What is the one key takeaway you learned at the conference?

Read tweets from the conference at #snpaUNC

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By Paula Seligson

From Disruption to Transformation:
New Strategies for Prosperity in a Digital Age

Participants at the May 18-20 conference sponsored by SNPA's Traveling Campus and the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication were asked:

What is the one key takeaway you learned at the conference?
"The importance of diversifying your business.  We've been doing print really well, but to bring in this digital component and to try to make it part of everything you do.  I think a lot of times people say 'This is a print thing' or 'This is a digital thing' or 'We'll hire a digital person to do a, b and c.' What I'm taking away is how to transition the business to where everybody is thinking about both equally."

Peter Weinberger, owner and publisher
Claremont Courier, Claremont, Calif.

"Looking at the business in a very different way, with a lot of clarity, really focused on our audience and figuring out how to make the transition over the next five years."

Andrew Olsen, publisher and co-owner
Times Review Media Group, Mattituck, N.Y.
"The seminar just really reinforced both the strengths that we have at our company and also that we've got to get moving.  Coming to something like this, you step out of the vacuum a little bit.  It's just been such a great experience to be with your colleagues, too.  We've all got the same problems, the same challenges, but we know we need to get moving, so it's been a good shot in the arm for me."

Charles Broadwell, publisher
The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, N.C.
"I need to look at digital differently and I need a plan.  I need to figure out how I can do digital with the staff we have and the expertise we have. 

"My secondary takeaway is to look at how our newsroom covers things.  We do all the traditional things, but is that really where we need to be? I know some of those we do well and some of them we don't, and we need to visit that."

Terese Almquist, publisher
The News-Topic, Lenoir, N.C.
"Seeing how other papers are adapting to digital.  We're starting now to get our websites going and I think that's going to be big, watching what other people are doing.  Mimic the successful ones and avoid the not-so-successful ones."

Hugh Osteen, executive development
Osteen Publishing Co., Jacksonville, Fla.
"That we can do it.  We have to start slow, we have to go incrementally, but it's possible. It was possible before and it's possible now and we just really have to envision the next step, and sometimes it's hard to do that when you're trying to get to the next day."

Renee Carey, editor
The News-Argus, Goldsboro, N.C.

Paula Seligson


Read all of the tweets from the conference at #snpaUNC.

Read coverage from Monday

Read coverage from Tuesday

Paula Seligson is a research specialist at the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has worked as a reporter for a community newspaper and currently researches trends in the news industry for Penny Abernathy, Knight Chair of Journalism and Digital Economics.

SNPA, UNC, Chapel Hill, digital
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