CNA GREAT IDEA WINNERS

First: Winnipeg Free Press:

EXPLANATION OF IDEA
Basically, we wanted to write something in serial form that our readers would want to read every day, to boost circulation. We were looking for a story that would grip the largest number of readers. It had to be local, it had to have a mass appeal, and it had to be a bit of a mystery, to keep people hooked. When we learned about a local academic’s bizarre research into the occult past of our province’s greatest landmark, the legislature and its Golden Boy, we knew we had the story we were looking for.

IMPLEMENTATION OF IDEA
We put feature writer Carolin Vesely and veteran editor and author Buzz Currie on the story, and worked on the story and its presentation for four months, along with a crew of photographers. We decided to use a tongue-in-cheek homage to The Da Vinci Code, and the first chapter was written Dan Brown-style. We kicked it off on a Saturday, our biggest newspaper, and ended it on a Saturday two weeks later. We launched with a radio and TV advertising campaign, and tied it in with an online contest with daily clues in-paper.

RESULTS
The Hermetic Code was a huge success. "Where can I get this book?"" calls began flooding in by the third day. Bookstores across the province were also calling, saying they were fielding calls for "the book" in-store. By mid-series, we had decided to publish The Hermetic Code in hard cover. Online, the website contest garnered an unprecedented 16,000 hits (regular contests might get 1,000). Many of our subscribers called or wrote to say it was the best thing we’d had in the paper in years.

The Hermetic Code book has been published is currently on the Manitoba Best Seller list and close to becoming a Canadian Best Seller.

Photo from left: Buzz Currie, co-author, Frank Albo, researcher, Carolin Vesely, co-author and Gordon Preece, art director.

Second: Calgary Herald
"Our Future" The Herald created a beautiful six-part magazine series on Alberta's future. Paper formed terms, worked on project over six-month period, final magazine turned over to students for art and essay competition. Results: Circulation increase of 13.15%, $240,000 in new revenue, and new readers reached.

Third: Vancouver Province:
A fictional mystery serial that ran for 12 weeks. A noted mystery writer wrote the first (and last chapters) and readers were invited to produce chapters 2-11. Remarkable reader reaction as more than 1,300 submissions were received. The Province published the best of the readers' works in a booklet.

Honourable Mention: The Winnipeg Free Press
"Front Page Revolution". The newspaper removed stories from front page, went with a visual menu, designed with website use in mind. Numerous stories are promoted on front page, heavy use of photos, flexible layout design, paper changed inside, driven by front-page design. Results: Readers positive, many prefer to get overview before opening paper, single copy sales have risen by 8%.

WINNING PORTFOLIO

NNA UPDATE Here are Genevieve Biloski's winning pages from the National Newspaper Awards in Winnipeg on May 19. Genevieve, who won the presentation category, is a designer for the National Post's daily Arts & Life section andweekly Toronto magazine. She has been at the paper since February 2006 and this is her first NNA. Previously she was a designer at Maclean's for 3 years. She graduated from the Ontario College of Art & Design in 2005.

The other nominees were Cinders McLeod of The Globe and Mail and Philippe Tardif of La Presse.

Congratulations again, Genevieve!

NNA NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY

An emotional Peter McCabe of Canadian Press accepts the Award for News Photography, at the NNA Awards dinner Friday evening.

NNA's A CLUCKING SUCCESS

The Friday Night gala was a fantastic success. Emceed by Brad Oswald, (Winnipeg Free Press TV columnist and local standup comic) in a Tux and Doug Speirs, Free Press humour columnist, in a kilt and chicken suit. One of those "you had to be there moments".



Between award presentations, they entertained the enthusiastic crowd with top ten lists of why Winnipeg should be the Centre of the Universe, wacky lymrics and even a song written for the evening called simply Belinda, roasting Belinda Stronich.

The Awards of course highlighted the best in Canadian Journalism:


Highlights:

Lisa Rochon of The Globe and Mail won her second straight NNA for Arts and Entertainment.

