January Anniversaries

1/1	58 YRS	Joel Smyth	Chairman of the Board
1/5	9 YRS	Duane Clark	West Valley
1/6	14 YRS	Dianna Sellers	Corporate Services
1/8	5 YRS	Cynthia Paquette	Delaware State News
1/10	7 YRS	Norman Ross	Delaware Printing
1/13	21 YRS	Judith Sheedy	Okeechobee News
1/15	21 YRS	Robert Martin	Valley Printing
1/20	7 YRS	Tamara Kelly	Okeechobee News
1/21	4 YRS	Cecilia Chan	West Valley
1/26	9 YRS	Scherie Drzymalski	Corporate Services

Happy Holidays

The North Valley editorial team participated in a holiday happy hour recently to celebrate its recent launch of the Scottsdale Independent print product. A great time was had by all!

Press Person of the Year Award

Press helper Courtney Conner was voted by his peers as “Press Person of the Year” at the annual DPC press meeting held on December 18, 2017.  The award was presented to Courtney by pressroom manager Dave Rehkamp.  Courtney has been a member of the press team since April, 2015.  To his peers Courtney met all the criteria required to win the award, and then some. 

The criteria to win the award:

• Goes above and beyond to help fellow teammates
• On time, all the time, for work
• Volunteers to help anywhere, anytime to get things done and out the door
• Treats others, always, with Courtesy, Kindness and Respect
• Believes in the DPC motto ‘We Build Perfect Skids” and pursues perfection in all he does.

The award itself was a beautiful stein celebrating press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer’s (KBA) 200^th anniversary.  Everyone in the press department is very proud of Courtney and all agree no one is more deserving of this year’s award!

JUST A GUY QUIETLY DOING HIS JOB

All,

 As you know, last night (12/9/17) we had issues on the press that for a time it appeared we would be “hard down”, possibly for several days, due to a drive failure.  I received the call at 8:30pm from the press.  The actual problem occurred at 4:45am when there was no one in the building.  Go figure, but that’s what can happen with the advanced technology we have in our press.  You can think of it as one big computer and we all know what can happen when computers act up!

 But this mail I write this morning is in praise of Tim Buzzard.  After the initial call by the press to me at 8:30pm he called me shortly thereafter and said it didn’t look good.  He had been at the shop since 6:30pm working on the problem with KBA Germany who is networked in to the press and can help troubleshoot. 

I jumped into my car and headed in, not that I could help with this type problem, but if we needed to make a few “executive” decisions on what to do next it’s easier to be right there getting firsthand information.  By the time I got there Tim was still working on the problem with KBA.  He had changed out two drives on the press per their instruction (these drives are big, heavy and bulky and he does all this without asking for help!).    But we still did not have the press back.

 When you see Tim in these situations we’ve all learned to back off with “stupid” questions like “how’s it going” or “what do ya think?” and let him do his thing.  He is relentless, dogged and driven to fix the problem.  All one can do is stand there and pray he figures things out and gets us back up.  And that is exactly what happened.  By 10:30p it looked like we had things back enough to run the press.  There’s nothing like pushing the “inch” button on that press and hearing the “run” alarm going off and the press turning again!  Whew!

 If you ask Tim he’ll tell you he’s just doing his job, its what he was hired to do, it’s no “big deal”.  But I’m here to tell you it is a big deal.  In the past twelve years Tim has probably “saved our bacon” a thousand times, or close to it anyway.  Whether it is the press or any other machine in production (or even replacing a toilet seat!) no one has more a sense of urgency, dedication and pride in doing their job.  And no one is more humble about doing their job than Tim.

 So, if you are walking through the halls of INI and happen to pass by Tim you may want to say a quick “thank you” for being the person-on-the-spot in helping our company avoid disaster with all the help he gives us when emergencies like this hit and he is our only answer to the problem!

"I simply can't say enough about Tim's contribution to INI and what he's meant to us in these critical moments!" said Ed Dulin

December Anniversaries

12/1	1 YR	Matthew Roy	West Valley
12/3	5 YRS	Timothy Mastro	Delaware State News
12/5	17 YRS	Zenaida Matute	Valley Printing
12/9	14 YRS	Victoria Rosado	Delaware State News
12/11	11 YRS	Kristina Schwartz	Okeechobee News
12/12	1 YR	Cindy Witt	Corporate Services
12/13	7 YRS	Jan-Dhu McKinney	North Valley
12/13	2 YRS	Robert Cook	Delaware Printing
12/14	8 YRS	Tonda Parks	Delaware State News
12/17	8 YRS	Yvonne Kirksey	Delaware State News
12/17	5 YRS	Karen Riggin	Crisfield Times
12/18	2 YRS	Jennifer Antonik	Sussex Weeklies
12/22	3 YRS	Antoine Sample	Delaware Printing
12/22	1 YR	John Brooks	Delaware Printing
12/29	15 YRS	Darin Powell	Corporate Services
12/30	3 YRS	Melissa Fittro	North Valley

Chris Pitts Finishes the Race

West Valley graphic designer Chris Pitts completed an Ironman Triathlon Nov. 19 in Fountain Hills. He swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles and ran a marathon 26.22 miles in order without a break. The West Valley team congratulates Chris for training hard and finishing the race. We’re proud of you! 

