SNA has teamed up with NewspaperToolbox to provide an online entry platform for the 2011 Advertising & Promotions Contest. This new online contest entry system is designed to make the process of entering contests quicker, easier and less costly than the previous method of mailing ‘hard-copy’ material.

SNA chose to partner with NewspaperToolbox because of their proven ability to collect and share revenue-generating ideas with publishers throughout North America. With just a click of a button, you can access thousands of ready-to-sell ideas, reader contests, concept pages, themed editorial features and articles, special supplements, games, horoscopes, recipes and so much more. The ideas and concepts they present are easy-to-sell and are adaptable to any market, large or small.

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By Deb Shaw, For the SNA Foundation

Another free e-learning course has just been released by the Suburban Newspapers of America Foundation in conjunction with the Poynter Institute’s NewsUniversity. The e-course, The Community Journalism Series, has two parts – one intended for newsroom leaders to help them develop and manage a UGC program, and one intended for amateur contributors to teach them the fundamentals of contributing to the local media house.

Citizen journalism, user-generated content, pro-amateur journalism, crowd sourcing, blogging, conversational media, participatory journalism, consumer-created content – whatever you call it, using readers, viewers or listeners as a source for content – whether informally via comments or in fully structured relationships – is happening in all forms of media.

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JRC’s outreach to expand local voices is poised to triple by year’s end

By Deb Shaw, For the SNA Foundation

When Jon Cooper and Matt DeRienzo took center stage at a recent SNA Foundation-sponsored webinar to talk about the new open newsroom environment at The Register Citizen in Torrington, Conn., attendees got a bonus of hearing much more about a variety of initiatives having to do with engaging audience. Cooper, V.P. of Content for Journal Register Company, and DeRienzo, Publisher in Torrington, freely shared many elements of the evolving culture shift within their newsrooms and their communities at large including details of how they now routinely invite the general public to participate in ways unimaginable just a few short years ago.

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