Judge says Times Leader reporters don’t have to participate in prison suit
A federal judge has ruled that two Times Leader reporters do not have to testify or turn over documents to Luzerne County and the Luzerne County Correctional Facility Board as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

The county and the board are defendants in a civil rights lawsuit that was brought against them by former corrections officer Genevieve Butczynski, who claims she was suspended and then forced into early retirement for comments she made to Times Leader reporters Dave Weiss and Terrie Morgan-Besecker criticizing security procedures at the prison.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Lawyer sues Erie District Attorney, Times-News
A Pittsburgh lawyer charged with stealing from clients is suing Erie County District Attorney Brad Foulk and the Erie Times-News over claims of defamation.

Attorney Joseph Hudak is seeking $1 million in damages each from Foulk and the newspaper.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Ex-Times Leader editor files discrimination suit
A former editor of the Times Leader who says she earned more than $200,000 in 2003 has filed a lawsuit against the newspaper in U.S. District Court, claiming she was discriminated against and eventually fired because of her gender and religion.

Allison W. Walzer of Shavertown was editor of the paper from 1986 to 2005. In court papers filed April 7, Walzer claims Times Leader President and Publisher Patrick McHugh fired her in January 2005 because she is a woman and because she is Jewish.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

How the sale went down: Knight Ridder's gloomy options
Knight Ridder's board of directors gathered in early March at the New York offices of its attorneys to consider a short list of gloomy options: A roster of 11 potential buyers for the nation's second largest newspaper company had dwindled to one.

The McClatchy newspaper group of Sacramento offered $66.50 a share for Knight Ridder -- only a couple dollars a share more than what the San Jose company's stock was worth nearly year earlier when its major shareholders began pressuring the board to sell Knight Ridder. If Knight Ridder rejected McClatchy's offer, it faced the prospect of massive cost-cutting to placate the dissident shareholders. But Knight Ridder's investment bankers advised such a move could boost its stock price or sink it, according to documents filed by McClatchy with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Singleton is said to be the favored suitor for three Knight Ridder properties in California
Media mogul William Dean Singleton has made himself the clear favorite to acquire three Northern California newspapers being sold by McClatchy Co. with his offer to buy those papers and one in Minnesota for as much as $1 billion, according to people familiar with the talks.

Singleton's Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. already sells more newspapers each day than any other company in California and is a major player in the suburban markets around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Gannett shareholders vote on proposals
Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S., on April 18 said shareholders defeated a proposal calling for an independent chairman but backed a bid to elect all board members each year.

Also, shareholders re-elected three board members. Additionally, Gannett gave its chief financial officer, Gracia Martore, the title of executive vice president in exchange for her senior vice president post.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

From the Hotline:
Are there any updates on the Do-Not-Fax rules?

PNA's General Counsel Teri Henning answers this question.

[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]

Former Intercounty Newspaper Group executive, Jane Parr, dies
Jane J. Parr, 54, of Yardley, lost her long and courageous battle with cancer on Wednesday, March 29, surrounded by her family and friends.

Parr was very proud to be executive vice president of Intercounty Newspaper Group, a chain of 22 weekly newspapers, which circulated in Bucks County and New Jersey. After 20 years at Intercounty Newspaper Group she retired, but was tricked by her husband into eventually becoming a chief financial officer for her husband’s company, Intellectual Property Research Associates.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Lang named Press and Journal editor
When Marlene Lang applied to become the new editor of the Press and Journal newspaper, she typed “The One” into the e-mail’s subject line.

Lang, who has worked at daily and weekly newspapers as an editor and reporter, began work as the Press and Journal's editor on March 22.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Beaver appointed online manager at Daily Item
The Daily Item has promoted its coordinator of online content and sales, Benjamin Beaver, to online manager.

As The Daily Item’s online manager, Mr. Beaver will oversee new members of the newspaper’s Internet staff, which include a recently hired online sales representative, online graphic interns and anticipated technical staff who will handle the growing demands of The Daily Item’s Web site.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Recognize your paper's 2006 Keystone Press Award winners
If you haven't already done so, please send us digital versions of your winning entries to be included in the special edition Press Keystone tab! E-mail Erica Streisfeld at ericas@pa-news.org with: text for winning stories, JPGs for photos and PDFs for page designs/illustrations. Please make sure that JPGs and PDFs are press quality.

