How valuable are online registrations?
Newspaper web sites have increasingly used online registration to gather information about their web readers, in fact, some have made it compulsory. 

For many regular readers, it's no trouble to provide some basic information -- age, family household income range, gender and ZIP code -- to read news content. After all, giving away such information is better than paying for news, which web users have resisted in most cases.

However, some readers and privacy advocates oppose this model, which helps newspapers connect readers and advertisers. After Knight Ridder's philly.com (home of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News) began requiring registrations, CNN investigated some of the system's pros and cons. Rachel Metz of Wired lambasted registration at newspaper sites this week.

The registration model inspired bugmenot.com, a web site providing login names and passwords for getting around the process. The site claims to have this information for thousands of sites, and its top requests are all online newspapers -- nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, latimes.com, ajc.com, and chicagotribune.com.

The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association is opening this issue up to members to share ideas on getting the best value from online registrations. Do you have a way of combating bogus registrations (with fake e-mail addresses)? Have online registrations helped your online advertising efforts? 

Send us an e-mail and we will post responses in a future edition of Headlines & Deadlines.

York reporter takes three national awards, four other Pa. writers take honors in contest
Jennifer Gish, a reporter with the York Daily Record/Sunday News, took first, second and honorable mention awards in an annual national writing competition.

Gish, formerly with The York Dispatch/Sunday News, took a first place award for general feature, a second for arts and entertainment feature and an honorable mention for short feature in the competition sponsored by the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors.  

Jennifer Vogelsong, also with the Daily Record, took second place honors for general feature. Both writers competed in the up to 75,000 circulation division.

In the 75,000 to 175,000 circulation division, Mike Sielski of The (Allentown) Morning Call won a first place award for narrative feature. The Philadelphia Daily News' Ronnie Polanczky and Jim Nolan won honorable mentions in the general commentary and short feature categories.

Tribune-Review makes management moves
Kraig Cawley, vice president of Tribune-Review Publishing Co., was named general manager of the Valley News Dispatch, Tarentum. Cawley has held several positions in the company since 1992, including advertising director for the Tribune Review in Greensburg and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Cawley succeeds Rick Monti, who has accepted a special assignment at Tribune-Review Publishing and will relocate to the company's corporate office in Pittsburgh.

A former executive with Howard Publications and Thomson Newspapers, Walter Heskett has been hired as the assistant general manager of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  He will be responsible for circulation, advertising, human resources and production.  

Former publisher J. Graff Bomberger dies
J. Graff Bomberger, who served as publisher of the News Dispatch for 25 years, died July 4, 2004. 

Bomberger, 84, of Jeannette, was affiliated with the News Dispatch (which formerly served the Jeannette and Irwin areas) from 1940 to 1975. He took over as editor and publisher in 1950 after the death of his father.

From the Hotline: 
Member Alert: Newspaper hit with $1,000 fine for holding auction deemed unlawful
Teri Henning, PNA's media law counsel, explains how state regulators fined a Pennsylvania newspaper for holding an online auction without the proper license.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Use this link to visit the Headlines & Deadlines page which groups and archives Teri Henning's weekly 'From the Hotline' columns. 

[HOTLINE ARCHIVE]

Members: Please call hotline number for fastest service
To get the best service from the PNA's Legal Hotline, please call (717) 703-3076 or e-mail Media Law Counsel Teri Henning at terih@pa-news.org 

Some members may have used other hotline numbers, or contacted other PNA staff members in the past, however, Teri is the current hotline contact person. Please share the above number with your newspaper staff as it gives us the best chance of answering your question by your deadline.

Does your communications network have a traffic cop? It should.
Did you know there's a big similarity between the Interstate Highway system and your business' phone lines? It's true. In fact, just as a civil engineer determines the number of lanes a highway must have to accommodate the number of cars during rush hour, a properly engineered communications network has enough lines so calls are never blocked and you never pay for lines you don't use.

If you haven't evaluated the engineering of your communications network, there are four areas to consider: determining the busy hour, trending, forecasting and calculating. 

[CLICK FOR MORE FROM PNA PARTNER ATX COMMUNICATIONS]

Dickinson governors get taste of sunshine
The board of governors for the Dickinson School of Law had a taste of sunshine this week as a committee of the board held its first public meeting under the amendment to the Sunshine Act, Act 89-2004, that was signed into law July 15.

Eight members of the board met Wednesday, July 21, discussing a proposal for a two-campus arrangement that Penn State officials are selling as a "win-win" opportunity. The (Harrisburg) Patriot-News reported that some board members were concerned that the board would lose its power under the arrangement.

Board President LeRoy Zimmerman said the board will vote on the proposal by Aug. 15, according to The Patriot-News. 

PNA members The (Carlisle) Sentinel and The Patriot-News had taken the board to court to force it to hold open meetings. The newspapers lost in Commonwealth Court, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal. 

PNA's Employment Center shows current openings, provides candidates for jobs
This week, PNA's help wanted listings include four openings for reporters, as well as ads for a publisher, a copy editor, a style/entertainment editor, an ad manager and a phone room supervisor. If none of these opportunities interest you, consider submitting your resume to one of the job banks, with links below.

