The
ASNE/NAA/NEXPO and
RTNDA/NAB annual conventions kick off in Washington and Las Vegas this weekend. Take away the alphabet soup and that means that your newspaper and television bosses -- those with a little left in their travel budgets -- will be away for the big event.
Sunday afternoon update: ASNE's annual census shows the biggest drop in newsroom jobs in 30 years.
Tough times can hardly be denied or overlooked, but a wallow in the scarier scenarios out there is poor form, at least in presentations from the stage. In Washington, the editors and publishers (meeting together as they do every three or four years) will be talking digital strategies and managing transformational change. One panel highlights CEOs from other industries who have successfully carried out major makeovers. And there will be spirited pep talk cum rebuttals against some of the sloppier "dying industry" takeouts on our business (which get me in an answering back mode now and then as well).
My colleague Jill Geisler tells me that financial pressures are ratcheting up in the local television news business. Up until now, the industry has experienced some slow seepage of audience and advertising to the Internet, but nothing like the classifieds calamity for print newspapers. Political ads and the Olympics will cushion problems in 2008, but with a recession in process 2009 looks pretty bleak.
A big and worrisome event for television news people was
the recent announcement by CBS that it's buying out senior on-air talent to reduce expenses. The practice, already common at newspapers, is a first for local television. Geisler says, and may embolden others to follow.
Thanks to my late involvement in a Sunday morning panel on international practices, I'll be arriving Saturday and have some time on my hands to check out NEXPO, a mammoth trade show combined this year with the conventions. I'm expecting it to be a nice reminder to the dispirited that newspapers are still a $50-billion-plus industry to whom a lot of people want to sell a lot of stuff.
ASNE will make news before most editors arrive Sunday with release of its annual newsroom census -- the single best estimate of how much news staffs are shrinking. My guess is some, but with growth of online news efforts, not so much as you might think just from reading the layoff/buyout headlines.
The convention includes a look-me-over and question and answer with all three major presidential candidates, at separate appearances Monday and Tuesday.
Keeping restive execs there until convention's end has always been a challenge, and attendance is expected to be soft to begin with. A decade ago organizers resorted to booking Sharon Stone for the final luncheon of a convention in San Francisco, and she came through with a comment on the Lewinsky matter, not printable in a family blog.
This year, the final panel late Wednesday morning is on the timely topic of the editor-publisher relationship. It includes David Hiller of the Los Angeles Times. That seems the equivalent of asking Larry King to talk about the secrets of a lasting marriage. But cheers to Hiller for not ducking.
These affairs are never all work. As I read the RTNDA program, there are no formal functions, but we all know there are evening amusements available in Las Vegas. The editors and publishers will have events at some brand new venues -- the Nationals' ball park on Sunday night and the Newseum Monday.
This will also be my first exposure to an NAA tradition of several years standing -- a later night party organized by Dean Singleton, sponsored by his MediaNews, Gannett and USA Weekend and featuring a vintage rock star.
This year's performer (perhaps not a household name to you Gen Xers, Yers and Millennials) is Johnny Rivers. He was notable in his heyday during the 1960s and 1970s for having great success both with his own songs and covers of other people's songs -- the musical equivalent, I suppose, of excelling at both print and online. I'm hoping that the tenor of the times does not inhibit Rivers from performing his all-time top hit, (Welcome, back, baby, to) "The Poor Side of Town."
