Williamsburg
area non-daily suspends print, stays online

A
Williamsburg area non-daily newspaper has discontinued its printed product for
the foreseeable future, opting instead to maintain an online presence.

“We
apologize for any confusion during this transition, but please understand we
are doing the best we can to ensure that your community newspaper continues
with the good news we have always brought to you,” Rosemary Van Houten,
publisher of the Toano-Norge Times, wrote in a message on the newspaper’s Web
site. Van Houten said the Aug. 28 edition of the newspaper was its first
online-only issue.

The online
issue will follow the same publishing schedule — every other Friday
— as its print counterpart. The next issue will hit the Internet this
Friday.

“After
that,” Van Houten wrote, “it's possible we may continue with only an online
version of the TNT or go back to print.”

The
Toano-Norge Times was started in 2006. It reported a circulation of around
4,000.

Not
much time left to update directory listings

There’s
one week left until the deadline for Virginia Press Association member
publications to update their online directory information.

Information
from these listings will appear in the 2010 Directory of Virginia Newspapers,
which will be published in late November. Members who are registered on the VPA
site can log
on and see
links to the directory listings they updated last year. The fields on each link
will have the information as it appeared in the 2009 directory. Members would
simply update the information, check the box beside 2010 and click Update.

The
deadline to update is Sept. 30. Any information not updated will appear the
same as it did in the 2009 directory.

Businesses
and advertising agencies rely on the listings in making their media-purchasing
decisions, so fresh information is of the utmost importance.

Questions
about the listings should be directed to Bill
Atkinson at
(804) 521-7579.

On a
related note, VPA again is selling advertising in the directory. Questions
about potential directory ads should be directed to href="mailto:janetm@vpa.net">Janet Madison style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> at (804) 521-7570.

Potential
Muhammad witnesses still are being sought

Names of
potential print-media witnesses for the scheduled Nov. 10 execution of John
Allen Muhammad still are being collected for the Oct. 23 drawing.

To date, 10
names representing both daily and non-daily publications have been submitted
for the lottery, which will be two-tiered. The first name drawn will represent
a newspaper from the coverage area where the crime took place. The second
drawing will be open to all other newspapers, including those not chosen in the
first pick.

Muhammad
was one of two people charged with killing and terrorizing citizens during a
23-day period in 2002. The rampage left 10 dead and several others injured, and
stretched from the Washington suburbs to the Richmond metro area. He is set to
die for the shooting death of a Maryland man at a Prince William County service
station.

Newspapers
that wish to have a representative in the lottery should complete href="http://www.vpa.net/images/pdf/pool-form-111009.pdf">the execution witness
selection form
and fax it to Stephanie McCraw style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> at (800) 849-8717 or (804) 521-7589
by Thursday, Oct. 22.

href="http://www.vpa.net/index.php/membership/article/witness-pool/">VPA has
set up a Web page
with general information about the execution witness pool. The page also has a
link to the Muhammad execution witness form and to the State Police Press Pass
application.

Questions
about the witness pool should be directed to href="mailto:stephaniem@vpa.net">Stephanie McCraw style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> at (804) 521-7578.

style='mso-special-character:line-break'>

More
presenters lined up for Online News Workshop

More
presenters have been confirmed for the Nov. 12 Online News Workshop, co
sponsored by the Virginia Press Association and the Online News Association.

Ken
Sands, a digital media consultant based in Washington, will lead two sessions
in the first track — “Microlocal vs. Micropersonal,” a look at how to
balance the need for local and personalized coverage; and “Paid Content,” which
will focus on the advantages and disadvantages of a pay site compared to a free
site.

The third
session in the first track is “The Legalities of Online,” a look at what online
publishers have to be aware of from a legal standpoint before posting. That
session will be led by Briana E. Thibeau, an attorney with the Washington firm
of Dow Lohnes PLLC.

Todd
Jackson, of The Roanoke Times, has agreed to be part of a panel discussion on
online coverage of elections. That will be the final session of the second
track.

Another
topic for the second track will be data aggregation. Other confirmed presenters
for the second track include Ryan Sholin, director of news innovation for
Publish2 in Northern Virginia; and Troy Thibodeaux, of The Associated Press.

