Barton Creek Resort, Austin, Texas

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conference program

During the Monday morning general session, Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press, will address SNPA members. He will show conference attendees how a journalist and journalism can have more impact in the digital area and how they can turn that impact into innovative business strategies. 

He’ll talk about AP’s initiatives to work with members to provide business intelligence on content consumption and how newspapers can use those tools to create new products and remain relevant as competition intensifies.

Tom Curley

Curley will explain AP’s approach to a suite of new business services around ad solutions, white-label apps for wireless devices and subscription tools.  He’ll also talk about management processes to meet the vast challenges of the digital era.  And, he’ll provide examples of how AP is using those approaches on everything from covering the Gulf oil spill to launching mobile products.

This year's News Industry Summit is set for Oct. 17-19 at the Barton Creek Resort in Austin, Texas. Conference sessions will focus on the viability of newspapers' print franchises and ways to enhance it, including segments that point to new technologies that can become business advantages. 

Topics will include discussions about rebuilding and monetizing audiences, delivering content that matters and information readers can trust, and the critical watchdog roles of newspapers in society.

"Our theme conveys that we have opportunities to control our future and that we are not just at the mercy of irreversible and uncontrollable trends." Steven R. Brandt – SNPA President

Curley is the 12th person to lead AP since its founding in 1846. Under his leadership, AP is moving rapidly to capture the growing audience for digital and video news and assure AP's relevance in the rapidly changing media world. Curley also has deepened AP's longstanding commitment to the people's right to know and serves as one of the nation's most aggressive advocates for open government.

As part of his strategy for the digital age, Curley has charted an international plan to drive content and new business. A first milestone was the creation of a multimedia database that allows all AP content to be searched by AP journalists and customers alike. AP has added content for finance, online video and entertainment audiences.

Curley has established programs to encourage and celebrate exceptional journalism. AP became the first western news agency to open a bureau in Pyongang, North Korea, and added staff in Latin American, Asia and the Mideast, including Iraq where AP has more than a hundred journalists. Among recognition during Curley's tenure are the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, awarded to AP for its work in Iraq, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, awarded to AP for a West Bank photo.

Curley first outlined his plan for increased open government in May 2004, calling on news industry colleagues to do more to protect freedom of information. "The powerful have to be watched, and we are the watchers," he said in his hallmark Hays Press Enterprise lecture, which can be read at http://www.ap.org/pages/about/whatsnew/hayspress.html.

That year, the Associated Press also played a critical role in the establishment of a coalition of news organizations and journalism-related groups to promote accessible, accountable and open government. The Washington, D.C.-based Sunshine in Government Initiative seeks to combat what Curley and other media groups see as increased government secrecy since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

After Sunshine Week 2005, Curley told the National Freedom of Information Coalition that "the most important battle lines are drawn and the greatest advances on FOI have been made in your bailiwicks – in county seats and city halls and statehouses." AP handles more than 40 actions a year to assure journalists have access to events, proceedings and information and, under Curley, has led the way in seeking information on the hundreds of detainees being held nameless and incommunicado at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He has been inducted into the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame, honored with the National Press Club's John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award, with a First Amendment Award from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, with the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation's First Amendment Leadership Award, and the William Allen White Foundation's national citation for outstanding journalism service.

Before being named president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press in 2003, Curley was president and publisher of USA Today. He also previously was senior vice president of the newspaper's owner, Gannett Co., Inc., and was the original news staffer on the project that led to the creation of USA Today. He was assigned in 1979 by then-Gannett Chairman Al Neuharth to study the feasibility of a national newspaper. He later worked in every department of the newspaper. In 1986, he became the newspaper's sixth president and in 1991 added the title of publisher.

SNPA members can't go wrong in choosing to attend this conference. SNPA is offering a money-back guarantee on conference registration fees, if an attendee does not get a six-month ROI that exceeds his or her investment. That demonstrates the pragmatism and actionable items that this conference will deliver to members.

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Outsourcing Your Copy Desk?
Learn From Three Companies That Have Taken This Step

A growing number of newspapers are refocusing scarce resources on their core competitive advantage – local content creation – by consolidating copy desks and production processes regionally or across the country.

Javier Aldape
Gerould Kern
Donna Reed

On Tuesday morning during the 2010 News Industry Summit panelists from the Chicago Tribune, Media General and The E.W. Scripps Co. will talk about their experiences.

The program will be moderated by Digby A. Solomon, president and publisher of The Daily Press in Newport News, Va.

Topics for discussion include:

• Can you really produce a local Virginia newspaper out of Chicago?
• What are the benefits and risks?
• How does it impact your audiences and your employees?
• Can you save money and improve your product?

Addressing these questions – and more – will be:

• Javier Aldape, vice president/niche products for The E.W. Scripps Company
  Scripps has consolidated the copy editing, pagination and wire story selection of five newspapers at one site. The company's goal is to find efficiencies and facilitate content sharing, while allowing the local news staffs to focus singularly on developing local content. As part of this effort – which was launched in June 2009 – a unified design was developed to create a more consistent visual language for all five papers, while still ensuring local control over presentation and content decisions.
  
• Gerould Kern, senior vice president/editor of the Chicago Tribune
  The Chicago Tribune took over copy editing and page design of The Daily Press (Newport News, Va.) in March. It already had been providing similar services for smaller Tribune papers. The Tribune Co. also began using CCI Europe's NewsGate application last year for all of its newspapers, making it easier to take advantage of these efficiencies.
• Donna Reed, vice president/content for Media General
  Media General is consolidating the copy editing and design of its newspapers through three primary initiatives: the consolidation of community newspaper production into Lynchburg, Va., and Hickory, N.C.; the virtual consolidation of its metro newspapers between Tampa and Richmond; and the installation of the CCI editorial system for its metro newspapers. The overall goal is to more effectively share content across all platforms.

Information about additional conference sessions will be announced soon.