as an editor and columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, told the crowd that there has been social progress, with 25 percent of African-American families currently living in the suburbs.

Saying that newspapers today have "assiduously tried to be fair," Stone complemented one: "USA Today has been far and away the best."

Gregory Favre, executive editor of the Sacramento Bee, spoke eloquently. "The words of the Kerner Commission 30 years ago were like a rope of thorns wrapped around our soul, and many of the wounds still remain." After 30 years, he said, "to say that we've progressed as far as we should have and as we should in the future would be wrong."

Stone, Favre and moderator John Dotson Jr., president and publisher of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, chatted about the issues. To a question from the floor to Dotson, asking how to get more positive aspects of the minority community covered, he replied, "It's important for people who report from the minority communities to create stories that are just too good to leave out of the paper. It is a skill to promote stories that editors want to get into the paper."

More coverage of the NAA conference and the concurrent Associated Press annual meeting is inside. Also inside, Senior Editor Pete Wetmore delves into the tight job market – tight for newspapers looking for copy editors, computer people and graphic artists. He takes the papers in the state of Ohio and uses them as a mini-universe of what's happening around the industry.

Then Wetmore looks at the newly formed Classified Ventures Inc. Isn't it just like the ill-fated New Century Network? Not only does Wetmore find that its organizational structure will prevent a similar demise, we heard rumblings here that Classified Ventures is in for a major expansion soon.

Lastly, we have the first round of industry earnings; next time we'll analyze the first-quarter numbers.

Maybe it's the state of the newspaper business that made this NAA convention so exciting.

– David M. Cole

Inside ...

• NAA attendees hear from a jobless Cox and a puzzled Willes
• The Associated Press reports revenues up and losses reduced
• In Ohio, newspapers respond to a tight job market
• An on-line classifieds newcomer says it won't be another NCN
• First-quarter earnings reports are rosy
• A proposed protocol might help resolve workflow issues
• Persons

From NEWSINC., April 27, 1998, Copyright © 1998, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.