Matters of State

Matters of State

State Press Associations Can Serve as Valuable Resources for NIE and Student Journalism

By Don Williamson

It’s lonely out there for most NIE professionals and youth section editors. In many cases, their “department” consists of one person. That person may even be part-time or have other job responsibilities like leading newspaper tours or copy editing. Fortunately, some state press associations offer incredibly valued assistance, including affordable curriculum and serials stories to build readership, or showing ways how to better connect with young people. The positive examples are out there–but are other states paying attention?

Dawn Kitchell knows that lonely feeling.

About four years ago, she moved from the sizeable Tulsa World to the twice-weekly Washington Missourian, to help with their NIE program.

“I looked around for resources on the state level and found there was no statewide support or communication,” she says.

Kitchell then did what seems to be a key in getting the backing of state publishers associations. She took her case for a statewide NIE coordinator to Bill Miller, publisher of the Washington Missourian where she worked. Miller liked the concept and, as luck would have it, was about to become head of the state publishers association board of directors.

In talking with NIE coordinators around the country, several note that publishers often want a project to push during their tenure as head of their state organizations, and NIE is a proven commodity that’s hard to argue against.

“He needed to generate excitement among the publishers and he did just that, taking the lead and selling the idea,” says Kitchell. “He got it approved, and I was hired as the NIE state coordinator three years ago last April.”

Today, NIE departments at Missouri daily–and weekly–newspapers have new curriculum, serial stories and summer teacher workshops, all at a nominal cost.

Statewide NIE coordinators and committees and hybrids of the two can be real solutions to growing concerns about getting the important work of NIE accomplished, especially at smaller newspapers with less available personnel or resources.

And with nationwide NIE circulation hovering around 2.5 percent of total circulation, such “solutions” can mean large jumps in readership.

Similarly, youth sections build readership, attracting younger–and older–readers to newspapers. Creating youth sections, printing articles by young writers and running workshops all serve as important steps in attracting and inspiring a new generation of newspaper readers and professionals.

Also similarly, state publisher associations can and do make a difference in the quality of programs overseen by youth editors.

“In February, we held a roundtable to trade ideas and develop materials to help our member papers reach the young adult market,” says Connie McNamara, foundation director for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. “We learned to create designs geared toward young readers, not to write down to them and to do audits of our papers to see how many young people are reflected in our pages.

“Our role as a state association is to help newspapers reach the next generation of readers,” says McNamara.

“The reality is that this is an area of concern for all of our 300 members.”

A Shallow Playing Field

Most NIE professionals agree that the best scenario would be a statewide coordinator who is employed by a state publishers association and has access to the association’s professional staff. Even those who prefer the autonomy of a separate state NIE committee acknowledge that it is hard to get the job done with an all-volunteer force and no money.

Very few states have an NIE coordinator. New York and North Carolina have full-time coordinators. Missouri has a part-timer. Susan Morgan, the long-time coordinator in Pennsylvania, retired earlier this year. The Florida Press Association recently allocated funds for a part-time NIE coordinator who is expected to be on the job within the next three months, according to association president and CEO, Dean Ridings.

“As an association we can accomplish more at the state level than any one paper could do individually,” says Ridings, whose association also supports student journalism. “At a conference of 1,100 high schools, we observed that most of the students are broadcast oriented. Next year, we’re going to have exhibits to let youngsters know that newspapers offer vibrant and important careers for them.”

California has a separate state NIE committee that is a volunteer effort in search of greater collaboration with the state press association. NIE committees in Virginia and Texas are currently gathering information to present separate cases to their respective state publisher associations for paid, statewide coordinators. Massachusetts has an NIE council that gets some funding from the publishers association, but they struggle, as most volunteer groups do.

NIE state committees range from strong to anemic, and all have the problem of staffing and limited resources. Then there are the states that have no viable organized effort, where smaller newspapers suffer most.

“There was a statewide NIE organization in the ’80s, but it fell apart in the ’90s,” says Mary Miller, NIE coordinator for the New York Newspaper Publishers Association in Albany. “Some of the coordinators in the state who knew each other from going to conferences wound up putting together a proposal for the publishers to fund a statewide coordinator’s position.”

It didn’t take long for the publishers to say yes. “They made it work within the association budget, with no additional assessment on the membership,” Miller says. “In fact, I’m told that one of the publishers on the association board of directors asked why this position hadn’t been created sooner.”

Miller was hired and given an out-of-date list of state NIE coordinators that she proceeded to update and visit. She turned the search committee that hired her into a steering committee because there is no formal statewide NIE organization.

Miller regularly sends her job description to NIE coordinators in other states who are considering approaching their respective publishers associations about funding a position. Her duties include:

• planning and managing annual NIE training;
• visiting and consulting with member papers;
• assessing needs for curriculum and special projects;
• acting as a liaison to the state education department and statewide professional teaching organizations;
• maintaining the NIE web presence for NYNPA;
• conducting evaluation programs;
• publishing a member newsletter;
• maintaining a record of NIE donations made through the New York Newspapers Foundation.

Most of the papers Miller deals with are under 50,000 circulation. She does not, however, work with weekly papers, which are the bulk of the papers in the state. New York is one of the few states with separate publisher associations–one for the dailies and one for the weeklies.

Staying Small

It does not take the most populated of states to set the best example, however. When it comes to supporting student journalism, the South Dakota Newspaper Association has created a program that other states could seemingly replicate.

“We offer scholarships to high school journalism teachers and newspaper advisers during the summer on the campus of South Dakota State University,” says Dave Bordewyk, general manager of SDNA. “The college also conducts camps for students and teachers, and we make tuition money available.”