Each
session in the track will be around 75 minutes long. The workshop will start at
10 a.m. and end around 3 p.m. Cost to attend is $30 and includes lunch

href="http://www.vpa.net/images/pdf/ONA-program_WebPost.pdf">A registration
form and preliminary agenda are available on the VPA Web site. Questions should be
directed to Kim Woodward style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> at (804) 521-7574.

One
more week for bylaws comments

The VPA
Board of Directors wants member input on a package of proposed bylaws changes,
including one change that would establish a membership category for online-only
publications.

At its July
10 meeting, the board tentatively advanced the proposals, which also include
the creation of categories for educational institution (which currently are in
the Associate membership category), and individual and honorary life
memberships (which currently are in the Sustaining membership category); a
removal of the restriction on Affiliate members to serve on committees; and a
change in the membership admissions policy. But before the board makes the
final recommendation, it wants VPA members to comment on the proposals.

VPA has set
up href="http://www.vpa.net/index.php/membership/article/bylaws-proposal093009/">a
page on its Web site that allows members to see all the proposed changes and make comments
in the space provided. Comments will be accepted through Sept. 30, and the
board will make its decision at its Oct. 23 meeting. The board’s final
recommendation then will come up for membership approval at next March’s Annual
Meeting in Roanoke.

Retired
T-D writer honored for bay reporting

From
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

Lawrence
Latané III, a former staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation's conservationist of the year.

The
environmental group made the announcement earlier this week.

Latané
covered the bay from 1986 to 2008 from the Times-Dispatch's Northern Neck
bureau in Warsaw. He retired from journalism last year and operates Blenheim
Organic Gardens, an organic farm, with his wife, Becky.

"Lawrence
was arguably the dean of bay journalists in Virginia," said Chuck Epes, a
spokesman for the bay foundation.

"There
is no doubt that Virginia policymakers, elected officials and citizens know
more about the bay and care more about the bay today because Lawrence Latané
was writing for the past two decades."

The
conservationist award is the foundation's most prestigious honor, given
annually to recognize "extraordinary contributions to efforts" to
save the bay, the organization said.

"I
guess I'm surprised and honored at the same time," Latané said.

The
bay was becoming more newsworthy just as he started covering it, Latané said.
"I kind of turned it into a beat [for the newspaper] that really hadn't
been there."

Latané
has deep roots in the region; his family's farm on the Potomac River is part of
the original holdings of George Washington's family.

Latané's
reporting on the bay ranged from the policy and agencies that affected the
estuary to moving personal accounts about the lore and customs of the region,
many of them giving way to growth and modernization.

He wrote
about the lives of watermen, boat builders, farmers and others whose
livelihoods were linked to the bay region's lands and waters.

Council
quizzes schools over visitor data

A member
of the state Freedom of Information Advisory Council has flunked a Northern
Virginia school system for collecting personal data from school visitors as
part of a security program that the council member deemed an unnecessary
measure.

“This is
a program that you would see in use at the Pentagon, not to go visit your kid,”
council member George T. Whitehurst admonished representatives of the Prince
William School System during Monday’s council meeting. Whitehurst was part of a
chorus of council members quizzing Prince William about the viability of its
Visitor Identification System.

Prince
William — Virginia’s second largest public school system — recently
installed the VIS at its 88 schools as a student-protection measure. The system
requires school visitors to present a photo ID that would be swiped and
background information instantly available on the visitor — including any
past criminal activity or stipulations that otherwise would curtail the
visitation, such as custody battles. If access is granted, then a badge is
created that allows the school to track the whereabouts of the visitor.

Earlier
this year, the school system asked Sen. George L. Barker, D-Alexandria, to
sponsor a bill that would have excluded the disclosure of certain identifiable
information of Prince William visitors. However, that bill was withheld so that
more study could be done on the issue.

Prince
William came back to the council Monday with suggested legislation that would
exempt “data, records, plans, documentation, software or other information”
related to Visitor Identification Systems, “the disclosure of which would
jeopardize the operational or access control features of such system or would
reveal the identity or personal information of persons seeking access to such
buildings or other school property.”

In a
letter to the council, School Board Chairman Milton C. Johns wrote that under
current FOIA, all of the ID information of every visitor, as well as
confidential data relating to students “may arguably be subject” to disclosure.

“As a
result, information obtained in an effort to increase the security of students
and school staff can become the instrument of identity theft or otherwise
misused in a variety of ways,” Johns wrote.

