From Non-Profit Times:
Communications ...
The vanishing print medium
Extry! Extry!
Reading all about it already is undergoing fundamental changes, as many news media cut back on or (as with the nonprofit Christian Science Monitor) eliminate their print media in favor of online reporting.
With that in mind, it might be helpful for nonprofits that deal with the media to be aware of the changes of approach being undertaken by the media.
According to “Telling The Story” published by The Missouri Group, there are 10 guidelines for writing online.
Think immediacy. Reporters have to think that their readers are going to be reading right now, instead of over their morning coffee.
Save readers’ time. Be clear, use simple words, keep most sentences short.
Provide information that’s quick and easy to get. Be guided by what readers want or need to know.
Think both verbally and visually. It is not just words but graphics, even video.
Cut copy in half. Most online readers will simply not read long stories.
Use lots of lists and bullets. For print journalists, these items were discouraged. No more.
Write in chunks. What can’t be put in a list can be organized into chunks of information.
Use hyperlinks. Print can tell readers where they can go to check. Online allows them to do it right away.
Give readers a chance to talk back. There are reporters’ email addresses, and there are comment sections.
Don’t forget the human touch. Facts are just facts until they are related to people.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Three Newspapers Move to Mornings
3 newspapers moving to mornings
KENDALLVILLE – Three northeast Indiana newspapers are switching from afternoon publications to mornings effective April 6.
The News-Sun of Kendallville, the Herald-Republican of Angola and the Evening Star of Auburn are all owned by KPC Media Group Inc.
Company president Terry Housholder said the switch reflects the changing needs of readers and advertisers.
KENDALLVILLE – Three northeast Indiana newspapers are switching from afternoon publications to mornings effective April 6.
The News-Sun of Kendallville, the Herald-Republican of Angola and the Evening Star of Auburn are all owned by KPC Media Group Inc.
Company president Terry Housholder said the switch reflects the changing needs of readers and advertisers.
Another Invented Tale?
NYT Unloads on Discrepancies in Minor-League Baseball Memoir
Matt McCarthy's recently-published ODD MAN OUT, his "salacious memoir of his summer as an obscure minor league pitcher," is full of "wide-ranging errors and misquotations" according to the NYT. "Statistics from that season, transaction listings and interviews with his former teammates indicate that many portions of the book are incorrect, embellished or impossible."
Are they minor chronological errors and the complaints of those who are depicted in an unflattering light, or indications of a seriously flawed or even invented narrative? The newspaper clearly implies the latter--but would they have treated Ball Four the same way if it were published today? The author says the book is based on detailed journals he kept at the time and conforms to his recollection of events.
"McCarthy directly quotes people stating incorrect facts about their own lives and tells detailed (and mostly unflattering) stories about teammates who were in fact not on his team at the time. The book's more outrageous scenes could not be independently corroborated or disproved; several teammates who were present said in interviews that they were exaggerated or simply untrue....
"McCarthy recounts game sequences and player performances that were substantially different from what actually happened, including his own games. One scene describes Tony Reagins, the Angels' director of player development, telling McCarthy that his contract is being restructured with incentive clauses. But a copy of McCarthy's original contract, signed a week earlier, before he met Reagins, already included those clauses."
Plus: "The most vocal objector to McCarthy's book has been Kotchman, the manager described at various times as implicitly suggesting to Dvorsky that he try steroids (Dvorsky denies this), going on misogynistic tirades, and ordering a pitcher to hit an Ogden batter in retaliation for a Provo player being hit twice (when box scores from the local newspaper show no Provo player being hit in the series).
"Kotchman read an early copy of the book and had his lawyer, Jonathan Koch of Tampa, Fla., write a 13-page letter to Penguin alleging inaccuracies and requesting it be examined before publication. A Penguin lawyer responded that the concerns were minor and that the company stood by the book's contents."
NYT
Matt McCarthy's recently-published ODD MAN OUT, his "salacious memoir of his summer as an obscure minor league pitcher," is full of "wide-ranging errors and misquotations" according to the NYT. "Statistics from that season, transaction listings and interviews with his former teammates indicate that many portions of the book are incorrect, embellished or impossible."
Are they minor chronological errors and the complaints of those who are depicted in an unflattering light, or indications of a seriously flawed or even invented narrative? The newspaper clearly implies the latter--but would they have treated Ball Four the same way if it were published today? The author says the book is based on detailed journals he kept at the time and conforms to his recollection of events.
