A Call For Help p.

By: John Consoli

Some of the newspaper industry's leading executives ask their colleagues to support New Directions for News research projects
NEWSPAPER EXECUTIVES THIS week called on their colleagues to offer financial support to New Directions for News, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing research information to the industry.
Although confined to a small conference room and not listed in the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention program, the session, held in conjunction with the NAA conclave in Boston this week, drew about 75 people.
Included in that group were some of the newspaper business's top executives.
The work of NDFN is a little less mainstream than what traditional newspaper research concerns itself with.
For example, the latest NDFN project involves 160 interviews in six cities, with five categories of people who are considered among those not likely to read newspapers.
According to Jean Gaddy Wilson, director of NDFN, only one of the 160 people interviewed "liked newspapers."
The research is important, said those putting on the program, because the people interviewed in the survey are the people newspapers will have to be sold to in the coming years in order to recapture lost circulation or to grow.
The fact that this session was not on the regular NAA convention program had several people mumbling in the corridors.
With the circulation of many newspapers declining, some newspaper executives in attendance wondered why an entire day spent listening to Harvard professors speak about such topics as religious pluralism and the worldwide economic situation took precedence over a topic nearer the business of newspapering.
Although attendance at this session was small in comparison with the annual convention attendance?reported to be more than 1,300 as of the first day?the attendees were no small potatoes when it comes to who's who in the newspaper business.
One former NAA president was on hand to solicit financial support for the NDFN projects, along with a future NAA president.
George Wilson, president of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor and a former president of NAA (then ANPA), praised NDFN for being an organization that is "willing to think thoughts that aren't always popular."
Wilson, who is now finance chair of NDFN, traced the history of the organization, pointing out that its first operating budget was just $56,784 and that this year the budget is $500,000.
Despite that, Wilson said, NDFN "lives from hand to mouth," struggling to get funding in order to survive and do the type of research most mainstream organizations are not called on to do.
Wilson also pointed out that a sizable segment of NDFN's research information and ideas have been adopted by the newspaper industry without credit.
He said that, while this is flattering, it is important for the newspaper industry to give something back to the organization.
The fact that NDFN has survived over the years, Wilson added, is "no small thanks to the [newspaper] companies that have supported it since its early days."
Among the organization's chief supporters have been the Freedom Forum and the Robert R. McCormick/Tribune Foundation, and executives from both those organizations attended the session.
Charles Brumback, president and chief executive officer of the Tribune Co., parent of the Chicago Tribune, and John Madigan, Tribune Co. executive vice president and publisher of the Tribune, both attended, as did Charles Overby, president and CEO of the Freedom Forum. Brumback is also vice chairman of NAA.
Both Brumback and Madigan attended on behalf of the McCormick/
Tribune Foundation.
"We are tired of hearing about the death of newspapers," Madigan told attendees. "New Directions for News
is reaching out to segments not now reached by newspapers. It is the best thing we [newspapers] have going for us."
New Directions for News, Madigan continued, "is an effective catalyst for change. It is pushing to break out of the old molds and mind-sets."
Madigan added that the Tribune Co. has benefited from NDFN research, which has a "depth and perspective that is hard for newspapers to do on their own. It's good for our financial interest to be involved with NDFN."
The McCormick/Tribune Foundation is deeply involved with NDFN. Last year, it made a pledge to donate $300,000 over three years?$100,000 per year for research?provided that the newspaper industry matches that amount each year.
As the end of the first year draws near in July, only $75,000 has been raised. If another $25,000 cannot be raised by the deadline, NDFN will lose the remaining $200,000 grant.
Vivian Vahlberg, former executive director of the Society for Professional Journalists and now associated with the McCormick/Tribune Foundation, said the grant was structured that way to motivate other newspaper organizations to get involved financially.
Vahlberg pointed out that the McCormick/Tribune Foundation has donated $600,000 for research to NDFN since its inception.
Madigan urged the audience, as did Wilson and Vahlberg, to join with their organizations in supporting NDFN research.
The most recent NDFN project involves interviewing 160 people from five groups that receive relatively little coverage in newspapers.
Those interviewed offered their opinions on newspapers, and their observations on life.
The five groups represented in the survey included young adults, 18-34; kids, 9-13; teen-agers; women over 50; and racially ethnic immigrants.
The interviews were recorded on seven videotapes, and a group of 30 journalists, educators and readers met at the Freedom Forum headquarters in Arlington, Va., last weekend to brainstorm on ideas gleaned from the tapes.
Those ideas will be put together by 30 others to come up with a number of prototype newspapers aimed at reaching those "splinter" group segments.
According to Jean Gaddy Wilson, those prototypes will be printed at the Los Angeles Times and will be ready for distribution June 17-19.
Shelby Coffey III, editor of the Times, is chairman of the NDFN board.
"We have to reach out and connect with people who want to be reached [by newspapers] and aren't being reached," Wilson said.
"This is an effort to institutionalize New Directions for News," George Wilson commented. "Our mandate is to help us do what our readers want us to do."
Overby said the Freedom Forum "is committed to using its $700 million endowment to insure the survival of newspapers," and some of that money will go to NDFN.
"It's so easy for all of us to get together at the NAA convention each year and talk about what's wrong with newspapers," Overby said. "New Directions for News is doing something about that."
Overby urged newspaper executives to "join us and support New Directions for News."
Frank Daniels Jr., publisher of the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer and one of four new NDFN board members, reminded the news execs that contributions would be accepted at the session.
A message that dominated videotapes of the interviewees was that if traditional newspapers do not do something to reach these segments of society, other forms of communication will start to do so.
Other newly accepting NDFN board members include Monica Lozano of La Opinion, Gary Burandt of Dentsu Young & Rubicam Partnership and Bob Danzig, head of the Hearst Corp.'s newspaper division.
Danzig, who attended the session, praised NDFN, saying that it is "doing very good, fundamental, creative work" and that is why he has become involved with it.