Living up to expectations

Bill Curry was recruited by the Green Bay Packers.
The kid from Atlanta had never been that far north.
Defensive captain Willie Davis encouraged Curry.
"You can earn a place on this team," Davis told him.
That expectation made a difference in Curry’s commitment.
Making it to a professional football team is incredibly hard.
You have to develop a high threshold of pain.
Ray Nitschke broke Curry’s nose and knocked him out.
Curry didn’t quit — because Willie Davis had faith in him.
He couldn’t let Davis — or himself — down.
Later, Curry asked Davis why he had said what he said.
Davis said he didn’t know. There was a lesson there.
Great leaders do what’s right even if they don’t know why.
Has a great leader done something like this for you?
Have you encouraged others with your faith in them?
Remember Winston Churchill’s brief but famous speech?
"Never give in, never give in, never ever give in."
Your words of encouragement will make a difference.
Go make a difference in someone’s life today.
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Find the next best option

MacLeod and I were headed home from Paradise.
Then we ran into one of those endless traffic jams.
I-85 south of Atlanta became a parking lot.
Were we going to sit here or try something else?
It took two hours to reach the next exit.
MacLeod checked our map for another route.
We could take back roads to Covington.
There we could pick up I-20 two hours from home.
A 9-hour drive became an 11-hour drive.
This isn’t a rant against Interstate highways.
It’s an observation on business and life.
The I-85 traffic jam is a metaphor.
You will run into traffic jams. Count on it.
You’ll lose valued customers. Even dear friends.
Life and business are like that. Have a plan.
Have an alternate plan. Even a Plan C.
When Plan A doesn’t work, something else will.
There’s always an exit. Take the backroads.
You’ll get where you’re going. Eventually.
Don’t give up. Get creative. Find a way.
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What are we teaching future journalists?

Yesterday we talked about enriching our customers’ experience.
Today we’ll talk about educating future newspaper people.
Seton Hall University invited me to teach for one reason only.
I was a working newspaper editor, not an academic.
I’m not opposed to academics but their job is difficult.
They are not out in the real world grappling with problems daily.
It's harder to see reality when you're far removed from it.
At our Atlanta summit, Kevin Slimp told a revealing story.
Kevin directs the Newspaper Technology Institute in Knoxville.
That probably qualifies him as an academic himself.
But Kevin is out in the real world working with newspaper people.
"Colleges bring me in to speak to their faculty," he said.
"I find they have little idea of the real world."
They think newspapers and TV should hire differently.
They say we should hire reporters, photographers and editors.
Not graduates who can report, photograph and edit.
They don’t want to train students with multiple skills.
They think we should hire four graduates instead of one.
One young professor saw the fallacy in this. He said:
"There’s only one problem. We don’t own the newspapers."
What can we do about this? Several things come to mind.
Why not offer internships to give students real world experience?
Why not offer faculty internships as a reality refresher course?
Why not volunteer to teach a course or be a guest speaker?
Lets not write off the academics. Lets help them do a better job.
Next week we’ll talk about what you would do as king of the world.
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How newspapers can survive

Friday we talked about my Rx for your newspaper’s survival.
This week we’ll talk about what other experts predict.
You’ve seen the bad news. Almost all metros are cutting staff.
The giant Gannett Co. just announced it’s cutting 1,000 jobs.
That’s 1,000 newspaper families looking for the next paycheck.
What about the rest of the industry? Is it this badly in trouble?
Over the weekend, seven of us met in Atlanta to plot the future.
Bob Bobber reports circulation at his Florida newspapers is up.
Sure, the metros are hurting. The days of 40% margins are over.
And we can expect dailies to drop less profitable publishing days.
Many are already dropping Mondays. Is Thursday next?
An NNA survey found 83% of adults read a community newspaper.
If yours is a community newspaper, don’t feel smug.
None of us are out of danger. But the future is not as bleak.
Circulation expert Phil Hanna is betting on community newspapers.
Keep reporters on the street, he advises, and you’ll have readers.
Without strong local reporting, you’re irrelevant.
I was glad to hear Phil say that. I’ve preached that for years.
Get more names and faces into your newspapers.
Have readers saying, "I saw your picture in the newspaper."
That’s the kind of buzz you won’t hear about other media.
Tomorrow we’ll talk more about what the experts say.
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Do newspapers have a future?

Yesterday we talked about learning from our experiences.
Today we’ll talk about something close to many of our hearts:
What lies ahead for newspapers and the publishing industry?
As you’re reading this, my wife and I will be in Atlanta.
I’ll talk with Ruth King on the ProfitabilityChannel.com at 10 a.m.
Then we will meet for the weekend with other consultants.
These include some familiar names you will recognize:
Ed Henninger, Ken Blum, Bob Bobber and Kevin Slimp.
We will discuss the future of newspapers in print and online.
I’ll share our insights with you in next week’s blog.
My take on newspapers’ future? It’s simple and optimistic.
The obituaries are premature. Community newspapers are robust.
They fill a need for local news and information like nothing else.
They tell about your taxes. What your local officials are up to.
About the education your children get. The safety of your town.
Who scored the winning points in the local high school game.
Who was born, got married or died. What’s on at the movies.
We don’t try to cover the world. We cover what we do best.
We should not try to be all things to all people. That’s suicidal.
Local news and sports is our franchise. Our reason for existence.
We should strive to do it better than anyone else ever could.
I hope you have time to watch Ruth and me. To do it, click here.