"McCarthy directly quotes people stating incorrect facts about their own lives and tells detailed (and mostly unflattering) stories about teammates who were in fact not on his team at the time. The book's more outrageous scenes could not be independently corroborated or disproved; several teammates who were present said in interviews that they were exaggerated or simply untrue....
"McCarthy recounts game sequences and player performances that were substantially different from what actually happened, including his own games. One scene describes Tony Reagins, the Angels' director of player development, telling McCarthy that his contract is being restructured with incentive clauses. But a copy of McCarthy's original contract, signed a week earlier, before he met Reagins, already included those clauses."
Plus: "The most vocal objector to McCarthy's book has been Kotchman, the manager described at various times as implicitly suggesting to Dvorsky that he try steroids (Dvorsky denies this), going on misogynistic tirades, and ordering a pitcher to hit an Ogden batter in retaliation for a Provo player being hit twice (when box scores from the local newspaper show no Provo player being hit in the series).
"Kotchman read an early copy of the book and had his lawyer, Jonathan Koch of Tampa, Fla., write a 13-page letter to Penguin alleging inaccuracies and requesting it be examined before publication. A Penguin lawyer responded that the concerns were minor and that the company stood by the book's contents."
NYT
Monday, March 2, 2009
In Print We Trust . . .
Source: click here
In PRINT we TRUST… and on the WEB we LOOK
March 2, 2009
In a survey polling 316 people ranging in age from 12 to 72, The Rosen Group, a New York City based Public Relations firm, found that “the vast majority of adult consumers still consider the print editions of these publications indispensable sources of news and entertainment.” In fact the survey found that
Nearly 80 percent of respondents still subscribe to magazines and the vast majority (83 percent) find that daily newspapers are still relevant.
Despite a pronounced move toward online news consumption, respondents still believe news is fit to print. When asked if newspapers and magazines will exist in 10 years, nearly half of those surveyed (45 percent) said yes, while 40 percent remained uncertain.
“People are looking online for news and lifestyle information, but they are not abandoning their print editions,” said Lori Rosen, founder and president of The Rosen Group. “There is still a certain satisfaction and ease to holding printed text in your hands, and PDAs or PCs will not replace this just yet.” Among the evidence: Even though the public can’t ignore the burgeoning blogosphere, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed agree that the information found on blogs is not credible.
The survey also found that:
* Thirty percent cite Web sites devoted to news as their top source for updates; 66 percent say that they are among their daily news sources.
* Only 18 percent say that a print newspaper is their first stop for news, but 55 percent of respondents still look at newspapers on any given day. Fifty-three percent still subscribe to the print version of a newspaper.
* When it comes to leisure time, print magazines and Web sites tied for first as a leading entertainment source (26 percent). Only seven percent seek out their favorite magazines online.
* Sixty-five percent of respondents find weekly news magazines relevant.
The results of the survey are clear. Print is still an important and major player in the life of people. The key is to provide the relevant content in print. News and ink-on-paper may no longer be the most relevant content for our papers and magazines. However content that takes the “searching surfing” audience and turns it to a “critically thinking” audience is and will continue to be the essence of print and its future.
Studies like the one above conducted by The Rosen Group and the forth coming Magazine Innovation Center, are but the first steps in the journey of the one thousand miles to amplify the future of print. Stay tuned and thanks Lori Rosen for this timely study.
In PRINT we TRUST… and on the WEB we LOOK
March 2, 2009
In a survey polling 316 people ranging in age from 12 to 72, The Rosen Group, a New York City based Public Relations firm, found that “the vast majority of adult consumers still consider the print editions of these publications indispensable sources of news and entertainment.” In fact the survey found that
Nearly 80 percent of respondents still subscribe to magazines and the vast majority (83 percent) find that daily newspapers are still relevant.
Despite a pronounced move toward online news consumption, respondents still believe news is fit to print. When asked if newspapers and magazines will exist in 10 years, nearly half of those surveyed (45 percent) said yes, while 40 percent remained uncertain.
“People are looking online for news and lifestyle information, but they are not abandoning their print editions,” said Lori Rosen, founder and president of The Rosen Group. “There is still a certain satisfaction and ease to holding printed text in your hands, and PDAs or PCs will not replace this just yet.” Among the evidence: Even though the public can’t ignore the burgeoning blogosphere, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed agree that the information found on blogs is not credible.
