Masthead
Issue: #360                                                                 
December 31, 2015
NYNPA seeking judges for 2015 Awards for Excellence contest
The New York News Publishers Association is currently seeking five qualified newspaper professionals to serve as judges for its 2015 Awards for Excellence competition.
 
Qualified judges include those with experience in newspaper journalism who are not currently employed by a member newspaper of NYNPA.
 
Each judge will be responsible for judging all categories in a given circulation group, which amounts to approximately 100 entries per judge. Judges can expect to review entries in early March and will have six weeks to complete their assignments. All entries will be reviewed online, so no travel is required.
 
As an incentive to help NYNPA secure judges, the Association is offering anyone who finds a qualified judge a $100 gift card to the restaurant of his or her choice.
 
Please contact Don Ferlazzo at NYNPA if you find a potential judge at (518) 449-1667 ext. 700 or [email protected]. 
GateHouse could make more business journal purchases after Mass. Lawyers Weekly deal
From bostonglobe.com                       
When New Media Investment Group announced its latest deals, the public attention focused on its sale of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It's not hard to see why, given the strangeness involving casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and the effort to hide his involvement in the paper's purchase.

But there was another deal, one with bigger ramifications for the Boston area. New Media - known around here as GateHouse Media, a New Media subsidiary and predecessor - expanded its fast-growing empire by agreeing to buy the Dolan business and legal publications for an undisclosed amount. The national group includes the Boston-based Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly.

This is a huge prize for Kirk Davis, the Massachusetts-based COO of New Media and CEO of GateHouse, because it makes his company one of the largest publishers of business journals in the country overnight. Davis says this expansion into business-to-business media represents an important effort to diversify New Media beyond the community publishing it's known for - local papers such as the Telegram & Gazette, The Patriot Ledger, and the MetroWest Daily News, to name just a few.

Davis sees Dolan's readers and advertisers as a natural audience for Propel Marketing, New Media's Quincy-based digital services business, and for his newly created events business, called GateHouse Live. More
Facebook Tests Interest-Specific News Feeds on Mobile
From AdAge.com
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that he wants the social network's news feed to be "the best personalized newspaper." But newspapers have sections, and now so does Facebook's news feed, at least for some people.

The social network has been experimenting with category-specific versions of its news feed that take posts that would normally appear in the all-in-one feed and organize them into their own interest-specific feeds. It began the test in October, as reported by Social Times, and now appears to be extending it to mobile.

On Tuesday Laundry Service CEO Jason Stein tweeted a photo of the interest-specific feeds as they appeared in Facebook's iPhone app. The photo shows the regular Facebook news feed as well as tabs for "travel," "style" and "headlines" feeds.

"People have told us they'd like new options to see and have conversations about more stories on Facebook around specific topics they're interested in," a Facebook spokeswoman said in an email. "So we are testing feeds for people to view different stories from people and Pages based on topic areas. You can access these feeds from your Bookmarks, located underneath Favorites, or a navigation bar under Search." More 
Highlights and lowlights of journalism innovation in 2015
From Mario Garcia for Poynter.com
t's almost a wrap for 2015, and what a year it was for the media. Here are my notables, plus my two disappointments.

Much has happened to advance storytelling. One of the most important, in my view, is that we don't hear the phrase "digital first" as often as we did in 2014.  It is more about "the story first" now.  Concern about platforms has become secondary. The story as protagonist is where it's at and should continue to be.  Those who populate newsrooms globally are getting the idea: we are in the storytelling business and we now have more platforms than ever to tell those stories. Amen to that, but I hope 2016 will be a year to concentrate on the need for innovative and creative storytelling techniques.

Let's review the highlights of 2015:
  • Smartphones
  • The long read
  • The smartwatch and at a glance journalism
  • Social media and "the cards"
  • Virtual Reality
  • The ups and downs of those tablets
  • Data visualization
  • e-papers

For details of each bullet point above and the two disappointments of 2015, click here.  

Happy New Year from the staff of the New York News Publishers Association!
Our offices are closed tomorrow for New Year's Day but we reopen Monday, January 4.

In a New York Minute is the weekly electronic newsletter of  NYNPA, providing you with member news, money-saving and money-generating ideas, and upcoming events. If you would like to contribute to this newsletter please reply to this e-mail or contact [email protected]. For more on NYNPA please visit us on the web at www.nynpa.com.

Mary Miller
Education Services Director
New York News Publishers Association
Also In This Issue
GateHouse May Buy More Biz Journals
Facebook Tests Interest-Specific Feeds on Mobile
Highlights and Lowlights of Journalism Innovation in 2015
Happy New Year from NYNPA staff to you!
Quicklinks 
UPCOMING WEBINARS AND EVENTS

1/7 -  How to Cover Housing Stories in your Community - Poynter NewsU - Free

1/8 -  Covering a Presidential Campaign from Outside the Beltway - Poynter NewsU - Free

1/13 -  Covering the U.S. Visa System and its Flaws - Poynter NewsU - Free

1/14 - Instant Sales: Six-Step Proven Process - Online Media Campus - $35

1/15 - A Crash Course to Fact-Checking Journalism: Just in time for election season - Online Media Campus - $35

1/21 - Google Analytics: Finding and reading the data - Online Media Campus - $35
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6/12-6/14 - Ninth Annual Sales & Marketing Joint Conference, Saratoga Springs - NYNAME/NYSCMA, Inc. - $175/$125

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Free NIE Feature

Celebrating the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 

This feature can be used anytime during the month.

 

MLK NIE Special    

You could make some money to support the NIE program and young readers and the general public just might learn something too!  

 

This feature may be used in-print or online!

 

Contact Mary Miller at [email protected] or call 518-449-1667 x 701 for a full resolution PDF version