Oct. 26-29, 2005
The Fairmont, San Jose, Calif.

2 p.m.

Sands

President's Welcome. APME President Deanna Sands opens "The Next Big Thing." Embedded readers discuss challenges ahead for newspapers.

2:15 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.

Covering Katrina. How local newspapers dealt with flooding, extensive damage and the loss of nearly all essential services to cover one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.

Ken Tuck, editor, The Dothan (Ala.) Eagle; Peter Kovacs, managing editor, Times-Picayune, New Orleans; Stan Tiner, editor, Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald; Bryan Monroe, vice president-news, Knight-Ridder Inc.; Mary Foster, AP newswoman who covered the scene inside the Superdome.

3:25 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

New Competitors; New Demands. New free newspapers, magazines and Web products deliver news and information to niche audiences. Newspaper companies, in turn, ask smaller editorial staffs to deliver more content to specific audiences. How does the mission of informing our community fit in a world of focused business models and bottom lines?

Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder; Mario Garcia of Garcia Media; Vivienne Sosnowski, editorial director, Clarity Media; and Bill Ostendorf, Creative Circle Media.

4:40 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.

Newcomers Reception. APME, APPM, AP Online, embedded readers.

6 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Opening Night Reception. The San Jose Mercury News says welcome to San Jose! Entertainment: Grammy-winning Norteno band Los Tigres del Norte. San Jose Museum of Art.

8 p.m.

APME Foundation Auction. Take a look at just a few of the items up for bidding: a Katrina strip signed by Garry Trudeau; a bottle of Joe Montana wine (yes he's a winemaker); NFL football signed by Steve Young; Deborah Santana autographed book; weekend at the Coeur d' Alene Resort in Idaho; seven days, six nights for two on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, at the luxurious Marriott Frenchman's Reef Beach Resort; four executive field seats at Wrigley Field; two nights at a Washington hotel and two Washington National baseball tickets; and one-night stay in a deluxe room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, dinner for two at Picasso in the Bellagio, two tickets to Cirque du Soleil's production of "O" and $1,000 cash.

9 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

The New Normal. Silicon Valley venture capitalist and blogger Roger McNamee offers newspaper editors suggestions for how to thrive in "The New Normal" – an era when technology is changing nearly everything, globalization is transforming the nature of opportunity, everyone is on his or her own, and no one has enough time to figure it all out.

Lott

Walsh

9:35 a.m.- 10:40 a.m.

When Winning Is the Only Thing. Think the news business is competitive? What if job security meant cutting off a finger? Worried about retiring a tired column? What if you were faced with replacing an aging player named Joe Montana?

NFL Hall of Fame Coach Bill Walsh and Safety Ronnie Lott discuss leadership in a hyper-competitive world.

10:50 a.m. - Noon

Our Shrinking Newsrooms: How Do We Respond? Huge profits are being taken out of newspapers and reinvested into growth industries. Wall Street sees a short-term future in the age of readers. An investor, market expert, publisher and futurist examine the challenges facing a prototypical editor of a mid-sized newspaper and develop a list of expectations.

Market expert Walter Baer, Rand Corp.; editor Ann Morris, Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record; investor Peter Appert, Goldman Sachs; provacateur Dale Peskin, The Media Center; futurist Craig Bamsey, FaithPopcorn; Publisher Lynn Dickerson, Modesto (Calif.) Bee; Rich Skrenta, CEO, Topix.net, an online news aggregator.

Coordinator: Dan Suwynn, former managing editor, Savannah (Ga.) Morning News, now president and COO of Rapid Change Technologies.

10:50 a.m. - Noon

APPM: Ethics and Access. Competing with photo agencies that pay for shooting positions at sports and other venues and resell their work for advertising. Representatives from Getty, Reuters, KRT and AP discuss access, money and resale.

Noon - 1:30 p.m.

Lunch. AP staff awards. Keynote Speaker John Geddes, managing editor, The New York Times.

1:40 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.

Extreme Makeover: Reconstructing our Newsrooms. How does an editor meet the expectations set in the morning session? How do we maximize our value while maintaining our journalistic principles?

Peskin, Morris, Skrenta and Bamsey are joined by David Donald of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Larry Kramer of CBS Online and an audience expert from Tremor.com.

3 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Concurrent Workshops (Pick two — they'll be repeated.)

New Products for New Readers. Viet Mercury, Hispanic Publications, Young Light Readers, upscale magazines.

David Ledford, executive editor, The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.

Hip Hop vs. Rock 'n Roll. What editors don't know about hip-hop culture.

Reaching Readers with Religion; Why Better Faith and Values News Matters. Although some say the U.S. is in a religious revival and faith's impact in our culture is growing, religion ranks nearly last in Readership Institute studies of reader satisfaction.

Debra L. Mason, executive director, Religion Newswriters Association; Robert Mong Jr., editor, The Dallas Morning News; Deborah Caldwell, Spirituality Editor, Beliefnet.

News on the Web. How are newspaper and online editors collaborating — and in some cases reconfiguring their newsrooms — to push news to the Web during the day and remain the trusted source of news amid competition from TV, radio, blogs and other Web sites?

Tim Porter, media consultant, former newspaper and online editor at San Francisco Examiner; Tom Mallory, Breaking News Team Editor, San Diego Union-Tribune; Robin Henry, deputy managing editor, AJC.com.

Convergence. Video and still photography, from the same photo staff, for newspaper Web sites, to attract younger readers and help readership grow.