The survey also found that:
* Thirty percent cite Web sites devoted to news as their top source for updates; 66 percent say that they are among their daily news sources.
* Only 18 percent say that a print newspaper is their first stop for news, but 55 percent of respondents still look at newspapers on any given day. Fifty-three percent still subscribe to the print version of a newspaper.
* When it comes to leisure time, print magazines and Web sites tied for first as a leading entertainment source (26 percent). Only seven percent seek out their favorite magazines online.
* Sixty-five percent of respondents find weekly news magazines relevant.
The results of the survey are clear. Print is still an important and major player in the life of people. The key is to provide the relevant content in print. News and ink-on-paper may no longer be the most relevant content for our papers and magazines. However content that takes the “searching surfing” audience and turns it to a “critically thinking” audience is and will continue to be the essence of print and its future.
Studies like the one above conducted by The Rosen Group and the forth coming Magazine Innovation Center, are but the first steps in the journey of the one thousand miles to amplify the future of print. Stay tuned and thanks Lori Rosen for this timely study.
'Most Brutal Week Ever' for Newspapers?
From New York Post:
Rough times
This week may be the newspaper business' most brutal ever.
E.W. Scripps yesterday said it is closing the Rocky Mountain News today after a fruitless search to find a buyer ended at the end of January.
The Denver-based paper was Colorado's first newspaper and the state's oldest continually published daily. Scripps bought it in 1926. Last year, the paper lost $16 million, according to Scripps.
But that figure is nothing compared with what's happening in San Francisco, where the San Francisco Chronicle lost $50 million in 2008 and is on target to lose even more this year.
Hearst, which bought the Chronicle in 2000, said earlier this week that unless it can wring out major savings, it, too, will shut down the paper.
The company said it will immediately seek discussions with two major unions, Northern California Media Workers Guild Local 39521 and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 853, which represent the majority of workers at the Chronicle.
On top of that, Hearst said it was cutting 75 newsroom jobs at the San Antonio Express.
It's enough to suspect that Steve Swartz, the newly appointed president of Hearst Newspaper Group, might be wondering what he's got himself into with his new job.
Swartz, along with Frank A. Bennack Jr., Hearst's vice chairman and CEO, said in a joint statement, "Survival is the outcome we all want to achieve."
Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain and owner of USA Today, which has been slashing hundreds of jobs and cutting back on work weeks, said this week it will cut its dividend by 90 percent to a meager 4 cents a share.
The drama started over the weekend when New Haven Register owner Journal Register and the Philadelphia Newspaper Group, owner of Philadelphia's two dailies, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, each filed for Chapter 11.
Philly p.r. man Brian Tierney, with backing from in vestors, purchased the papers for $562 million in mid-2006, but has run into trouble ever since.
PNG and Journal Regis ter join two other news paper groups now functioning under Chapter 11: Sam Zell's Tribune Co., which owns The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which filed in December and January, respectively. keith.kelly@nypost.com
Rough times
This week may be the newspaper business' most brutal ever.
E.W. Scripps yesterday said it is closing the Rocky Mountain News today after a fruitless search to find a buyer ended at the end of January.
The Denver-based paper was Colorado's first newspaper and the state's oldest continually published daily. Scripps bought it in 1926. Last year, the paper lost $16 million, according to Scripps.
But that figure is nothing compared with what's happening in San Francisco, where the San Francisco Chronicle lost $50 million in 2008 and is on target to lose even more this year.
Hearst, which bought the Chronicle in 2000, said earlier this week that unless it can wring out major savings, it, too, will shut down the paper.
The company said it will immediately seek discussions with two major unions, Northern California Media Workers Guild Local 39521 and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 853, which represent the majority of workers at the Chronicle.
On top of that, Hearst said it was cutting 75 newsroom jobs at the San Antonio Express.
It's enough to suspect that Steve Swartz, the newly appointed president of Hearst Newspaper Group, might be wondering what he's got himself into with his new job.
Swartz, along with Frank A. Bennack Jr., Hearst's vice chairman and CEO, said in a joint statement, "Survival is the outcome we all want to achieve."
Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain and owner of USA Today, which has been slashing hundreds of jobs and cutting back on work weeks, said this week it will cut its dividend by 90 percent to a meager 4 cents a share.
The drama started over the weekend when New Haven Register owner Journal Register and the Philadelphia Newspaper Group, owner of Philadelphia's two dailies, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, each filed for Chapter 11.
Philly p.r. man Brian Tierney, with backing from in vestors, purchased the papers for $562 million in mid-2006, but has run into trouble ever since.
PNG and Journal Regis ter join two other news paper groups now functioning under Chapter 11: Sam Zell's Tribune Co., which owns The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which filed in December and January, respectively. keith.kelly@nypost.com
National Grammar Day is March 4
National Grammar Day is March 4
WHO HAD THE WORST GRAMMAR IN 2008? FIND OUT!
MEET OUR BLOG PARTNERS
Do you adore clean, correct sentences? Do ungrammatical advertisements make you cringe? We understand completely, and this is why the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and MSN Encarta have designated March 4 as National Grammar Day.
How can I participate?
Speak well! Write well! And on March 4, march forth and spread the word. We want people to think about language and how it can be used best.
Some of our members are planning Good-Grammar Potlucks at their offices. What do you serve at good-grammar potlucks? High-fiber foods, of course. They're good for the colon. Afterward, at happy hour, we recommend the Grammartini. (Recipes are here.)
We put together a Bad Grammar Hall of Fame Playlist, full of songs we love despite their bad grammar. You'll find it at the bottom of this page.
We've also produced a special National Grammar Day T-shirt so you can proclaim your love of language for all to see.
For more information, log onto http://nationalgrammarday.com/
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Southern Baptist Editors Challenged by 'World' Founder
Speakers affirm editors'
truth-telling role
By Melissa Deming
HORSESHOE BAY, Texas (BP)--Baptist editors were urged to remain faithful to their calling as truth-tellers for Southern Baptists during the Association of State Baptist Papers annual meeting Feb. 10-13 in Horseshoe Bay, Texas.
Keynote speaker and founder of WORLD magazine, Joel Belz, also called on the editors not to abandon print media, but instead to infuse their work with a Christian worldview.
"Now when we live in a time when the printed page is called an endangered species, I want to say to you don't believe it," said Belz, who writes a weekly column for WORLD and is co-author of "Whirled Views," a collection of columns with the magazine's editor-in-chief, Marvin Olasky. "It is still a powerful, powerful tool once you learn to make it useful."
WORLD magazine's roots draw from the Presbyterian Journal, a North Carolina newspaper founded by Nelson Bell, the father-in-law of Billy Graham, and God's World, a weekly series for children that is still published today. Although WORLD faced a rocky start, the "senior version" of the kids magazine recently surpassed the circulation of Christianity Today.
But even with a strong subscription list, Belz said he still has difficulty finding qualified writers to evaluate movies, books, music and art for the magazine's review section. He eventually developed three criteria: Reporters must "see" accurately what is going on in any piece of art; they must report with interest what they have seen; and they must write from a shepherd's heart.
Belz said came to realize that those qualifications applied to the entire magazine, whether covering the federal stimulus bill or international issues.
"The basic premise of WORLD is from 1 John 1:3, which states, 'What we have seen and heard we declare to you.' We are not there to simply warm over other people's reports. [We] ask questions and see it for ourselves," Belz said, adding that the magazine recently sent a reporter to Baghdad for a week. "I'm not sure how many of you have done reporting in other countries. I like to be where I am safe, but if I am safe, will I see what's true?"
The tension between reporting from a position of safety and truly engaging the truth of a story is felt by every reporter, Belz said. The tension also can be seen in a church setting as editors seek to discern issues in a local church, region or denomination.
The call to be a truth-teller also applies to a believer's personal walk with God, Belz said.
"It is incumbent on you as a disciple of Jesus to work harder and harder to see the world the way He sees it. That is what Christian worldview thinking is -- you see the world the way God sees it," Belz said. "That is your task, not just as an editor, publisher or church person, but as a disciple of Jesus to see the world in crisper and crisper terms the way God sees it. And then to bear witness to what you've seen...."
In the same way a reporter tries to draw a reader into a story, Belz said believers should seek to draw the lost into the Gospel message.
"You don't want to be Jesus' witness with boring language -- you want to put it in sparkling terms [to those] who may have never heard."
