2001 Gannett IDEAS (Innovator Drive for Excellence) Competition Winners Announced
ARLINGTON, VA -The partnering of The Arizona Republic and Phoenix’s KPNX-TV to enhance and improve delivery of the news to Arizona audiences is the winner of the 2001 Gannett IDEAS (Innovator Drive for Excellence) competition.
Arizona Convergence makes possible the delivery of news via different media platforms including the Internet, the newspaper and television. It improves the quality of the news product by combining resources and allows for multimedia sales efforts that can increase revenue.
Among the most successful efforts in Arizona are joint coverage of schools, business news, consumer advocacy, investigations, sports and weather. Special event coverage has included reports from the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and the presidential elections.
The concept comes together on azcentral.com, which serves as the Internet site of both Channel 12 and The Arizona Republic.
Convergence of the newspaper and TV station occurred in August 2000, shortly after Gannett acquired The Arizona Republic. KPNX has been part of Gannett since 1979. Training programs helped create a positive culture and cooperation between units.
Arizona Convergence was one of 115 entries in the 2001 IDEAS contest for projects initiated in 2000. In addition to the top prize, the IDEAS judges named five other winners:
· Joint convention coverage by USA TODAY, USATODAY.com, USA TODAY LIVE and Gannett News Service. Convention Convergence brought together four diverse operations and overcame numerous obstacles such as firewalls and system incompatibility to provide comprehensive, multi-platform coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions in the summer of 2000.
· “e” technology section produced by Gannett News Service. From the beginning, GNS’ goal was to produce a weekly section that provided compelling, sophisticated coverage of the fast-changing world of consumer technology. In the end, after joining forces with multiple departments and overcoming significant technical hurdles, readers of the more than 90 newspapers that carry the section were overwhelmingly positive about the result.
· the Source, a rethinking of classified ads by Lansing (Mich.) State Journal. The idea was to attract new, young readers to the Lansing State Journal and to grow ad revenues. Now, six days a week, the Source delivers content, color and classifieds and has become “Mid-Michigan’s #1 Place to Go for Stuff, Jobs, Homes & Wheels.”
· KSDK-TV’s HomeHunter service. HomeHunter is an interactive service on KSDK.com for current homeowners and for prospective homebuyers. It includes information such as advertisements, columns, articles and an “Ask the Experts” section that links directly to local businesses.
· Leadership and service by the York Evening Press during England’s disastrous floods. “The Great Floods” swamped parts of Yorkshire last November, and Newsquest’s York Evening Press was right in the middle of the emergency. From its coverage in the newspaper and on its website, to its determination to print and deliver the paper despite its own presses being threatened and hardships for the staff, and its leadership in helping the city begin to rebuild, the Evening Press was more than equal to the task.
“Creative convergence of staffs and media is an excellent way for Gannett to grow and prosper in the coming years,” said Douglas H. McCorkindale, chairman, president and CEO of Gannett. “This year’s IDEA winners are fine examples of what can happen when we work together and think of our customers first.”
Judges for the competition were McCorkindale; Dick Clapp, senior vice president, human resources; Craig Dubow, president of Gannett Broadcasting; and Gary Watson, president, and Carleton Rosenburgh, senior vice president, Gannett Newspaper Division.
Gannett Co., Inc. is an international news and information company that publishes 99 daily newspapers in the USA, including USA TODAY, the nation’s largest-selling daily newspaper. The company also owns in excess of 300 non-daily publications in the USA and USA WEEKEND, a weekly newspaper magazine. In the United Kingdom, Gannett subsidiary Newsquest plc publishes nearly 300 titles, including 15 daily newspapers. Gannett also operates 22 television stations in the United States and is an Internet leader with sites sponsored by most of its TV stations and newspapers including USATODAY.com, one of the most popular news sites on the web.