David Lesson, staff photographer, The Dallas Morning News and 2004 Pulitzer prize winner for photography, shows his news video work. Phaedra Tuscan, deputy managing editor for multimedia at WashingtonPost.com, talks about online usage of video and photo at a top newspaper Web site.

4:10 p.m. - 5:10 p.m.

Concurrent Workshops repeated (Missed a workshop? Here's your second chance!)

Outrage, Passion and Uncommon Sense; How Editorial Writers Have Taken on the Great American Issue of the Past 150 Years. Michael Gartner, Pulitzer Prize winner for local editorials, talks about why we still need editorial pages and opinion journalism. With California beer and It's It ice cream bars.

6:15 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

An evening with the Freedom Forum. After a reception beginning at 5:15 p.m., the Freedom Forum will premier a Newseum film on Pulitzer Prize-winning photography and the stories behind the photos. William Schneider, The Dallas Morning News; Carol Guzy, The Washington Post; John White, Chicago Tribune.

7:30 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Freedom Forum Reception at the Tech.

Carroll

Silverman

8:50 a.m. - 9:50 a.m.

General Session: AP Report. A look at how The Associated Press is preparing for a multimedia future and facing the challenges ahead.

AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, and AP Vice President and Managing Editor Mike Silverman.

10 a.m. - 11 a.m.

Crisis Management. APPM session on dealing with staff that have covered war or trauma home.

AP Online Editors. Online editors brainstorm and share ideas — from design to multimedia content to new tools of the trade.

The Challenges of Reporting About Iraq. Have we provided the most credible information about the Iraq war and reconstruction? Have we met our readers' expectations?

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh; Kevin Begos, investigative reporter, the Winston-Salem Journal; Tony Castaneda, Associated Press Iraq correspondent; Erik Duane, an embedded reader who served in Iraq as a Marine reservist.

Moderator: National Press Foundation President Bob Meyers.

9:45 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

NewsTrain workshop for frontline editors.

11:10 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.

Great Ideas in Print and Online. Editors share their best new ideas from the past year at newspapers and Web sites of all sizes.

Lance Johnson, managing editor, The Day; Laura Sellers-Earl, online director, East Oregonian Publishing Co.

12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Lunch. APME Awards.

1:40 p.m. - 2:40 p.m.

Embedded Readers. Our customers tell us what they think we need to do to become their favorite and most trusted sources of news and information.

2:50 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.

The Public's Records. News media are losing the war for transparency in government and too many ordinary people don't care. Editors from five newspapers describe their efforts to engage in discussions with their communities about how freedom of information is important to everybody, not just journalists.

4 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Concurrent Workshops.

Covering the World. Great ways for big and small papers to bring international news home to their readers in an increasingly global world.

Hank Klibanoff, Atlanta Journal Constitution; Troy Turner, Anniston (Ala.) Star; Sarah Jenkins, editor and vice president for news, Yakima (Wash.) Herald-Republic.

Watchdog Journalism. Investigative journalists discuss ways to foster more watchdog journalism in newsrooms, how they brought home award-winning projects and threats against investigative reporting, including recent judicial decisions.

Steve Thomas, managing editor, Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star; Eric Newhouse, projects editor, Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune; Sally Kestin, investigative reporter, South Florida Sun-Sentinel; David Donald, training director, IRE and NICAR.

Credibility. How can newspapers use the Credibility Roundtables approach to find out where we are missing people in our community?

Bobbie Jo Buel, managing editor, Arizona Daily Star; Carol Nunnelley, projects director, APME.

Community journalism. What are newspaper Web sites doing to include readers though citizen journalism, special-interest blogs, self-posting of community news, events and photos, interactive reader advisory networks, forums and more? What are the benefits and pitfalls of reaching outside newsrooms for content?

Dan Gillmor, Bayosphere.com, a grassroots journalism project in northern California's Bay Area; Travis Henry, managing editor, Denver's YourHub.com; Ken Sands, online publisher, SpokesmanReview.com, Spokane, Wash.

APPM Show & Tell. Lessons learned from photographic mistakes and successes. LCD projected images and pages from APPM members and attendees. Open discussion on issues photo managers deal with in the newsroom.

5 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Journalism Today. Join an APME committee.

5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Wine-tasting Reception. Eleven members from the Monterey County Wine Growers Association show why the region's grapes rival anything found further north.

8:30 a.m. - 9 a.m.

APME Business Meeting.

9 a.m. - 4:15 p.m.

NewsTrain, a workshop for frontline editors and managing editors. These professional-development sessions focus on developing the skills needed by senior newsroom leaders. Topics include better listening skills; getting your message across; strategies to improve your paper's credibility; mining FOIA for high-impact stories; leadership when the big story breaks; tools for your skeptical editing toolbox, and ethical decision making.

NewsTrain Program Director Lillian Swanson; Robert Rosenthal, managing editor, San Francisco Chronicle; John Geddes, managing editor-operations, The New York Times; Michael Roberts, deputy editor and writing coach, The Arizona Republic; Jo-Ann Armao, assistant managing editor/metro, The Washington Post; Carol Nunnelley, director, National Credibility Roundtables; Ken Sands, online publisher, SpokesmanReview.com; Brant Houston, executive director, Investigative Reporters and Editors; Glenn Proctor, associate editor-training, The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.; newsroom coach Rosalie Stemer; Narda Zucchino, senior editor, San Francisco Chronicle.