The meeting of Baptist state paper editors, hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the State Convention Executive Directors.
During the editors' sessions, representatives from several SBC entities relayed updates, including North American Mission Board President Geoff Hammond, who spoke about the SBC's unfolding National Evangelism Initiative, also known as God's Plan for Sharing, or GPS.
At the invitation of Gary Ledbetter, president of the Association of State Baptist Papers and editor of the Southern Baptist TEXAN, two SBC entities gave reports to the editors for the first time in decades: the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, represented by Barrett Duke from the Washington, D.C., office; and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, with President Paige Patterson responding to editors' questions on the record.
Patterson, fielding editors' questions over lunch, made a plea for local churches to recover their Baptist identity, believing it to be an impending crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention already evident in various congregations dropping "Baptist" from their names.
"With the postmodern ethos in the country, it is no longer good to be anything.... And more and more churches are dropping the Baptist name saying, 'If we call ourselves Baptist, they won't like us now,'" Patterson mused. "It is manifestly a mistake to me because I happen to believe if you can find four Baptist churches on four corners of the same two cross streets and if you pray like you ought to pray, witness like you ought to witness and faithfully proclaim the Word of God, all four churches will grow."
While dropping the Baptist name might not impact churches today, Patterson voiced concern about Baptist churches of tomorrow.
The Baptist identity crisis also will manifest itself in a declining number of pastors, particularly for smaller churches, produced by Southern Baptists' six seminaries, Patterson said.
"As pastors begin to retire and all us old cats die off, beware of what is happening," Patterson said. "We have so emphasized church planting -- and we've been pretty successful with that -- that what we don't have in our seminaries are people who are interested in going into FBC Navasota, Texas, or wherever it may be and see that those too are God's sheep and that they need a pastor also."
Ledbetter, in his president's address, urged editors to remain steadfast to their calling of "proclamation ministry" in the face of rising postal rates, decreased advertising and the assertion that print is a dead medium.
"We have a lot to distract us," Ledbetter said, encouraging editors to return to their primary task of building up the body of Christ and supporting the Gospel work of the churches. "The content of our paper is of primary importance. It is our ministry message -- our prioritizing of news and opinion according to God's leadership."
Ledbetter, who also served as editor of the Indiana Baptist newspaper from 1989-95, urged editors to act as "informed observers," giving context and perspective to denominational action.
"I'm also convinced our convention and our various conventions need us," Ledbetter said. "The tendency of bureaucracies to lose their edge and devalue accountability is quite apart from their theology and regardless of their motives. If we are vigorous in our work and genuinely curious about the people who lead and serve us, we can be a benefit to the cooperative work of Southern Baptists."
Both in reporting good news and holding SBC entities accountable, Ledbetter said state Baptist papers should be a positive service to the local church.
"Our work of encouragement is much larger than just looking for good news, although that's a vital part of it. We can't do that vital ministry if we are merely dissident. The work of our papers, newsletters and magazines will be of no use if we treat our leaders and institutions as prejudged adversaries. We've gone through that phase and it harmed our ministries and that of the Southern Baptist Convention.
"Neither are we of positive service if we treat our leaders and institutions as if they are there to exalt us or even hire us. That careerist track presupposes that men place us in our roles rather than God," Ledbetter said. "Our first commitment is not to our rabbis, and we all have them, nor to the First Amendment. Our first commitment is to God's Kingdom and righteousness."
Although disagreement with institutional leaders is inevitable, Ledbetter said, "I'm convinced, though, that we should be, and mostly are, on the same side -- even with our distinctive viewpoints."
In addition to guest speakers, a Thursday night joint session of state executive directors and editors provided an overview of SBTC ministry, particularly in the areas of missions and church planting. Michael Lewis, pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, reviewed the core values of the newest convention in the SBC.
"SBTC founders determined that the convention would be biblically based," Lewis said, noting that affiliated churches express agreement with the SBTC's statement of faith and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 but are not required to sign either document.
Noting that the SBTC is Kingdom-focused, Lewis said, "Missions and evangelism were prioritized in budgeting and staffing priorities." He noted that the convention uses volunteers, paid consultants and a network of skilled specialists to keep its paid staff small in number.
