Searching For Renewed Identity p. 11

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Searching For Renewed Identity p. 11

Faced with healthy financial coffers but declining attendance at its annual convention, the Associated Press Managing Editors organization searched for its role in a changing industry
AT 60 YEARS old, is Associated Press Managing Editors ready to retire?
That's a question that APME has decided to confront head-on.
At its 59th annual convention in Minneapolis, APME named a special task force to reconsider the organization's reason for being.
"I've heard editors and publishers ? people whose opinion I deeply respect ? seriously question whether there is room for two major organizations for editors," outgoing APME president Robert W. Ritter said at the convention's opening session Sept. 20.
"Hushed conversations, with questions about mission and mergers ? no matter how well-meaning the participants ? are not only troubling but damaging," Ritter said. "APME's legacy, its pride, its traditions, its responsibilities are too great to allow those questions to go unanswered."
Buffeted by competition from new journalism groups and serving increasingly overworked senior executives, APME in 1993 is a financially healthy newspaper organization that is, nevertheless, beset by disturbing troubles.
Chief among them is a convention attendance that has drifted down to barely half the number that APME meetings attracted during the past two decades.
Ritter noted that annual convention attendance through the 1970s and into the late '80s ranged from 550 to 700, with most years attracting about 650.
"Then, beginning in 1989, when we met in Des Moines [Iowa], we began to see a disturbing trend," Ritter said.
"Attendance that year dropped to 499. In Dallas in 1990, it was 391. It was 237 in Detroit in 1991. We rebounded slightly last year in Honolulu to 269. This year, we are at 316," said Ritter, editor of the Gannett News Service.
Of course, 1989 also was the first harsh year of the long recession in the newspaper industry.
But recession and deep cuts in newspaper travel budgets alone cannot explain the drift, Ritter argued.
During the same period that APME attendance has been dropping, other and younger organizations are racking up big numbers at conventions, he noted.
When the American Society of Newspaper Editors met in Baltimore in April, attendance topped 700, he said.
"When the National Association of Black Journalists met [last month] in Houston, nearly 2,000 were on hand. When the Asian American Journalists Association met in Los Angeles, attendance was listed at 700. Last June, when the Investigative Reporters and Editors met in New York, more than 1,100 journalists were in attendance. The Society of Newspaper Design expects 550 registrants [in October] in Dallas," Ritter said.
In addition to this increased competition, APME faces the burgeoning growth of training sessions conducted by newspapers or their chain owners.
"During the boom years of the 1970s and 1980s," Ritter said, "when publishers prospered and profit margins exploded, the training formula was simple: Send your managing editor to APME once a year, build middle management with an API [American Press Institute] or Poynter Institute seminar, send the editor to ASNE to ponder the problems of public policy and international relations."
Now, however, "the healthy trend" toward in-newsroom training is another competitor for APME, Ritter said.
In addition, he said, APME members ? and potential members ? face on-the-job time demands that tend to push traditional journalism development out of the picture.
Ritter said the special APME study group has four tasks:
? Assess the mission of APME "and its competitive niche within the structure of journalism's professional associations."
? Determine support for APME among newspaper and group publishers.
? Gather information about needs of member editors and their newspapers.
? Make specific recommendations about APME's mission, programs and structure.
Ritter said he, for one, is convinced that there is a place for APME in the newspaper industry.
"The Associated Press needs APME to help it move into the 21st century," he said. "Our publishers need APME to protect their investment in AP, the second-largest expense ? right behind payroll ? in most U.S. newsrooms. And your readers need APME to ensure that AP and our newspapers continue to tell and explain the complicated issues of the day."
APME also has "no significant financial problems," Ritter said, although it lost $38,000 on the past three conventions.
Its net worth remains at pre-recession levels, he said.
The task force will be chaired by Dallas Morning News executive editor Ralph Langer, a former APME president. Four other former presidents ? Sue Reisinger of the Miami Herald, Bob Giles of the Detroit News, Bob Haiman of the Poynter Institute and Larry Jinx ? will serve along with Ritter. AP president Lou Boccardi is on the task force. Also serving are incoming APME president Rich Arbold, editor of the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, Calif.; Bob McGruder of the Detroit Free Press; Jennifer Allen of the Ironton (Ohio) Tribune and Reid MacCluggage of The Day of New London, Conn.