News & Tech: Local Journalism Sustainability Act Introduced in Senate

July 26, 2021

Article by: News & Tech

Local Journalism Sustainability Act Introduced in Senate

On July 22, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate to H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. The bill seeks to help local newspapers sustain financial viability through a series of three tax credits. Both the Senate and House versions of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act offer a series of three tax credits aimed at sustaining and providing a pathway to viability for the local journalism industry in the years to come. America’s Newspapers, which supports passage of this legislation, has more info here.

SCS Changing Ownership; Washington Papers Go with Layout-8000, SCS/ClassPag

Software Consulting Services (SCS) will soon have a new owner, as Kurt Jackson, SCS’s vice president and general manager, has agreed to buy the Pennsylvania-based company. Founded in 1975 by Martha Cichelli, SCC provides software solutions to publishers and publishing groups. Martha’s husband, Richard Cichelli, joined SCS in 1983 after working for the ANPA Research Institute.

SCS’s portfolio of corporate customers includes 8 of the top 10 publishing groups in the United States as well as many community-oriented publishers, says the company. SCS also distributes FotoWare digital asset management products in the U.S. SCS will remain headquartered in its new office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  The deal is expected to close within the next 40 days.

In other SCS news, the Yakima Herald-Republic and Walla Walla Union-Bulletin have selected Layout-8000 and SCS/ClassPag from SCS. Owned by The Seattle Times Co., the Washington-based daily newspapers will be running the systems in the SCS cloud with a go-live planned for Sept. 1.

The SCS systems will be integrated with AdPoint from Lineup, continuing a relationship that includes implementations at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sonoma Media Investments, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Gannett, says SCS.

DCOS Gets Contracts from Adams Publishing Group

Adams Publishing Group, owners of 37 daily papers, has awarded two contracts to DCOS Automation for new press controls and closed-loop automation at their printing facilities in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Bozeman, Montana.

For the Cheyenne project, a manroland Uniset press from 2008 was retrofitted with a new virtualized PPM server and two new desk controllers. This retrofit was competed in January this year. “We are particularly excited to be awarded this order as it’s the first manroland retrofit in the U.S. for us. DCOS has been doing retrofit on manroland presses since 2013 and the acquisition of the Germany-based Automation company IGA last year has further strengthened our capabilities,” says Ron Ehrhardt, sales director for DCOS in North America.

For the Bozeman project, DCOS will supply a closed-loop color density and registration system to a DGM 440 press, consisting of four 4-high towers, one 2-high and two folders. The equipment has just arrived in Bozeman and the installation will start in the next weeks. “In the last year we have upgraded three DGM 440 press users with our closed-loop systems, including 4 heatset and 1 UV DGM 440 presses,” says Ehrhardt.

Times-Picayune, Advocate Get Money from Ford Foundation

The Times-Picayune and The Advocate are getting a $1 million gift from the Ford Foundation to double the size of the papers’ investigative team and grow the geographic reach of the papers’ reporting, the paper reported. The three-year grant will be made to the Greater New Orleans Foundation for its Louisiana Investigative Journalism Fund, developed with the news organization. It’s the biggest donation so far to the Louisiana Investigative Journalism Fund, launched in December, says the paper.  The paper has raised nearly $1.4 million of its $1.5 million goal for the effort so far.

 New York Times Announces Climate Hub Line-up

The New York Times announced the first speaker line-up for The New York Times Climate Hub, a week of programming featuring live journalism and thought leadership on climate change to be held alongside the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, this November. Headline speakers including co-founder of Malala Fund Malala Yousafzai, chair of The Elders Mary Robinson, author and philosopher Roman Krznaric and fashion designer Stella McCartney will join more than 150 contributors including climate strategists, innovators and leaders of industry, alongside journalists from The New York Times who will host lectures, discussions and workshops as part of the program, ranging from community and policy action to the impact of individual efforts on climate change.

More News

  • Sun Chemical will increase prices on its inks, coatings and adhesives in Latin America. The move is coming due to a combination of raw material and transportation cost increases, says Sun Chemical.
  • The Association for PRINT Technologies (APTech) and the Foil & Specialty Effects Association (FSEA) are delighted to announce their collaboration on a new in-person event, Amplify, an exhibition and educational program spotlighting the print finishing value chain. The immersive three-day experience will take place June 14 to 16, 2022, in the heart of the print, graphic arts, and print finishing industry at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
  • A coalition of more than 20 U.S. news organizations, along with trade associations and other organizations including the News Media Alliance, sent letters to President Joe Biden and the House and Senate Majority and Minority leaders in Congress seeking humanitarian assistance with providing safe passage out of Afghanistan for a modest number of Afghans (<1,000) who have been working with U.S. media as journalists, interpreters, and support staff to provide coverage of Afghanistan. According to the letters, now that American troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan, these individuals “fear retaliation from the Taliban for having courageously associated themselves with the American press.”

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