I haven’t even taken the time to tell you all about the Newspaper Conference – we’ve been on a dead run ever since we snuck up to Reno for a few days of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors annual conference, or ISWNE (they say it like, iswinnie) for short. There is a great, raging debate over changing the name but we’ve grown fond of them.
We were guests of our own Steve Ranson who is a past President of the organization and served as the conference chairman for this year’s shin-dig. The passing of the torch happens at the banquet on the last night of the conference, so we got to see the current President, Gordon from Canada coronate Ian from Great Britain. The conference will be held in Toronto next year, Gordon will host. Which means the following year, Ian hosts in London. We are saving up.
The first day was typical conference, with speakers from the journalism school at UNR and a tour. It was insightful and very useful. We stayed home and worked the second day when they all went touring the state capital and from the photos we saw the next day, of course, we should have gone.
On Friday we heard from the international attendees – imagine the stories from Martin, who runs a daily paper in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and came up newspapering during the conflicts through the 80s and 90s between the Protestant loyalists and the Catholic nationalists. There was the Editor of the Cherokee Phoenix in Oklahoma, one of the longest-existing newspapers in the country who told of the struggles of his people prior to the Trail of Tears and moving the newspaper from the original beginnings in Georgia through several stops of the “Removal” to its present-day life in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
Several Canadians presented, as did the one representative from the media in Mongolia. There were two members from Nepal where there is not a free press, as well as a member who runs the Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media at Kansas State who was born and raised in Kenya where he worked as a journalist for several years before immigrating to the U.S.
We also got to meet publishers and editors from across the U.S. who are running little, community newspapers in their small, rural towns just like we are. I cannot begin to tell you what it’s like to have met these men and women who started their papers 25, 30 years ago, and even one woman who has been running her paper for 40 years. Indiana, Missouri, South Dakota, Colorado, and Arizona – we met people just like us who believe in the importance of the printed newspaper as a standard for their community. A banner of democracy. As Fozzie said in The Great Muppet Caper, “Patriotism swells in the heart of the American Bear.”
The last day of the conference before the banquet we got the coolest experience ever. Leanna went with one group of eight, and I with another and we sat around a table for three hours and critiqued (and supported) each other’s papers. You can’t even imagine what it’s like to realize you aren’t the only crazy person in the world trying to keep an independent newspaper alive in a remote part of the country with a small subscriber base and an even smaller base of advertisers.
These people were generous beyond any expectation. They were encouraging and sympathetic, helpful and direct. And they have stayed in touch and followed up. They are lovely.
So while we spend a minute appreciating Mr. Ranson and his generous, encouraging nature, we’ll be right here…
…Keeping you Posted.
Rach
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