It took 58 months: 9 papers arrived at KPA on June 15, 2020. All 9 are dated August 11, 2015!!!

Papers are from Henderson, Harlan, Mayfield, Middlesboro, Benton, Corbin, Hickman County, Danville and Murray   Monday began just like every other day for KPA assistant bookkeeper Holly Willard. She picked up the tubs of newspapers at the post office and when she got to the office she started sorting newspapers from Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Holly sorts the papers […]

Mark Maynard (and many others) lost a close friend recently

It’s a gripping story. It’s touching and you can tell in his words how sad it is, to him, to many, many others. Mark Maynard, managing editor of Kentucky Today and before that, editor of the Ashland Daily Independent, wrote a column recently, devoted to his late friend. It was an unexpected death, perhaps related to the coronavirus pandemic. But […]

2020 KPA News Contest staying basically the same, for now

As mentioned last week, we had a virtual (Zoom) meeting last Friday with the KPA News Editorial and the KPA Digital Media divisions. The focus was the 2020 KPA contests that will be upon us before long. What we do know from the hour-long discussion: • the contest period will be for all issues/editions published between October 1, 2019, and […]

Into the Issues: Newspapers must embrace bold, persistent experimentation to survive and thrive

By Al Cross, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky   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 […]

Op-Ed: We need to save the news

Permission is granted for this article by Ryan Craig to be used as an op-ed piece by Kentucky newspapers. If you desire to use it, a Word .doc is attached at the end of the article. By Ryan Craig, Todd County Standard Ryan Craig is the publisher/editor of the Todd County Standard, a weekly newspaper in Elkton, Ky. He is […]

Turning Bye Back to a Buy: Never Give Up

By Tom Silvestri, NAM Newspaper Relevance Project Tom Silvestri, most recently president and publisher of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, is the executive director of the Relevance Project, the joint effort of the Newspaper Association Managers to strengthen the industry’s unique role as the provider of quality journalism and the keeper of public forums for thousands of communities across the continent. […]

Local newsrooms can look to Tik Tok to reach younger demographic, expand digital presence

With TikTok being a platform that consists primarily of dance and comedy videos, is there a space for news? The team at Chatham News + Record thought they’d give the platform a try and see if they could discover the answer for themselves. TikTok, which launched in 2016, has around 800 million active users. This month they launched the Chatham News […]

Police disciplinary records are largely kept secret in U.S.

By Claudia Lauer and Colleen Long, Associated Press Officer Derek Chauvin had more than a dozen misconduct complaints against him before he put his knee on George Floyd’s neck. Daniel Pantaleo, the New York City officer who seized Eric Garner in a deadly chokehold, had eight. Ryan Pownall, a Philadelphia officer facing murder charges in the shooting of David Jones, […]

Media organizations call on government to aid the news industry

By Evelyn Mateos, Editor & Publisher The COVID-19 pandemic has forced hundreds of newsrooms to impose massive cuts, layoffs and furloughs—so much that several media organizations have called on Congress to lend crucial financial assistance to the industry. In April, a coalition of more than 45 organizations and scholars including Pen America, Free Press Action and Common Cause addressed a […]

News Leaders Association calls for structural changes on newsroom diversity

From the News Leaders Association The News Leaders Association Diversity Study effort is under reconstruction for a variety of reasons, including the fact that news outlets across the country in recent years have declined to participate. The 40th anniversary of the survey’s creation by the former American Society of News Editors (now News Leaders Association) brought record-low participation in 2018. […]