Whitehurst,
father of two Spotsylvania County public school students, called the program
“overkill.”

“I don’t
like the idea that if I had kids in the Prince William School System, I would
be having to scan my driver’s license every time I go to the school to see
them,” he said. Whitehurst said Prince William “jumped on this as a good idea,
spent the money for it and then didn’t want to get rid of it,” therefore
justifying the rationale for the exemption.

Mary
McGowan, an attorney representing Prince William, said the VIS already assisted
in one incident where a police SWAT team had to come in when someone began
making trouble at a school. But Whitehurst dismissed that as an issue, saying,
“Someone who is going to be bad in a school would not check in. They would
sneak in.”

Whitehurst
also said the Prince William request puts the council in the position “of
having to make a decision based on bad planning of the Prince William School
System.”

Other
council members questioned McGowan about the data-collection process, such as
what is done with the data and if the data is entered anew each time a card is
swiped. She said the data is stored in school records; and subsequent swipes of
the photo ID do not override existing data, just supplement it.

“Do
people have a right to know who is in the school, or is it just the school that
needs to know?” asked council member Craig T. Fifer.

Sen. R.
Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania and the council’s vice chairman, said Prince
William was “asking for a sweeping public-policy change” in making the exemption
request. Houck expressed concern over whom in the school “makes the
determination of who will get a pass and who doesn’t.”

Del. H.
Morgan Griffith, R-Salem and the council’s chairman, broached the possibility
of the system putting out a false-positive on a visitor’s background based on
the speed of the background retrieval.

“Are we
putting a chiller on parents or grandparents coming into the schools to visit
the kids” because they did not want to deal with the hassle of the security
measures, Griffith asked rhetorically. “I’m not sure that’s our job.”

In the end,
the council agreed to send the issue to its Public Records Subcommittee for
further study.

National
Newspaper Week is set for Oct. 4-10

The
Newspaper Association Managers group has designated Oct. 4-10 as “National
Newspaper Week.”

The
annual observance stresses the importance of newspapers to everyday life. This
year’s theme is “Newspapers: Carrying the Torch of Freedom.”

href="http://www.kypress.com/nnwkit/">The Web site style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> includes individual links to
portions of the National Newspaper Week kit — the NNW theme and logo,
cartoons, an editorial, 15 house ads, materials for Newspapers in Education
programs and International Carrier Day (Oct. 10). Visitors also may download the
entire NNW kit as a 19-megabyte zip file.

The
Kentucky Press Association developed the Web site for National Newspaper Week.

A link to
the NNW Web site also may be found on the VPA Web site under Membership.

Online
consultant will lead VPA sessions

VPA will
offer several training sessions this year focusing on online training. The
sessions will be led by Scott Bateman, VPA’s online consultant.

Costs for
the full-day sessions are $70 for VPA members and $100 for non-members. Lunch
is included. The sessions will be held at VPA Headquarters in Glen Allen.

VPA is
offering a 2-for-1 attendance special. For every paid registrant a member
sends, a second attendee may come at no additional cost.

• Oct.
29: Webmaster Technology Training (9 a.m. to Noon) style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>

This
workshop targets newspaper staff with multiple Web site responsibilities. Learn
Webmaster basics – tools, rules and technology that save you time and
improve site performance. Topics will include:

• content
management systems;

• site
optimization to increase audience and readership;

•
Webmaster tools – free, simple and easy to use applications that can
increase audience and revenue, help promote the site, and guide your through
solving site problems;

• search
engine optimization; and

•
introduction to PHP and MySQL – the technology that fuels most Web sites.
Learn how to build your own databases.

href="http://www.vpa.net/images/pdf/BatemanSession102909.pdf">Download a
registration form
for the Oct. 29 session. E-mail registration also is available by contacting href="mailto:kimw@vpa.net">Kim Woodward.

Bateman
also will lead sessions Jan. 21 on “Online Sales Training,” and May 13 on
“Practical Solutions to Growing Online Readership.” More information on those
sessions will be available soon on the VPA Web site.

October
brings ‘Ethical Standard’ training to VPA

The
American Press Institute’s “Upholding Ethical Standards” will be held from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 9 at VPA Headquarters in Glen Allen.