Clicking, clacking sounds mean Santa is on his way

By Andrew West

Delaware State News

DOVER — It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around the Delaware State News.

On Friday, this editor went out to the Delaware Printing Company side of our plant to see how the Thanksgiving stuffing was going.

There was a lot of clicking and clacking going on around the inserting and stacking equipment. On Friday afternoon, the machine was dropping multiple flyers into the print “jackets” at a rate of close to 10,000 an hour. 

This is our version of the “North Pole” in action. We’re going to have another thick Thanksgiving Day edition. “We’ve had 19 straight days of assembling packets,” said Ray Ford, DPC’s production manager.

For the “ wow” factor, here are some facts about the Delaware State News that will be arriving at our subscribers’ homes and stores Thursday: • 574,656 inserts will go out the loading dock door on Wednesday evening;

• Each edition will weigh in at more than 2.5 pounds.

Even though some consumers are perusing websites in search of deals and Black Friday flyers, you really can’t beat the aggregation of so much shopping information in a Thanksgiving edition.

The newspaper will include a supplement from almost every big retailer in Dover.

The whole process is pretty amazing. It starts with a paper “jacket” — or wrapper — that holds the other inserted material.

For instance, with today’s edition, the television and comics section acts as one of the wrappers.

The “jacket” is placed, one at a time, into an inserting machine and clicks and clacks its way around a circle and vacuums holds it open.

Stacks of other inserts are put into place and they get dropped in one at a time as the jacket makes its way around the circle and into a stacking machine.

No wonder “Ollie” was smiling on each paper as his ad was falling into place.

Check online today and you can see a video of this process in the “From the Editor” section.

Mr. Ford said the first of the Thanksgiving Day edition flyers came in on Nov. 3.

You’ll be able to consider “ wish list” items on electronics, toys, fashion, jewelry and more.

When you add up all the hours, it’s basically a full week of work for the staff of 13 inserters at Delaware Printing Company.

This is in addition to the regular daily demands that go with the Delaware State News and extraordinarily long list of print customers Delaware Printing Company serves in the region.

“We’ll do an MVP award for each shift after we’re finished,' said Mr. Ford. “They get to vote on the employee that goes above and beyond.”

❑❑❑

Coming up on Thursday, Nov. 30, is our “Holiday Events and Celebrations” section. You’ll want to have that to practice your favorite songs in advance of the “Capital Holiday Celebration” in front of Dover City Hall that night.

Our holiday television fans will be happy to hear that our Holiday Viewers’ Guide is in the works, too. It will be in the Friday, Dec. 1 edition of the Delaware State News.

Andrew West is editor of the Delaware State News.

Ray Ford, production manager for Delaware Printing Company, says the Thanksgiving package has been in the works for three weeks.

Vernon Bailey works the stacker at Delaware Printing Company.

Best practices for covering mass shootings

BY KELLY MCBRIDE · OCTOBER 2, 2017

Mental health experts are still trying to determine how media coverage of mass shooting events can contribute to a contagion effect. Journalists can make choices around the coverage that will minimize the impact.

Here are some best practices:

Name the shooter infrequently and only when his name is critical to helping your audience understand what happened.

Related Training

·        

Best Practices for Reporting on Mass Shootings

WEBINAR

·        

Journalism and Trauma

 

SELF-DIRECTED COURSE

As more information becomes available, be careful to be accurate and contextual. Small details can take on inappropriate levels of importance in the early reporting stages. Those details can be harmful to the truth if they are inaccurate or out of context.

Avoid speculating about mental illness or allowing unqualified sources to speculate about mental illness. Witnesses, law enforcement and politicians usually know very little about the topic in general, are likely to know even less about the role of mental illness in this tragedy.

Avoid images of the shooter that could be seen as glorifying him by others who might be inclined to other acts of violence.

Superlatives, like “the deadliest mass shooting ever,” could possibly lead to contagion. Avoid using them in teasers, tweets and other formats where context is absent. Instead, use them in reporting formats where you can bring more context, such as interviews, the text of stories and produced packages.

See these recommendations for more information on the best practices for journalists covering mass shootings.

Dan Reidenberg and I did a webinar on these recommendations earlier in 2017. You can find it here, on our new NewsU beta site.

Related Training: How to Cover Big News As It Breaks

Kelly McBride

kellymcb

Kelly McBride is a writer, teacher and one of the country’s leading voices when it comes to media 

Reprinted from the Poynter Institute