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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (June 18, 2014)
NNPA 2014 ANNUAL CONVENTION Greetings Fellow Publishers and Conference Attendees, On behalf of the Board of Directors of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), I want to welcome you to Portland, Oregon, “The City of Roses.” We invite you to come cool your heels in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. The city of Portland has an array of tours for your enjoyment, from walking tours, food court tours, bike tours and more. There is also plenty of tax free shopping, golf, night life and outdoor activities for your enjoy- ment. However, we are here to work and our convention committee and host publishers, Bernie Foster and Mark Washington, have cre- ated and extraordinary agenda for us. Our workshops include: How to Effectively Pitch to Corporations, Marketing from the Grass Roots Level and Upgrading your Digital Strategy. In addition, we will have our Merit Awards Dinner to acknowledge our member publications accomplishments. The conference will also feature the Legacy Awards Dinner, where will honor former San Francisco Mayor and California Assembly Speaker, the Honorable Willie Brown. You are in for an eventful week full of great information, along with a great time to be had. As we approach 2015 and the 75th Anniversary of NNPA, I want to assure you all that our organization continues to thrive and serve all communities we represent. Yours in the Struggle, Cloves C. Campbell Chairman Black Press continued from page 3 except for a five-year period, the Black newspaper publishers and editors had some form of national organization ever since the first meeting in Cincinnati in 1875 called by ex-Lieutenant Governor Pinchback of Louisiana. Before the 1940 call by Sengstacke, Carl Murphy had stressed the operating economies to be derived from a cooperative association of pub- lishers, but even the bait of cheap- er engraving costs, exchange of news and pictures, and a central clearing house for publishing problems and ideas was insuffi- cient to overcome the drawbacks of distance, travel expense, sacri- fice of time, and questionable ben- efits of membership in an organization. The Negro newspaper had long proved its usefulness and its indis- pensability both for the Black masses and for the Negro elite. It had acquired a niche that the gen- eral press then had no interest in challenging and was, like its pred- ecessors; the major dispenser of news and opinion for an isolated people. Other Negro groups had long since found the path to organ- ization successful; among them were physicians, lawyers, clergy, land-grant college presidents, edu- cators, musicians, and war veter- ans. The question was, “Why couldn’t the publishers?” Sen- gstacke thought that the first step in joining hands was for Black publishers to get to know each other, and he said as much in his opening message at the first ses- sion of the 1940 conference. The meeting was, he said, designed for “harmonizing our energies in the common purpose for the benefit of Negro journalism.” Sengstacke outlined the three-day program and left room for a catch-all item labeled “business in general.” The newspapers represented at that first gathering included the leaders of the Negro fourth estate and three-fourths of the Negro news- paper circulation. Representatives from 20 commercial newspapers from all sections except the far western part of the country attend- ed the Chicago conference. The following newspapers were rep- resented: Examiner - Pittsburgh, PA Tribune - Detroit, Ml Call - Kansas City, MO Louisiana Weekly - New Orleans, LA Courier - Pittsburgh, PA Tribune - Philadelphia, PA Guide - Omaha, NE Metropolitan Post - Chicago, IL Michigan Chronicle - Detroit, Ml Iowa Bystander - Des Moines, IA Afro-American - Baltimore, MD Minneapolis Spokesman and St. Paul Recorder; MN Bee - Chicago, IL Progressive Herald - Syracuse, NY Defender - Chicago, IL World - Memphis, TN Journal and Guide - Norfolk, VA In addition, three noncommer- cial newspapers were represented at the conference: AME Church Review; a sectarian journal - Philadelphia, PA Postal Alliance, a trade weekly - St. Louis, MO Record of Cheyney College - Cheyney, PA June 18, 2014 The Skanner News NNPA Annual Convention Edition Page 5