David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen won in both Beats and in Politics. The two awards boosted his total to three. He last won in 2002.

There were 32 first-time nominees and they won 11 of the 20 awards.

Yves Boisvert won for Column work. He first won for Short Features in 2004.


The winners and runners-up in the visual catagories:



Editorial Cartooning:
Winner, Marc Beaudet, Le Journal de Montreal
Runners-up--Brian Gable, The Globe and Mail; Graham Harrop, The Vancouver Sun.

Feature Photography:
Winner, Gord Waldner of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix for a photo of a little girl with Santa Claus
Runners-up, Colin O'Connor, National Post, for a photo of children perched on branches of a tree in Uganda; Lyle Stafford, Reuters, for a photo of PM Stephen Harper getting his nose tweaked.

News Photography:
Winner, Peter McCabe for a photo of Dawson College students fleeing out of a doorway while a police officer, with the body of the suspect at his feet, trains his weapon on the doorway, not sure if there are more gunmen;
Runners-up, Luc Laforce, Le Journal de Montréal, for a photo of emergency personnel hustling a wounded student away from Dawson College in the aftermath of the September shooting; Bruce Stotesbury of the Victoria Times Colonist for a photo of an anguished protester who was forced to find open air to escape the effects of tear-gas.

Presentation:
Winner: Genevieve Biloski, National Post,
Runners-up, Cinders McLeod, Globe and Mail; Philippe Tardif, La Presse, Montreal.


Sports Photography:
Winner, Steve Russell of the Toronto Star for a photo of a controversial and disallowed goal scored by Canada’s Rick Nash on Swiss goalie Martin Gerber;
Runners-up, J.P. Muczulski of Reuters for an extreme closeup of a tumble involving Jorge Garbajosa of the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers Steven Hunter in a pro basketball game; Ryan Remiorz of The Canadian Press for a photo of jubilant B.C. Lions holding pieces of a broken Grey Cup after their win over the Montreal Alouettes

AND THE WINNER IS

Genevieve Biloski, National Post

Beating out Cinders McLeod, The Globe and Mail and Philippe Tardif, La Presse, Montreal.

CNA AWARDS DINNER

Well folks I'm off to dine with the elite in newspaper publishing, dressed in my finest and looking forward to an entertaining evening... don't forget the chicken.

Presentation nomiees are:

Genevieve Biloski, National Post
Cinders McLeod, The Globe and Mail
Philippe Tardif, La Presse, Montreal.

La Presse designers in Montreal have been nominated for a fifth straight year in Presentation. Designers from the newspaper have won this award four years in a row. Could this be five.

Will update you tomorrow.

cheers

CNA BITS

WHEN WE HAVE A BIG JOB TO DO...

We send in our big shooters.

Free Press photgrapher Boris Minkevich chats with Free Press publisher Andy Ritchie during the opening reception Wednesday evening.

CNA WINNIPEG / DAY 2

Coverage of Leonard Asper's (CEO of CanWest Global Communications Corp.) Thursday noon hour address to CNA delagates as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press Business section.

Papers down, not out:
Asper Says print media can compete with evolving online competitors

By Martin Cash

According to Leonard Asper's hockey analogy, the newspaper industry may be down by a couple of goals after the first two periods, but it can still win the game against its online competitors.

Speaking to about 450 members of the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA) in Winnipeg on Thursday, the CEO of CanWest Global Communications Corp., which owns the largest group of newspapers in the country, said that newspapers' advantage over the online world, which has a bunch of all-stars" is that it owns valuable content.

It just has to figure out the right way to disseminate that content online in addition to the traditional printed form. Asper said he believes there is plenty of resolve and ability to ensure a strong future for the newspaper industry.

"We can win by defending our zone, our local markets, and by playing the game in their end zone," he said. "If we do that, I think we stand a good chance of at least scoring the next goal."

