State Headlines
Digital BNC contest
This year entries for the Better Newspaper contest be will be entered and judged by digital submission. NMPA will be sending out a series of emails on how to upload entries and will give you plenty of time to get familiar with the entry website before contest time. This year the BNC contest will be judged by the Kentucky Press Association and we will return the favor by judging their contest in the fall. Look for more details to follow.
Printed ShopTalk
At the winter board meeting the NMPA board of directors approved the re-launch of a printed edition of ShopTalk. It will be sent out on a quarterly basis and designed and published courtesy of Bob Trapp of the Rio Grande SUN and printed by the Santa Fe New Mexican. NMPA will continue to send out monthly e-bulletins. If you have news items you would like to include in the print or electronic edition, please forward them to [email protected]. Also the NMPA website is updated on a regular basis with stories from around the state and industry-wide. Please check for updates.
New owners believe community newspapers future of industry
New owners Garry Ellis and Gary Stevenson say acquisition of the Clovis News Journal, Portales News-Tribune and Quay County Sun marks the end of a 2 1/2-year search "for just the right (media) property." The two are partners in Clovis Media Inc., which assumed ownership today of the three papers from Freedom Communications, the Irvine, Calif., that has owned Clovis since 1935 and Portales and Tucumcari since 1997. Both men said a diverse economy and the progressive spirit they encountered in eastern New Mexico is part of what convinced them to buy the papers. Coupled with the excellent staff they found, Stevenson said there was no doubt but to buy the properties once Freedom offered them. Read more
Trustees Violate Open Meetings Act Posted in the Village of Williamsburg Post Office is a notice that a closed special meeting will be held by the trustees on Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 10 a.m., at Village Hall. The agenda states "contract/agreement" will be discussed. New Mexico State Statute 10-15-1 I(2) states a closed meeting, "if called for when the policymaking body is not in an open meeting, shall not be held until public notice, appropriate under the circumstances, stating the specific provision of the law authorizing the closed meeting and stating with reasonable specificity the subject to be discussed, is given to the members and to the general public." The special meeting announcement does not cite the provision giving authority to have a closed meeting and the agenda is not reasonably specific. Read more
History: Downtown changes - Sun-News building now yesterday's news
The old Las Cruces Sun-News building, originally a Safeway, is now history, with its high brick and steel frame walls toppled by bulldozers beginning Jan. 27. In its place, the Sun-News plans a new structure and a move back downtown, after a fire in an adjoining building last year forced its exit. Few are mourning the loss of another major downtown building - anyone who worked inside it may be wondering what took so long - and it'd be hard to claim it was a legitimate historic structure. Read more
Public Records Request Reveals Email Loophole A recent dispute over records requested from the city of Espanola highlights a potential loophole in the state's public records law which fails to define when a records request is considered satisfied. A Dec. 13 request from the Rio Grande SUN to inspect the City Council meeting packet from Dec. 10 went unfulfilled until Dec. 19 - one business day after the initial Dec. 16 deadline. The state Inspection of Public Records Act states that a records custodian has three business days to respond in writing to a request, at which time up to an additional 12 calendar days can be taken to fulfill the request. Read more
City Appeals Court Decision Case Relates To Worker's Firing
Rio Rancho has asked the state Supreme Court to reverse a recent Appeals Court decision in a case related to the firing of former city manager James Palenick. The opinion the state Court of Appeals issued in November effectively said a city can't wait nearly a year to correct a violation of the Open Meetings Act. Read more Public Notice promotion Thanks to Maria Lopez Garcia and the Rio Grande SUN we have new promotional ads letting the public know they now have several options to find notices: in print, the NMPA website, sunshineportlanm.com and now newmexico.gov. The state websites do not upload our content, they only provide a link to the existing website. Please run the ads as space permits. Not only does it let the public know where to find these notices, it will also be instrumental in the upcoming legislative session to make legislators aware of how the newspaper industry has made these notices accessible and a clear message to any outside interests that have thoughts of creating new public notice websites that newspapers already have that covered. No other medium can deliver public notices to the public in print and online like newspapers can. Session begins January 17th thank you for helping to spread the message. Find the ads online at NMPA Public Notice Ads. Webinar Training There are a series of upcoming webinar training sessions offered through Inland Press. NMPA members are afforded special member prices through co-sponsorship of these convient training sessions. Please take a look at the upcoming topics on the left hand side of this newsletter. Clicking on the title will bring you to the registration page and provide additional information. |