The association is also co-sponsor of a two-day journalism camp held in the Black Hills of South Dakota for Native Americans, who are the largest ethnic minority in the state and the most underrepresented group in U.S. newsrooms. The SDNA works with 100 Native American high school students and tribal college students each year at the University of South Dakota and South Dakota State University.

Bordewyk says that this is the fifth year of this highly successful camp and the 15th year of the association’s college intern program. The interns are hired to cover the state legislature. The students work for the entire two-month session program and provide stories that are carried by member newspapers. Another program the association sponsors is providing awards at the statewide high school journalism day.

“Now we’re seeing students who were in high school or college who went through these programs and are now in newspaper internships. It’s paying off in the ways we hoped,” says Bordewyk. “If we didn’t do these things as an association, no one else would. We have to be proactive by providing information and opportunities.”

One of the problems in some states is that many regional organizations have cropped up over the years that there is little coordination or communication. In Illinois, efforts are underway to correct that situation.

“There are several regional organizations throughout the state in the north, in the south. Some are affiliated with universities. Some aren’t,” says Nancy Bohl, foundation manager of the Illinois Press Association. “We envision an umbrella group that could provide administrative help and serve as a clearing house for all the various groups to coordinate programs and logistical support.”

To create more recognition of journalism among high school students, IPA has collaborated with the Illinois Journalism Education Association and the Illinois High School Scholastic Association to create a higher profile for high school journalism activities.

“Our latest accomplishment is to work with the IHSSA to sponsor a series of statewide regional journalism contests that would lead to a state finals competition,” says James Tidwell, executive secretary of IJEA and a journalism professor at Eastern Illinois University. “It will start in 2006 and be a major boost to our efforts to stimulate young journalists.”

The contest and the proposed umbrella organization are parts of a longer range strategy for better statewide coordination.

“We’ve been trying for several years to bring groups together. From time to time, we had meetings but were never able to take the next step,” says Bohl. “Now with the contest, it’s a good time to make it happen and see what we can do. We also offer a two-week, all-paid, high school journalism workshop each summer for 16 students interested in journalism. We target minority youngsters and have been sponsoring this workshop for more than 10 years.”

It seems to be a natural fit for state publishers associations to be in the forefront of student journalism activities and efforts to attract younger readers. The key is recognizing existing opportunities, putting together a cohesive plan and presenting it to the state publishers association for an NIE coordinator or help with youth editor-related projects. But even if no permanent, paid position is forthcoming, an ongoing working relationship with the state publishers association is the best line of defense and support.

NIE by Committee

There are numerous examples of statewide NIE committees that try to coordinate activities and materials for their members. All are volunteer operations and most would prefer to have their respective state publishers associations fund a statewide coordinator.

The Massachusetts NIE Council is 20 years old. It gets some contributions from the state publishers association and meets monthly to create direction for the group and design curriculum guides and tabs.

Lisa Morrissey, co-chair of the council and education services coordinator for the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, says that smaller papers really benefit from this approach.

“It allows them to obtain materials more affordably,” she says. “We also offer workshops and conferences and operate with elected volunteer members.

Morrissey believes that some type of statewide organization is necessary, not only because of limited resources, but because of the nature of NIE itself.

“NIE can be like a cloud hanging over you if no one else at the newspaper understands what it is you do. It’s important to create lines of communication and a place people can turn to for support,” says Morrissey. “We work with different state organizations and work to generate sponsorships for various projects to defray costs for papers that couldn’t afford to participate otherwise.”

The council works with the New England Publishers Association–a representative from the association attends the annual meeting of the council. Still, it’s not the same as having a person whose job it is to keep NIE on the minds of the publishers and to work with NIE professionals on a daily basis.

“It’s hard to get the work done. We try to make the monthly meetings hands-on and productive, because it’s hard to get everyone together any other time,” says Morrissey. “It’s a great group of people, and things work as long as everyone can show up for a meeting. But it is always the same small group putting in the time.”

If it’s tough to make a state committee work in Massachusetts, imagine what it’s like in a state the size of California.

“We started informally in the early ’80s when a bunch of NIE coordinators got together to start an organization to share ideas,” says Diane Kannenberg, president of the California NIE Association. “There weren’t that many papers with NIE then, and there was no organized group of NIE people. It started with the LA Times that got the Southern California people together. Primarily the larger papers were represented.”

The CNIE held its first conference in 1995 with less than 20 papers in attendance. Last year more than 50 newspapers were represented. Kannenberg says that she tries to show the smaller papers the benefits from joining.

“We develop curriculum guides for papers to give teachers, and they pay just $100 for materials that would cost $250-$500 on the open market. In the last couple of years, we’ve developed a partnership with the California Newspaper Publishers Association that has provided certain advantages.”

Kannenberg says one of the missions of her presidency is to work more closely with the state publishers association. CNIE members receive copies of California Publisher, the CNPA publication. The publishers also give CNIE space for a regular column in California Publisher. A CNPA representative now attends the CNIE annual conference, and CNIE has selected CNPA members to judge their annual awards contest.

“Even if we’re not funded by the association, we need to maintain a connection that adds legitimacy to our state organization,” says Kannenberg. “CNPA Executive Director Jack Bates frequently tells me, ‘We should all be working together. We’re all owned by the same people.’ He’s so right. We also serve the same people–our readers. We have to stay connected to keep the readers informed.

“The real issue is that NIE doesn’t get the respect it deserves. It’s more than just a warm fuzzy,” says Kannenberg. “It does contribute to the bottom line and toward creating a whole new generation of readers.”

Award-winning journalist Don Williamson has written for several newspapers and industry publications.