National Newspaper Week

One of the topics we have often discussed over the last year is drawing personal connections between our readers and our employees. During National Newspaper Week, we did a center spread (double truck) in two of the four newspapers to promote newspapers, factual news (as opposed to fake news) and the work our employees do every day. To draw visual interest, we added a cartoon and a crossword puzzle. We asked employees to participate by writing a paragraph about their connection to newspapers whether it was a childhood memory or their current position. If we do this again, one potential change might be incorporating a reader contest into the project to promote reader interaction. In including pictures of employees, the intention was to draw visual interest and a personal connection with our readers. Most of our employees live in the communities we cover. Our kids attend the schools. We are members of the churches, and we regularly talk to our readers at local stores. A piece like this seems to draw a lot of interest because of the personal aspect of it. It is also a brand builder for community newspapers in general, something we need to have more of.