Asper was referring to the fragmentation of newspapers' core audience and advertisers by online information and entertainment sources. He said it's crucial that the Canadian newspaper industry, with $3.5 billion in annual revenues, use its brand integrity and establish the right kind of online platforms to deliver its content in a way the changing audience wants it.

"There is so much more the web is going to offer." he said in an interview. "YouTube didn't really exist a year-and-a-half ago. No one in the newspaper business can predict what the media will look like in three or five years from now. We need to build a platform to accommodate new users' desires."

He said if newspapers can build the kind of web presence that attracts people, then when the next new way to use content is invented, they'll have a web presence in place to exploit that.

"They will already be going to our shopping mall, not someone else's shopping mall," he said. Anne Kothawala, president of the CNA, said online strategies are at the top of the agenda for newspapers across the country. "Clearly the biggest issue for the industry is how to monetize online content," she said.

Rob Curley, the head of product development for Washingtonpost. Newsweek Interactive, perhaps the leading figure in online developments for newspapers, stressed that since newspapers have a legacy as the leading provider of news and information in their respective communities, they need to figure out ways to carve out that same niche on the web.

"In every local market in the world, newspapers are synonymous with the news," he said. "If we screw it up (the newspapers' presence online) it's our own fault." Curley is now bringing the award-winning, online work he accomplished at small papers in Lawrence, Kan. and Naples, Fla. to the Washington Post organization. He said newspapers ought to provide the day's stories on their websites, but they need to do much more.

Among other things, they also need to morph into multimedia organizations, he said, where the day's news, and richer, more detailed content, is delivered so that it's accessible to all online devices. That includes wireless ones like iPods and cellphones.

CNA WINNIPEG / DAY 1

Seminars, a speech by the U.S. Ambassador to Canada and an lively and entertaining opening reception sponsored by the Winnipeg Free Press, marked the first full day of events.

The seminars:

A NEWSPAPER COMPANY WITH A BROAD AUDIENCE
The future is now, learn how some North American newspapers are transitioning from the current model of circulation, readership, visitors and page views to a world where audience is the metric. Hear how you can leverage the total footprint and reach your newspaper's portfolio of products, Change your destiny by leveraging, selling and communicating your market share B2B and newspaper to consumer. Speakers: Mark Cohen, Director Sales/Marketing, The Florida Times-Union; Chris Kouba, Director of Content and Strategic Development, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk

THE SECOND CURVE:
MANAGING THE VELOCITY OF CHANGE
Ian Morrison, futurist and author, will share his long-term forecasting on changing business environments and theorize on the evolution of the newspaper business model. His theory is that companies must ride the first curve a company's traditional business carried out in a familiar corporate climate to the all-important second curve. The second curve is the future, the new technologies, new consumers and new markets that companies must command to survive and thrive. Sponsored by Markets Initiative

CANADA'S MEDIA LEADERS IN CONVERSATION ABOUT THE FUTURE
A panel of senior executives at several of Canada's newspaper companies explores the future of print and online and the steps needed to thrive.Speakers: Dennis Skulsky, CanWest MediaWorks; Jagoda Pike, Toronto Star; Phillip Crawley, The Globe and Mail; Natalie Larivière, Transcontinental; Julia Kamula, Osprey Media; Peter Kvarnstrom, Glacier Ventures; Andy Ritchie, Winnipeg Free Press. Moderator: Alan Allnutt, Montreal Gazette

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Need a passport.... maybe not

The U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins spoke on issues affecting US/Canada relations. Commenting on the passport situation to reporters after a meeting with Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz, Wilkins hinted that high-tech driver's licenses could be used to cross the border instead of passports as originally planned by the U.S. government.

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PARTY TIME

Over 500 attended the opening reception at The Club Regent Casino. They were greeted by Lieutenant Governor John Harvard, Premier Gary Doer, and Winnipeg Free Press publisher Andy Ritchie, after decending a staircase through an opening in a 3 story indoor rock wall and waterfall into the reception area. Guests drank and dined for 4 hours, while being entertained by nonstop performers from Manitoba, including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, illusionist Brian Glow, the world famous Rulsaka dancers, violiniist Sarah Noble and native performers and dancers.


