Today, America’s Newspapers released the following statement in support of the New York Local Journalism Sustainability Act:

“America’s Newspapers, the largest trade association of local newspapers in the U.S. with over 1,700 member publications, endorses the New York Local Journalism Sustainability Act. We applaud the New York State Senate for including this important tax credit for local news organizations in its one-house budget, and we call on NY Governor Hochul, the NY Senate, and the NY Assembly, to include the NY Local Journalism Sustainability Act in the state’s FY'25 budget. The NY Local Journalism Sustainability Act will create newsroom jobs across the Empire State and be a model for other states to follow to combat the current rate of 2.5 newspaper closures per week in our country. New York is now positioned to be a national leader in preserving local journalism.”

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Mark Cohen named to oversee executive development program

This educational program, open to members of America's Newspapers, is designed to develop leadership skills and a broader understanding of sustainable business models for local journalism organizations. The program is built to provide newspaper leaders exposure to a wide variety of topics in an engaging learning environment.

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Mi-Ai Parrish of ASU Media Enterprise to deliver keynote address next Monday at Mega-Conference

According to the 2023 report on The State of Local News, residents in more than half of U.S. counties have no, or very limited, access to a reliable local news source — either print, digital or broadcast. There are 204 counties without any local news outlet and 1,562 counties served with only one remaining local news source, invariably a weekly newspaper.

The study goes on to note that newspapers are continuing to vanish at an average rate of more than two a week. Its never been more important to support local journalism.

Mi-Ai Parrish, who leads the Arizona State University Media Enterprise and is the Professor for Media Innovation and Leadership at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, will focus on six ways supporting local journalism may reduce fine lines and wrinkles during her keynote address next Monday at the Mega-Conference. Parrish also is president and CEO of MAP Strategies Group, based in Phoenix.

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With third-party cookies crumbling and the social media landscape softening, it’s never been a more important time to own your own audience.

Next Monday afternoon at the Mega-Conference, Josh Awtry, senior vice president, audience development with Newsweek, will delve into the business case for engagement and how to build a healthy funnel with first-party data no matter the size of your operation. Learn valuable strategies in audience development to connect communities, enhance readership and build the business. 

Awry joined Newsweek last May after leading audience development at The Hill, a nonpartisan news outlet focused on politics and policy. His focus on quality helped The Hill reach two-year traffic highs and set all-time records in the amount of time readers spend with the site. Before that, he led consistent strategy for the USA TODAY Network.

At Newsweek, he has been responsible for charting an ambitious path for growth by engaging Americans with unique content that spans the cultural and political spectrum to further Newsweek's mission of welcoming diverse views and voices that advance the search for common ground.

There's still time to register!

Here's information to help you plan your trip.

View the full conference agenda here

Curious as to which companies will be represented at Mega? Take a look here.

The Mega-Conference is packed full of compelling sessions that will run all day on Monday and Tuesday, April 15 and 16. In making your travel plans, please note that Tuesday sessions will run until 2:30 p.m. You won't want to miss those sessions.

Carmage Walls Commentary Prize to award cash prizes honoring courageous columns and editorials

Awards for excellence in editorial writing (representing the view of the newspaper) and awards for excellence in column writing (columns written by one or more individuals) will be presented this October in Phoenix, Arizona, at the America's Newspapers Senior Leadership Conference. Win cash prizes and recognition!

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Audience

Audience.io is your all-in-one promotions platform designed to boost your revenue, first-party data and user engagement. Audience helps media companies like Boone Media, Grey TV and over 4,000 others take ownership of their audience and scale digital revenue. Products include a Best Of platform, contesting tools, CDP, email and more. Discover 12+ products, plug-and-play templates and support tailored to help newspapers achieve their unique goals. Explore how the Audience.io platform can enhance your business!

London Sutherland is marketing director and can be reached at london@audience.io.

Choozle

Choozle lowers publishers' total cost of integrating programmatic advertising. Via the industry's easiest to use self-service platform (or via managed services), Choozle leverages both The Trade Desk and Amazon DSP services to deliver publishers simple channel-expansion to connected TV, display, audio, out-of-home, search and social. Choozle further lowers publishers' costs with lower cleared CPMs, no fees or up-charges, better use of 1st Party data, and by being so simple for reps to use. Choozle: helping publishers cost-effectively integrate and extend programmatic advertising.  

Ashley Grace is senior director strategic sales and can be reached at ashley.grace@choozle.com.

Friends2Follow

Friends2Follow helps newspapers monetize advertisers’ social media. Their easy-to-use system pushes the social media posts of advertisers into news websites. Advertisers receive social media engagement from readers and pay for the privilege. Friends2Follow just launched a new "Best of" contest platform that is fully integrated with their social media powered revenue system, comes pre-loaded with best practices for contest success and requires less support staff. It is easy to use, install and has unique ways to drive new, year-round revenue and engagement with these yearly contests.

Reinig Morris is co-founder and can be reached at reinig@friends2follow.com.

Ganjingworld Corp.

Ganjingworld.com is the newest digital platform providing family-friendly entertainment for all ages. Gan Jing means clean. Their mission is to create a truly positive, vibrant digital community filled with wholesome content free from violent, erotic, criminal and harmful content. Gan Jing World holds user privacy as a top priority, and ensures that they collect the absolute minimum amount of user data compared to other platforms. Users are allowed to freely access their website and download their app without the need for registration.

Located in Middletown, New York, Gan Jing World can be reached at partners@ganjingworld.com.

Effectively immediately, America's Newspapers has a new mailing address for dues, invoice payments and membership. Our new address is:

America's Newspapers

2615 Centennial Blvd., Suite 200

Tallahassee, FL 32308-0592