If it's job candidates you are looking for, PNA's Job Bank has more than 30 candidates seeking editorial positions. Several other candidates are also listed for advertising, management, photography, production, information services and new media positions. If you find a candidate you would like to learn more about, just call Luann Smith at (717) 703-3075 or e-mail her to request a resume.

More candidates are available through the PNA Minority Job Bank, which currently lists 12 editorial job seekers, as well as seven candidates seeking jobs in broadcast journalism, business, information services, public relations and photojournalism. If you find a candidate you like, send an e-mail to Connie McNamara.

Allegheny County to post all arrests online 
Allegheny County's district attorney recently announced that beginning Aug. 1, all arrests in the county will be posted on the county web site.

Arrests will be posted as a police blotter, which is a public record under the Right to Know Act, and will stay online for three days.

[CLICK FOR MORE FROM THE PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE]

Associated Press moves into new headquarters in Manhattan 
The Associated Press left its former headquarters July 17, beginning a three-week move into its new offices at 450 W. 33rd St., Manhattan.

Employees formerly split between four locations in the city are consolidated in the new location.

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Tribune publishers out as company continues to deal with circulation scandal
The publishers of two New York newspapers, Newsday and Hoy, were replaced July 19 as Tribune Co. grappled with a continuing circulation scandal. 

Raymond Jansen, who has served as publisher of Newsday since 1994, will retire in mid-August. Louis Sito, who has served as publisher of Hoy since 1998, has already been replaced with an interim publisher. Both departures were called retirements by Tribune.

In June, Tribune said circulation numbers for Newsday and Hoy had been inflated. Last week, the media company disclosed further circulation misstatements, saying they occurred in the same period as the earlier reported problems — the 18 months that ended in March. Misstatements affecting 2001 and 2002 numbers also were discovered. 

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, punished the two papers for breaking circulation rules and condemned their "deceptive and fraudulent circulation practices." 

Top company officials said while they have confidence in the accuracy of circulation numbers at their other newspapers, they are now verifying them and have imposed additional controls. Every Tribune publisher, chief financial officer and circulation vice president must now certify the accuracy of reported figures and that ABC rules were followed. 

Three-month study looks at portrayal of presidential candidates' character traits in media
How much influence does the news media have on public perception of character traits -- both positive and negative -- of presidential candidates? A recent study, backed by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, dissected the issue, analyzing three months of news coverage (1,500 news stories), campaign ads and late night comics that dealt with the presidential campaign.

Researchers reported that the news media assigned traits -- questioning Bush's credibility or labeling Kerry as a flip-flopper -- without citing any evidence of the claim 44 percent of the time.

In determining the source of themes -- positive and negative -- the campaigns themselves and journalists' analysis/commentary ranked first and second, respectively. For instance, campaign sources and journalists themselves each accounted for about one-third of the stories repeating the "Bush lacks credibility" theme. The credibility theme was repeated about twice as often in print than television, unlike most of the other assertions, which were relatively evenly split. 

Follow the link below for complete reporting of the study, on the site of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. 

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AP asks judge to order quick release of Bush military records
The Associated Press asked a federal judge July 16 to order the Pentagon to quickly turn over a full copy of President Bush's military service record. 

The White House has released partial documentation of Bush's military service in the Texas Air National Guard but has not complied with the news service's Freedom of Information Act request for any record archived at a state library records center in Texas, the AP said in a court filing. 

Records released so far do not put to rest questions over whether Bush fulfilled his National Guard service for a period during the Vietnam War, the AP argued in papers filed in federal court in New York. 

Court tosses libel suit concerning use 
of person's name fictitiously in ad 
A federal appeals court threw out a lawsuit July 20 by a New Jersey man who complained that his former employer, an advertising company, libeled him by naming a fictitious derelict after him in a newspaper ad for the United Negro College Fund. 

The character in the ad was a disheveled black man, sitting on a crate and holding a liquor bottle wrapped in a paper bag. Superimposed over the figure's face was a high school yearbook photo, with the name "Larry Botts," and the caption, "Dream: To study journalism and keep the politicians on their toes." The ad was part of the College Fund's well-known "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" campaign. 

The real-life Lawrence Botts III filed his civil lawsuit in 2003, after he saw the full-page ad in The New York Times.

Earnings up for second quarter, according to Knight Ridder company officials
Knight Ridder, the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, reported a 12 percent rise in earnings for its second quarter July 22. But the company also issued a cautious outlook and said department store and national advertising were sluggish.

The company, whose properties include The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Centre Daily Times and the (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader, earned $86.3 million in the three months ending in June, up from $77.2 million in the corresponding period a year ago.

Despite the improved bottom-line results, Knight Ridder Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder said in a statement that the operating performance was "not what we had hoped for." Ridder said that sluggish department store advertising and a decline in national advertising offset continued growth in real estate and help-wanted ads.

Overall advertising revenues rose 2 percent in the quarter to $760 million.

"Looking ahead, we are cautious," Ridder said, adding that the company expected advertising revenue to track at the same rate through the rest of the year as it had in the first four months.