Classroom

by Bart Pfankuch With a few simple questions, and just a little extra effort, reporters and editors can quickly improve the quality and value of their work and raise the profile and credibility of their news organization. And if done correctly, and regularly, this new method of reporting stories can …

With so many of Main Street’s retail stores closing — and the loss of their weekly retail ads — newspapers and shoppers need to find new ways to promote and sell advertising. One way is to produce profitable, multi-market special sections that attract the attention of a wide band of …

High School student Johnny Jenkins, the local jeweler’s son, hit two bases-loaded home runs during the school’s baseball game last Friday. But most of the locals won’t know about Jenkins’ batting proficiency until the paper comes out next Wednesday. The community appreciates the local team, but few actually attend the …

By Peter W. Wagner Few customers would enter a bakery to buy a cake and expect to make the batter yourself. Nor would they schedule repair work on their car and assume they’d have to provide all the parts. Selling newspaper and shopper advertising is more difficult today than it …

By Bart Pfankuch Writing a great news article takes thought, concentration and a basis of solid reporting. Some articles flow from the fingertips like a flood, gushing forth in a logical manner, flowing at a proper pace with clear meaning. Others require a struggle that can seem insurmountable. Either way, …

by Peter W. Wagner With COVID-19 pressing many families to cancel distant summer vacations, it’s a good time to consider publishing one or more “StayCation” sections. Our Iowa Information team produced a four-week series of “StayCation” sections in 2011 when America’s high gas prices also kept families close to home. …

by Peter W. Wagner When my wife, Connie, and I founded our first publication, The Golden Shopper, we were still in the first year of our marriage. It was October 3, 1962. Our little town of Sibley had less than 2,500 population and we only printed 3,000 copies each week.
  The …

By John Kimball If you look, there are opportunities for newspapers to grow advertising revenue in some categories – not in spite of the COVID-19 health crisis, but because of it. Even as things begin to open up, financial planning, home decorating, landscaping, local home improvement and other types of …

By Al Cross Our country may not be in a depression, but the newspaper business is, and its fatality rate may be as great at that of the coronavirus. The pandemic and its economic restrictions have accelerated closures and mergers, which have increasingly affected county-seat weeklies, long the most stable …