"Through a vital partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention, the state convention maximizes its own ministry effectiveness," Lewis said. "Through the traditional Cooperative Program, the SBTC truly touches the entire world from Texas. Currently, the SBTC gives 55 percent of undesignated receipts to the SBC allocation budget."
Lewis also recapped several new SBTC missions initiatives, including a missionary/planter program, which recruits and trains missionaries to ethnolinguistic people groups in Texas, and The Ezekiel Project, a ministry that assists pastors of declining churches in implementing a strategy for spiritual renewal and revitalization. Due to the increase in Hispanic population in Texas, Lewis said the SBTC also has begun to launch parallel tracks to major events in Spanish, including retreats and conferences.
In other business, Ledbetter passed the gavel to Bob Simpson, editor of the Maryland-Delaware Baptist Life, as the next president of the editors' association. Illinois Baptist editor Martin King was named president-elect.
--30--
Melissa Deming is a correspondent for the Southern Baptist TEXAN, newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
truth-telling role
By Melissa Deming
HORSESHOE BAY, Texas (BP)--Baptist editors were urged to remain faithful to their calling as truth-tellers for Southern Baptists during the Association of State Baptist Papers annual meeting Feb. 10-13 in Horseshoe Bay, Texas.
Keynote speaker and founder of WORLD magazine, Joel Belz, also called on the editors not to abandon print media, but instead to infuse their work with a Christian worldview.
"Now when we live in a time when the printed page is called an endangered species, I want to say to you don't believe it," said Belz, who writes a weekly column for WORLD and is co-author of "Whirled Views," a collection of columns with the magazine's editor-in-chief, Marvin Olasky. "It is still a powerful, powerful tool once you learn to make it useful."
WORLD magazine's roots draw from the Presbyterian Journal, a North Carolina newspaper founded by Nelson Bell, the father-in-law of Billy Graham, and God's World, a weekly series for children that is still published today. Although WORLD faced a rocky start, the "senior version" of the kids magazine recently surpassed the circulation of Christianity Today.
But even with a strong subscription list, Belz said he still has difficulty finding qualified writers to evaluate movies, books, music and art for the magazine's review section. He eventually developed three criteria: Reporters must "see" accurately what is going on in any piece of art; they must report with interest what they have seen; and they must write from a shepherd's heart.
Belz said came to realize that those qualifications applied to the entire magazine, whether covering the federal stimulus bill or international issues.
"The basic premise of WORLD is from 1 John 1:3, which states, 'What we have seen and heard we declare to you.' We are not there to simply warm over other people's reports. [We] ask questions and see it for ourselves," Belz said, adding that the magazine recently sent a reporter to Baghdad for a week. "I'm not sure how many of you have done reporting in other countries. I like to be where I am safe, but if I am safe, will I see what's true?"
The tension between reporting from a position of safety and truly engaging the truth of a story is felt by every reporter, Belz said. The tension also can be seen in a church setting as editors seek to discern issues in a local church, region or denomination.
The call to be a truth-teller also applies to a believer's personal walk with God, Belz said.
"It is incumbent on you as a disciple of Jesus to work harder and harder to see the world the way He sees it. That is what Christian worldview thinking is -- you see the world the way God sees it," Belz said. "That is your task, not just as an editor, publisher or church person, but as a disciple of Jesus to see the world in crisper and crisper terms the way God sees it. And then to bear witness to what you've seen...."
In the same way a reporter tries to draw a reader into a story, Belz said believers should seek to draw the lost into the Gospel message.
"You don't want to be Jesus' witness with boring language -- you want to put it in sparkling terms [to those] who may have never heard."
The meeting of Baptist state paper editors, hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the State Convention Executive Directors.
During the editors' sessions, representatives from several SBC entities relayed updates, including North American Mission Board President Geoff Hammond, who spoke about the SBC's unfolding National Evangelism Initiative, also known as God's Plan for Sharing, or GPS.
At the invitation of Gary Ledbetter, president of the Association of State Baptist Papers and editor of the Southern Baptist TEXAN, two SBC entities gave reports to the editors for the first time in decades: the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, represented by Barrett Duke from the Washington, D.C., office; and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, with President Paige Patterson responding to editors' questions on the record.
Patterson, fielding editors' questions over lunch, made a plea for local churches to recover their Baptist identity, believing it to be an impending crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention already evident in various congregations dropping "Baptist" from their names.
