By: Joe Strupp What's more Seattle than Starbucks Coffee and Bill Gates? That appears to be the thinking of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), which has scheduled its annual conference for April 25-28 in the Northwest's most popular city. Among the speakers will be Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz.
In addition, Charles Pittman, senior vice president/newspapers at Indiana-based Schurz Communications -- which owns 14 newspapers in five states -- also will speak at the yearly confab. President George W. Bush, a regular at the event in recent years, has not confirmed if he will attend, organizers said.
Along with those appearances, and others yet to be announced, the convention will offer panels and discussions on the increased use of Web sites, watchdog journalism, and challenges for anonymous sourcing and freedom of information requests. Studies recounting findings in diversity, ethics, and readership also will be unveiled, as will a new program through the American Press Institute on creating new business models.
"The two themes are watchdog journalism and freedom of information, but also the future. Innovations and the future of newspapers," said Rick Rodriguez, ASNE president and editor of The Sacramento Bee. "From a corporate perspective and the Web."
Rodriguez said inviting Gates and Schultz was not done simply because both are local business icons. But also because each represents innovative business approaches. He says newspapers could copy from Starbucks, which essentially took an old item, coffee, and marketed it as a hip, new product. "He will talk about taking something that has been around for a long time and making it a new experience," Rodriguez said of Schultz. "Newspapers could learn from that."
More information on the conference is available at
www.asne.org.
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