Recession-victim newspapers and magazines in frighteningly growing numbers are shuttering their doors, reducing publication frequency and tossing employees overboard like water being bailed from a sinking ship. Their associations are being slammed, too.
Both the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Magazine Publishers of America canceled their conventions for this year.
I found out about these cancellations from a group to which I belong, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The notice came in an e-mail in which the AAEC boasted it was going ahead with its own 2009 convention, set for July in Seattle and to be hosted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Except that the Post-Intelligencer ceased printing in March and is online only now. So the editorial-cartoonists association went hat in hand to find a replacement sponsor, which it did in the Herblock Foundation.
The association also made some other smart changes in its agenda (though, yes, the pub crawl remains on the activities list). Instead of the usual experts coming in to enlighten the editorial cartoonists about world events (Guantanamo Bay and the economy have been previous convention topics for discussion), attendees will hear from folk on job searches, new media and graphic-novels publishing, as well as from Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, who knows a few things about selling books. Oh, and there’ll be workshops on Corel and Advanced Photoshop.
The AAEC believes its members, a bunch of professionals also devastatingly affected by newspaper cutbacks, need to meet now more than ever. And this is one association that’s not only making an effort to bring them specific information on what they need to know to stay in the business, it isn’t waiting forever to do so. Its response is quick and pointed.
It presents a good example for all associations to keep top of mind in this changing economic landscape.