"With the postmodern ethos in the country, it is no longer good to be anything.... And more and more churches are dropping the Baptist name saying, 'If we call ourselves Baptist, they won't like us now,'" Patterson mused. "It is manifestly a mistake to me because I happen to believe if you can find four Baptist churches on four corners of the same two cross streets and if you pray like you ought to pray, witness like you ought to witness and faithfully proclaim the Word of God, all four churches will grow."
While dropping the Baptist name might not impact churches today, Patterson voiced concern about Baptist churches of tomorrow.
The Baptist identity crisis also will manifest itself in a declining number of pastors, particularly for smaller churches, produced by Southern Baptists' six seminaries, Patterson said.
"As pastors begin to retire and all us old cats die off, beware of what is happening," Patterson said. "We have so emphasized church planting -- and we've been pretty successful with that -- that what we don't have in our seminaries are people who are interested in going into FBC Navasota, Texas, or wherever it may be and see that those too are God's sheep and that they need a pastor also."
Ledbetter, in his president's address, urged editors to remain steadfast to their calling of "proclamation ministry" in the face of rising postal rates, decreased advertising and the assertion that print is a dead medium.
"We have a lot to distract us," Ledbetter said, encouraging editors to return to their primary task of building up the body of Christ and supporting the Gospel work of the churches. "The content of our paper is of primary importance. It is our ministry message -- our prioritizing of news and opinion according to God's leadership."
Ledbetter, who also served as editor of the Indiana Baptist newspaper from 1989-95, urged editors to act as "informed observers," giving context and perspective to denominational action.
"I'm also convinced our convention and our various conventions need us," Ledbetter said. "The tendency of bureaucracies to lose their edge and devalue accountability is quite apart from their theology and regardless of their motives. If we are vigorous in our work and genuinely curious about the people who lead and serve us, we can be a benefit to the cooperative work of Southern Baptists."
Both in reporting good news and holding SBC entities accountable, Ledbetter said state Baptist papers should be a positive service to the local church.
"Our work of encouragement is much larger than just looking for good news, although that's a vital part of it. We can't do that vital ministry if we are merely dissident. The work of our papers, newsletters and magazines will be of no use if we treat our leaders and institutions as prejudged adversaries. We've gone through that phase and it harmed our ministries and that of the Southern Baptist Convention.
"Neither are we of positive service if we treat our leaders and institutions as if they are there to exalt us or even hire us. That careerist track presupposes that men place us in our roles rather than God," Ledbetter said. "Our first commitment is not to our rabbis, and we all have them, nor to the First Amendment. Our first commitment is to God's Kingdom and righteousness."
Although disagreement with institutional leaders is inevitable, Ledbetter said, "I'm convinced, though, that we should be, and mostly are, on the same side -- even with our distinctive viewpoints."
In addition to guest speakers, a Thursday night joint session of state executive directors and editors provided an overview of SBTC ministry, particularly in the areas of missions and church planting. Michael Lewis, pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, reviewed the core values of the newest convention in the SBC.
"SBTC founders determined that the convention would be biblically based," Lewis said, noting that affiliated churches express agreement with the SBTC's statement of faith and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 but are not required to sign either document.
Noting that the SBTC is Kingdom-focused, Lewis said, "Missions and evangelism were prioritized in budgeting and staffing priorities." He noted that the convention uses volunteers, paid consultants and a network of skilled specialists to keep its paid staff small in number.
"Through a vital partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention, the state convention maximizes its own ministry effectiveness," Lewis said. "Through the traditional Cooperative Program, the SBTC truly touches the entire world from Texas. Currently, the SBTC gives 55 percent of undesignated receipts to the SBC allocation budget."
Lewis also recapped several new SBTC missions initiatives, including a missionary/planter program, which recruits and trains missionaries to ethnolinguistic people groups in Texas, and The Ezekiel Project, a ministry that assists pastors of declining churches in implementing a strategy for spiritual renewal and revitalization. Due to the increase in Hispanic population in Texas, Lewis said the SBTC also has begun to launch parallel tracks to major events in Spanish, including retreats and conferences.
In other business, Ledbetter passed the gavel to Bob Simpson, editor of the Maryland-Delaware Baptist Life, as the next president of the editors' association. Illinois Baptist editor Martin King was named president-elect.
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Melissa Deming is a correspondent for the Southern Baptist TEXAN, newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
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