Berks-Mont editors attend PNA seminar

On April 10, editorial staff of the Berks-Mont Newspapers attended an all day seminar called “Community Weeklies: Great by Design” sponsored by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

Above Mariela Jurado, a reporter for LaVoz, our Spanish language publication, Courtney McEachern, editor of Westside Weekly in West Reading and Heather Tassmer, editor of The Southern Berks News talk between sessions.

The presentations included morning speakers on design, writing and keeping newspapers interesting and relevant for readers.

Afternoon breakout sessions included:
• Doing more with less about the challenges of creating a weekly newspaper
• Great photographs keep readers a critique and training session on better photojournalism
• Developing a strong editorial voice a session designed to improve the distinctive voice of news and editorial writing
• News design hands-on workshop looking at how to design great news pages

Above Matthew Reichl, editor of The Boyertown Area Times attends a session on open records led by Kim de Bourbon of the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition.

Clinton in Q-Town

The phone rang Tuesday in the West Reading office of LaVoz and Westside Weekly.

It was Patti Paul controller here at Berks-Mont Newspapers coming to the rescue again.

"How often does Bill Clinton come to Quakertown?" Patti told me by way of explanation.

She had called Journal Register Company, the corporation that owns our little newspaper chain, and asked to roll back deadline for The Free Press, our Quakertown weekly, to give editor David P. Anderson chance to cover the former President's visit to Quakertown Community High School in support of his wife U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, (R-NY) and her bid for the Democratic nomination for President.

The decision meant pushing deadline back to 5:45 p.m. and a half hour drive to our Boyertown office where Boyertown Area Times editor Matthew Reichl and I awaited Dave's copy and photos (like the one above) fitting them together with earlier interviews on the visit to create a finished page.

It's another example of how small weeklies are still capable of excellent journalism often as excellent as what is being created by the dailies.

The key?

The willingness to always reach to do better.

The willingness and commitment of both the editorial and business sides to create a better news product for readers than we had the week before.

Sure it would have been easier to sit back; to say, no that will make us late; to say, hey, we're a weekly, we can wait to get that until next week.

But it's better to say we're planning to do all we can, to be the best no matter what our limitations.