10/21/2016

The Ohio News Media Association?

Members will vote on new name, other Constitution changes

By Dennis Hetzel, Executive Director

After 83 years as the Ohio Newspaper Association, our organization will become the Ohio News Media Association in 2017 if our members approve changes to our constitution and bylaws unanimously supported by the ONA Board of Trustees on Oct.  7.

“The name change is not intended to signify an abandonment of our heritage as the ‘Ohio Newspaper Association,’ but instead, to build upon that foundation, and rich tradition, to signal the broadening of our scope,” said Bill Southern, president of The Toledo Blade and the ONA Board of Trustees.  “The mission of newspapering remains to inform and entertain readers, and to deliver results for advertisers. The new name acknowledges the many new and interesting ways we have to accomplish those objectives.

The board’s action followed a recommendation of the ONA’s Dues & Membership Committee, chaired by former Trustee Nick Monico of Civitas Media and Ken Douthit of Douthit Communications. 

The Constitution changes also will allow ONA to expand its membership base.  The proposal will allow Ohio-based monthly and bi-weekly publications to join if they meet our other membership criteria and receive board approval. This is similar to the standards we have for digital-only, local news organizations. 

Certainly in the area of government affairs, the legal hotline, training and many other areas of member services, the issues and interests are identical. When we lobby for better sunshine laws or try to stop damaging proposals such as levying the sales tax on advertising, we are speaking on behalf of every media outlet in Ohio.  We can all learn from each other and support each other. 

I believe we are the second state newspaper association in America to adopt such a name change, following Pennsylvania’s newspaper association becoming the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association several years ago.  Nationally, the Newspaper Association of America just changed its name to the News Media Alliance and the former Suburban Newspapers of America has evolved into the Local Media Association.

Members will have access to detailed documents that show the proposed changes in advance of our annual meeting, which will be held, as always, during our annual convention. The 2017 dates are Feb. 8-9.

The Trustees took several other actions during the recent meeting, including these items:

Dues increase: Most members will receive invoices for their 2017 dues investment with an increase of 3 percent. The basis remains dues paid in 2015 or the most recent calculation for newer members.  There was no increase in 2016.  The increase reflects overall needs at the ONA and continued difficulty at AdOhio, which is operating at a loss for the second year in a row and unable to contribute profits or dividends to ONA.  Several measures have been undertaken to restore AdOhio to profitability, including significant expense cuts and heightened effort on network advertising sales.

New title: The title of the executive director has been changed to “president and executive director” to better reflect his increased involvement with AdOhio.

New associate members: We’re proud to welcome four of our circulation vendor partners as associate members: mass2one, Newzware, VoicePort LLC and Covenant Sales Group.  We also formally welcome Constellation Energy as an associate member.  We urge members to contact Constellation, a Fortune 100 company. They will perform a no-obligation analysis of your gas and electric costs and may be able to offer significant expense savings, as some ONA members already have found.  Click here to see our earlier article with more information.

As always, we welcome member questions and comments.  You can reach me at dhetzel@ohionews.org.