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A little about Press Club

A little about Press Club

(This column originally ran in Harvey County Now based in Newton, KS) I am not from Newton. I didn’t grow up in Harvey County, and outside of Harvey County Now, I haven’t one connection to the whole community. Without this newspaper, I probably wouldn’t know a soul in Newton or in Harvey County outside of my stint as a reporter for the Harvey County Independent when I was in my early 20s. My wife and I grew up in Reno…

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Four years later – the decline is faster than I expected

Four years later – the decline is faster than I expected

In just a few days, Nov. 15, 2020, it will be an anniversary very few will celebrate. That date is very significant to me, though. I even have a printed copy of The Hutchinson News from that date sitting at my desk in Newton, just to remind me that on this day four years ago, my hometown newspaper died. I told many in my close circles back home what I thought would happen when the Harris Family put the Hutchinson…

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Why newspapers shouldn’t get too close with Internet giants

Why newspapers shouldn’t get too close with Internet giants

I felt a little froggy this morning and decided to watch Editor and Publisher’s live panel on “The Future of Local NewsMedia – The Experts.” I usually slow roll my Wednesday morning after a long day of production on Tuesdays and figured, what the hell, I want to be pissed off this morning. For the most part, this panel didn’t piss me off actually. I disagreed with many on what the future looks like, and I certainly don’t buy into…

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Why Buffett selling his papers doesn’t bother me

Why Buffett selling his papers doesn’t bother me

I like to think I am well read. When Lindsey and I started this journey of newspaper ownership over seven years ago, we didn’t do it blind. We read “The E-Myth” by Michael E. Gerber and “Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery” by Sam Calagione before we ever signed the dotted line for our first paper, The Clarion. Since then, I have read anything I can get my hands on about…

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Pull your head out of your ass. News isn’t free

Pull your head out of your ass. News isn’t free

News isn’t free, and the faster we get to this realization as media companies, the better we will be as an industry. Covering the news of the day costs money. It takes resources to employ a professional reporter, buy equipment, maintain a printed paper and website, and basics like turning the lights on every day. This is why it perplexes me that news organizations are still under the delusion of being able to give their content away for free and…

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R.I.P. Hutchinson News – It was a good run

R.I.P. Hutchinson News – It was a good run

The death of journalism has been coming for some time—just depends on who you ask. First it was radio, which would put newspapers into the ground. Then television was going to end the profession. Finally, the Internet would be a death blow, right? No, even if we have tried to speed our death along by giving away our content online, the Internet hasn’t meant death to newspapers, and I doubt it ever will. The death of journalism isn’t coming from…

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Oliver gives journalism some national spotlight

Oliver gives journalism some national spotlight

John Oliver is just one of the funniest people on television now. I have slapped my knee many times during his “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” show on HBO, and a segment about journalism had me both sad and laughing at the same time. I have said many times that the plight of large, daily newspapers isn’t comparable to what we do at small, community newspapers. Their overhead is much larger, but more importantly, their owners are usually investment…

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Why I am unconcerned with ad blocking software

Why I am unconcerned with ad blocking software

I understand why publishers all over the country are scared to death about ad blocking software and what it is doing to their bottom lines. I am also completely unconcerned, personally. After 20 years of doing everything we could as an industry to build a presence online and sell advertising around content we gave away, it must be scary to hear that folks don’t want the annoying Flash ads that pop up randomly, the auto-play video ads, and the sort…

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Invest in your core: Make your print product look great

Invest in your core: Make your print product look great

It is time for us to start designing our print products the way readers want to see them. Media “experts” all over the world will tell you to ignore your print product or not invest much into it because the internet is going to take over soon anyway. Well, after 20-years of the newspaper industry still making a damn fine living (some better than others) off their print products I think the end is still far away. That leads me…

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Done with the digital rat race

Done with the digital rat race

I am done with the next digital revolution, piece of crap, bull-shit that is peppering my e-mails and ringing into my cell phone. Enough already. We know what we are and we should have figured out after 20 years that the Internet isn’t going to put our print products into the ground, and we should have figured out it wasn’t going to be the next big revenue stream, too. Our newest disruption to the newspaper world is Newton Now. We…

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