The
session will be led by Steve Buttry, editor of The Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette.
It will focus on ethical issues related to such aspects of digital journalism
as online comments and discussions, audio/visual journalism, blogging,
accuracy, breaking news coverage, links, databases, revenue generation and
transparency.

Cost is
$70 for VPA members and $100 for nonmembers, and lunch is included. VPA has a
special 2-for-1 attendance offer — members who pay for one attendee can
send a second at no cost. Deadline to register is Oct. 1.

For more
information about the session and to register, go to href="http://www.vpa.net/index.php/education/article/10024/">the Web page style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>.

E-mail
registrations may be sent to Kim Woodward style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>.

Next
SNPA Webinar series looks at online sales

The href="http://www.newspaperwebinars.com/#August26">next series of four Webinars style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> co-sponsored by the Virginia Press
Association and the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association will examine
online sales. Registration for the series is now open.

The
schedule is as follows:

• Sept.
30, 2 p.m. — The Consultative Sale: Increase Online Revenue — style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>The consultative sales method
examines best practices gleaned from thousands of successful local Interactive
media operations around the country tracked by Borrell Associates. In this
webinar, you’ll receive ideas, information and tactics that will help you and
your staff close more sales while positioning the account executive as an
expert in the online ad field.

• Oct.
14, 2 p.m. — Tackling the Yellow Pages — style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>The directory industry has been the
most aggressive of all local media, garnering an estimated 15-percent share of
its total revenues from digital advertising this year. It also has trained
approximately 80 percent of its on-the-ground sales force – totaling more
than 13,000 salespeople – to sell interactive products, going
head-to-head with trained newspaper reps also selling online advertising. So
how can you sell against this large force?

• Oct.
28, 2 p.m. — Small Businesses: The Final Frontier for Online — style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Are small- and medium-sized business
owners changing their spending habits? Are they abandoning traditional media
for the Internet? Is the recession a tipping point for their ad spends?

• Nov.
11, 2 p.m. — Social Networking: The New Content Model style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>
— Online social
networking has encouraged new ways for Internet users to communicate and share
information. Social networking Web sites are continuing to grow in popularity
and millions use them every day. As the popularity increases, so do the new
uses for technology. The business model has been elusive. Right now, most
social networks work under an autonomous business model vs. the traditional
supplier and consumer model. The Webinar will examine what is working, what
isn’t and where things are headed.

style="mso-spacerun: yes"> SNPA has allowed VPA members to purchase
a spot in the Webinars at SNPA member rates. The cost to take part in all four
Webinars is $250 per computer connection. Individual Webinars are $75 each per
connection.

For more information about the Webinars, go to the href="http://www.newspaperwebinars.com/">Webinar home page style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>.

Inland
Webinars: selling power, seek new dollars

Upcoming
Inland Press Association Webinars will focus on selling power and capturing new
revenue:

•
Friday, Oct. 2, 11:30 a.m. EDT — href="http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=740388">Unleash
Your Selling Power: Selling the New Super Media style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Are you looking for revenue growth
programs guaranteed to boost your sales now and in the future? Sales success
will come from selling integrated offline and online media solutions. Leverage
the best of all your media packaged together to create the new “Super Media”
for your new and existing advertiser base. The Webinar will explore how to use the
power of your media portfolio, redefine the audience proposition, train you
sales teams, and align your compensation model to reinforce your multiple media
solution selling. This program will help you grow revenue per advertiser
campaign, and increase you share of available local media dollars being spent
in your market. Debbie Holzcamp, principal of HDS Premier Consulting in Laguna
Niguel, Calif., will lead the Webinar.

•
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 11:30 a.m. EDT — href="http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=740242">Capturing
New Dollars and New Customers - Turn the Table on Google,Yahoo & Yellow
Pages In an
environment increasingly focused on narrowcasting ad messages to behavioral,
affinity, lifestyle, psychographic and demographic niches, advertisers need our
help. They want a web strategy, not just an online presence. They want to be
found by search engines. They want to reach more customers per dollar. Learn
how publishers can create new revenue streams from non-traditional advertisers.
Greg Sanson, CEO of Itz Publishing, and Benjamin Hall, director of online
application at the Cape May County Herald, will lead the Webinar.

Inland is
extending its member rates for all webinars and workshops to all VPA members.
When VPA members register for the Webinars, they will pay the Inland fee of $75
per session instead of the $125 non-member rate.