Inland Press Association Looking Pretty Good For A 120-Year-Old

By: Mark Fitzgerald The Inland Press Association kicks off its 120th annual meeting Monday, assembling as it does every October in Chicago.

And as always, there will be one or two newsmakers on the program. This time around, Larry King speaks at breakfast Monday, U.S. Rep. Mike Pense, the Indiana Republican sponsoring the House version of a federal shield law, speaks at lunch. Tuesday, Oct. 25, there will be a luncheon address by U.S. Rep. Michael G. Oxley, the Ohio Republican whose Sarbane-Oxley financial disclosure requirements have undoubtedly complicated the work lives of many Inland member publishers.

But the most interesting news from Inland probably won't come up at the convention, except for its annual business meeting when the various committees report on membership and finances.

For at a time when newspaper industry associations are struggling to keep hold of members -- and often fighting a losing battle to get them to come out to conventions and workshops -- Inland Press Association is on a roll.

Last month, its membership hit a record 956 newspapers and associated businesses and individuals. To get a little perspective on that number, in 1987, Inland had just over 360 members.

Inland was organized in 1885 when 19 publishers from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa met at the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. For much of the next century, the Inland Daily Press Association, as it was known, was a Midwestern organization. Now it has member newspapers in all 50 states, plus Canada and Bermuda.

Inland was sprouting the roots of its growth as far back as the Roaring Twenties, when it began asking members to report anonymously on what they were spending on newsgathering, production and other business costs, and what they were earning in circulation and advertising.

Inland's Newspaper Cost and Revenue Study is now the industry's most respected, and extensive, survey of what newspapers actually spend and earn. America's biggest chains, such as Gannett and Knight Ridder, essentially mandate their newspapers to participate. Newspapers don't get involved merely for love of the industry -- the data Inland gathers, it is also able to slice and dice in ways that can show individual newspapers what their costs and revenues look like compared to peers.

In recent years, Inland has also seen growing participation in its newspaper industry compensation survey, the annual employee attitude survey and its monthly margins report, a confidential survey that tracks performance by advertising category.

But the most important driver of Inland's growth is its extensive program of training and education sessions that are inexpensive, tailored to a newspaper executive's schedule -- and laser-focused on the bottom line.

Inland has prospered by not stepping on the toes of other industry associations that have their own specialties.

"We offer tools that are not available elsewhere," Inland Executive Director Ray Carlsen says. "We've been inherently blessed by that."

Some good examples of that include Inland's highly successful special sections and co-op advertising workshops and competitions. Both had been started and abandoned by other organizations, but are proving popular now that Inland is running them.

Another example is circulation management. At a time when the industry is roiled by falling circulation revenues, and confusion about the future shape of newspaper distribution, Inland is essentially the only industry organization helping newspapers make sense of it all. It is now running the three-day training sessions twice a year because of industry demand.

At its annual meeting this week, Inland isn't holding any special celebration. In its workaday fashion, it is simply continuing in the business of helping newspapers cope with an environment that, in its 120 years, it has seen change in innumerable ways.