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Your connection to industry & member news | April 22, 2020
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 | By Randall Savely,
Director of Operations
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Is your company data safe during COVID-19?
Over the past several weeks, many of us have begun using work structures that look much different than our normal structures. Like our office, perhaps your office’s data security policies were not prepared to deal with such rapid changes. If so, my advice to you is to ensure right now that you have adapted your data security policies to protect your data while your employees are working remotely. I share this with you based on an experience that happened in our office last week.
We migrated most of our corporate files to a cloud-based SharePoint library late last year. The timing of that move was serendipitous and it has been instrumental in allowing employees, as needed, the flexibility to work effectively out of the office. However, our accounting software is still based on our local server. As luck would have it, three weeks ago we were in the middle of a server upgrade and as a result our remote access and VPN access was disabled on our server. To help facilitate our accounting manager to work from home, I connected her personal laptop to the accounting files on her office computer so that she could connect remotely to them. This removed the data from the redundancy of our server, but the short term need to access the files seemed to outweigh the slightly-increased risk of data loss. Read more.
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Virtual Roundtable for S.C. editors
These are tough times. News in our communities has changed and our coverage is changing as well.
If you are a daily or weekly editor in South Carolina, SCPA invites you to participate in a group conference call where we can share ideas on how to hold and grow readership and pageviews during this difficult period.
The call is scheduled for Friday, April 24 at 1 p.m.
Topic ideas to discuss on what newsrooms are covering include: COVID-19 coverage, municipal coverage, school coverage, sports coverage, local topics/industries, community news, features, and sponsored writing to support sales departments.
Please join and share your ideas. The call will be moderated by Cecilia Brown of the Moultrie News and Bill Rogers of SCPA.
If you would like to participate, let us know so we can provide you with call-in information.
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Should coroners release info about coronavirus victims? SC AG sees it both ways
The S.C. Attorney General’s Office was asked whether coroners can reveal to the public when COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, causes a person’s death.
On Monday, a legal opinion by that office took a firm position — on both sides of the issue.
“Only a court can resolve this question with finality, especially given the unprecedented nature of the current emergency,” said the opinion, written by Assistant Attorney General David Jones, a lawyer in Attorney General Alan Wilson’s Office.
Two seemingly opposed prior S.C. Supreme Court rulings would support either confidentiality or disclosure of the cause of death in novel coronavirus death cases, the opinion says.
By Noah Feit and John Monk, The State | Read more
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Fort Mill Times publishes final edition; News will be published in The Herald
Dear Readers,
The Fort Mill Times has for several decades been The Herald’s way of showing that we are paying attention to news in the rapidly growing northern tier of York County, South Carolina.
Each Wednesday, readers in the Fort Mill area have been accustomed to receiving a publication that has chronicled the exponential growth of subdivisions, spawned by commuters with jobs on both sides of the state line. And with that have come new schools, diversity and more prosperity.
As of April 15 that coverage will change. That will be the last publication day for The Fort Mill Times. All of our news coverage from northern York County will still be available in the print edition of The Herald and heraldonline.com. Read more.
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By Mike Smith,
Herald-Journal
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Mike Smith: Thank you, Spartanburg
Editor's Note: Mike Smith announced this will be his last week at the Herald-Journal. He served as president of SCPA in 2017.
Thirty-seven years is a long time.
It’s how long I’ve worked for the Herald-Journal. I’ve covered deadly tornadoes, killer snowstorms and now the coronavirus. I’ve covered crimes and politics — there is a difference. I’ve covered our transition from a textile community to auto manufacturing, including the renaissance of Spartanburg.
Now that it’s over, I want to make sure to thank you all for the opportunity. That includes the corporate leaders who gave me this job and the coworkers whose tireless efforts enabled me to succeed. It particularly includes the community that welcomed me and the readers who have supported the Herald-Journal and GoUpstate.com.
I appreciate your support of this news organization and its mission in the community.
I started here in 1983 in the Cherokee County Bureau. You might not think it would go well when a young Connecticut Yankee is dropped into Gaffney to cover local news, but the way that community embraced me made me fall in love with the culture of the Upstate and make it my home. Read more.
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Google News Initiative launches Journalism Emergency Relief Fund
Local news is a vital resource for keeping people and communities connected in the best of times. Today, it plays an even greater function in reporting on local lockdowns or shelter at home orders, school and park closures, and data about how COVID-19 is affecting daily life.
But that role is being challenged as the news industry deals with job cuts, furloughs and cutbacks as a result of the economic downturn prompted by COVID-19. The Google News Initiative wants to help by launching a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund to deliver urgent aid to thousands of small, medium and local news publishers globally. The funding is open to news organizations producing original news for local communities during this time of crisis, and will range from the low thousands of dollars for small hyper-local newsrooms to low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms, with variations per region.
By Richard Gingras, Google News | Read more
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Pass It On public service campaign from The Foundation for a Better Life now available to newspapers
The Foundation for a Better Life, a 501(c)(3) organization that promotes positive values, has created a series of public service ad messages that show appreciation for many of those who have stepped up during this critical time. If you would like to run ads in support of these groups of people, they are available for download at no charge.
Full, half and quarter page print ads are available, as well as a couple of digital sizes. Ads can be downloaded here.
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RJI offers journalists a one-stop webpage with COVID-19 resources
The tips, tools and advice about journalism and COVID-19 have been plentiful. And that’s a great thing. But because they’re flying around the internet in emails, newsletters and blog posts, it can sometimes be hard to find what you’re looking for. The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute can help.
A one-stop webpage has been created that includes an index of articles, tips, tools and advice all collated by Dorothy Carner, Missouri School of Journalism head librarian, and Sandy Schiefer, the Journalism Research and Digital Access Librarian at the Columbia Missourian Library. The information is there to assist journalists trying to report the news during this period of global pandemic and social distancing.
From Reynolds Journalism Institute | Read more
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54% of Americans rate media’s response to the coronavirus outbreak positively
Many U.S. news organizations are covering the coronavirus pandemic while themselves facing financial pressure from it. A growing number have announced layoffs, furloughs and other cost-cutting measures as the virus inflicts widespread pain on the economy, and these cuts come on top of years of earlier reductions in newsroom staffing, especially at newspapers.
Amid the financial challenges facing newsrooms, 54% of U.S. adults say the news media have done an excellent or good job responding to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a survey conducted March 19-24 as part of Pew Research Center’s Election News Pathways project. A slightly smaller share (46%) says the media’s response has been only fair or poor.
By John Gramlich, Pew Research Center | Read more
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YouTube launches a free, DIY tool for businesses in need of short video ads
YouTube has launched a new tool aimed at small businesses that need a simple, low-cost way to create videos, but may not have the creative experience or technical know-how required to do so. The YouTube Video Builder, as the new tool is simply called, has been in testing with a small group of customers for months but has been rushed to launch more publicly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, where in-person video shoots are no longer an option, and many small businesses are strapped for cash.
“We think Video Builder can help businesses of all sizes who need quick videos, especially now, when we’ve heard from many businesses that they need to update their messaging to customers quickly and easily,” said Ali Miller, director of Product Management at YouTube Ads.
By Sarah Perez, TechCrunch | Read more
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| Thanks Annual Meeting Sponsors!
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Even though the Annual Meeting has been postponed until September, please take a moment to visit these special organizations online.
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