As everyone left, they received a gift pack which included copy of the recently released Winnipeg Free Press hard cover coffee table book "THE HERMETIC CODE".

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TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT
Leonard Asper, CanWest Global Canwest Global Communications will be the keynote luncheon speaker.

CNA BITS from "THE PEG"

A BUNCH OF TURKEYS

No, not the CNA delegates... i mean real ones. Winnipeg has been overrun with wild turkeys the past couple of weeks.... perched in trees downtown and walking across busy streets in the trendy Osborne village area. They may find themselves on a dinner plate at Friday's gala.

GLOBETROTTING GLOBERS

Those folks from the Globe love to travel... either that or they can't stand to be apart. I'm told about three dozen of them have made the trip here for the festivities.

IT'S HEAT'N UP

32 degrees here today.... summertime and the partying is easy.

CNA's come to "the Peg"

Hi folks.... my first entry into the the world of blogging and starting with a bang here in Winnipeg.


For the first time in its history, CNA will join with the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Circulation Managers Association for Newspapers '07 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Upwards of 450 delegates are expected to attend this joint convention which will attract newspaper industry executives from all departments.

The annual event starts today, May 9, and ends Friday night at the National Awards Gala. All

Everthing will kick off tonight at an opening reception at the Club Regent Casino, and ends Friday night at the National Awards Gala. The seminars and gala dinner will all be held at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. You can check out the program here.

The sessions cover an amazing broad range of topics, including;

HOW BRAND DIVERSITY & CONSUMER INSIGHT DRIVE GROWTH: The rapidly evolving media landscape requires newspaper companies to transform their strategy, business model and organization to drive growth.

THE SECOND CURVE: MANAGING THE VELOCITY OF CHANGE: Ian Morrison, futurist and author, will share his long-term forecasting on changing business environments and theorize on the evolution of the newspaper business model.

CANADA'S MEDIA LEADERS IN CONVERSATION ABOUT THE FUTURE: A panel of senior executives at several of Canada’s newspaper companies explores the future of print and online and the steps needed to thrive.

FROM THE PRINT PRODUCT TO THE ONLINE WORLD: Rob Curley, vice-president of product development for the Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, is an online innovator and his prior work at the Naples, Florida, Daily News; the small market Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas; and with Morris Communications has made him a critically-acclaimed innovative legend at age 35.

A NEWSPAPER COMPANY WITH A BROAD AUDIENCE: The future is now, learn how some North American newspapers are transitioning from the current model of circulation, readership, visitors and page views to a world where audience is the metric.

HOW NEWSPAPERS CAN REGAIN THEIR COMPETITIVE EDGE:

BUILDING A MORE STRATEGIC, FUTURE-FOCUSED NEWSROOM:

NEWSPAPER NEXT: A BLUEPRINT FOR TRANSFORMATION: The American Press Institute's study of innovation presents a path for newspapers to follow in transforming to successful multi-platform information companies.

50 IDEAS TO TRY AT YOUR NEWSPAPER:

TO BE FREE AND COMPACT: The trend to free and compact is not just a European phenomenon.

THE VIDEO NEWSPAPER: Session explores how newspapers can employ low-cost methods and critical visual editing techniques for making and distributing engaging, interactive news films to help newsrooms of any size can increase their video reporting expertise.

not to mention...
U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CANADA DAVID WILKINS: David Wilkins, the flamboyant U.S. ambassador to Canada, will make a special stop on his way to Vancouver to speak to the delegation.

I will update you over the next few days.....

BREAKING NEWS: I have inside information that the awards dinner will be hosted by a not so young lad in a kilt ... a chicken ... and another mystery person (tracking that one down). You heard it here first.

Cheers for now and welcome to SND's Blog Canada.