Celebrate your newspaper's winners by placing an ad in the Press Keystone tab:

[CLICK FOR MORE]

PNA Carrier Golf Outing
May 25, Penn National Golf Club, Fayetteville, Pa.
Tee time: 9:30 a.m., lunch included
Cost: $70 single, $265 foursome, $345 foursome & hole sponsor
Join your colleagues for an enjoyable day of golf and help support newspaper carriers. Hole sponsorship opportunities are also available.

For more information contact Tracy Metz at (717) 703-3003 or tracym@pa-news.org.

Newsroom Guide to Global Health: A Resource for Reporters
A special Newsroom Guide providing a comprehensive source for global health and child survival reporting is available free to interested journalists, courtesy of the PBS documentary project Rx for Survival -- A Global Health Challenge. The project takes a journalistic look at the history of public health and disease, examines the current state of the world's
health, ad explores the future of efforts to improve people's health worldwide.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

The Craft of Business Writing Workshop
April 25, PNA headquarters
This free, one-day business journalism workshop is for journalists who wish to learn more about business coverage. The workshop, sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and hosted by PNA, will cover critical areas such as how to better explain financial terms, use compelling narrative style, develop story ideas and write effective profiles of companies and executives. Presenters include Dick Weiss, former writing coach and assistant metropolitan editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Chris Roush, former business journalist with Business Week, Bloomsburg News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who is currently a business journalism professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Registration for this workshop must be done through API at www.businessjournalism.org.

Credibility and Ethics for the Photographer
May 12, PNA headquarters
Cost: $75 for members, $100 for non-members
David Bralow, attorney for Tribune Publishing, will cover a variety of important issues pertaining to photojournalism and the law. In the morning you will hear tips on how to avoid legal problems and how to promote positive relationships to get the photos you need. The afternoon session will cover tips and suggestions on photography and design.

To register, e-mail teresas@pa-news.org or call Teresa Shaak at (717) 703-3012.

ASNE Readership Training Seminar
June 13-14, PNA headquarters
Cost: $150
Do you want to learn what motivates young adults and people of color to read your newspaper? What turns them off about your newspaper?

In this unique opportunity, you will get beyond the basics of the Readership Institute's original Impact study and learn what the Institute found in its New Readers study. New Readers looked at young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 and people of color in 52 diverse markets to learn what drives their media-consumption behavior.

Each session will be limited to 35-40 people representing core teams from the newsroom, circulation, marketing and/or advertising.

Please visit the ASNE Web site at www.asne.org/readership for registration forms or contact Cristal Williams, ASNE project director, (703) 453-1138 or cwilliams@asne.org.

Under new policy, S.E.C. will rarely subpoena reporters
The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously adopted a policy on April 12 to issue subpoenas to journalists only in rare circumstances and only after exhausting other avenues of investigation.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Lawyers try to block subpoenas in CIA leak case
Lawyers for NBC News, The New York Times and Time Inc. accused a former White House aide April 18 of threatening the integrity of their news gathering operations by seeking access to a wide range of documents in the CIA leak case.

They are asking U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to block seven subpoenas seeking access to drafts of news articles, e-mails and notes generated by any and all of the news organizations' employees -- not just the three reporters involved in the case.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

In anthrax lawsuit, lawyers ask reporters to disclose federal sources
Lawyers for a scientist investigated in the 2001 anthrax killings have questioned at least two journalists and are subpoenaing other reporters, seeking the identities of their confidential government sources.

Through a lawsuit, Steven Hatfill is trying to track down suspected leakers at the FBI and the Justice Department who made Hatfill the focus of news coverage regarding anthrax-laced letters mailed to members of the press and to two United States senators.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

FBI rebuffed on Jack Anderson's files
The family of the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson rejected a request by the FBI to turn over 50 years of files to agents who want to look for evidence in the prosecution of two pro-Israel lobbyists, as well as any classified documents Anderson had collected.

[CLICK FOR MORE]

Access to the site and its findings, http://www.HealthNewsReview.org, is free and open to consumers. It was created by University of Minnesota journalism professor Gary Schwitzer, who fashioned the site after similar efforts in Australia and Canada.

[CLICK FOR MORE]