A note from Great Lakes region chairman Jeff Kuehn of the Oakland Press in Michigan:

 

 

Attention Great Lakes region sports editors,

Plans for the APSE Great Lakes region meeting (April 22-23) have been finalized. I hope you give serious consideration to coming to Detroit. We are all in this together. Our jobs are changing in rapid-fire ways daily. The more we share ideas with others, the better and more efficient we become. Don’t delay, make the decision today to be here.?

To those of you who have already responded … great! To those of you who haven’t, don’t put it off any longer. Make the commitment now to be here. If you’re not sure it’s worth the time, give me a call (248) 561-0904 and I’ll convince you why this is an important place to be. With hotel information below, great seats to a potential American League Championship Series matchup ($26 per seat) and Monday workshops designed to inform and entertain, there’s no excuse to stay home.

Respond in one of THREE ways:
1. Yes, I plan to attend the Tigers game (number of tickets needed) and workshops
2. Yes, I plan to attend Monday’s workshops at The Oakland Press building, located at 48 W. Huron St., Pontiac, 48342
3. No, I am not able to attend.

Hope to see you in Detroit,
Jeff Kuehn,
Sports Editor, The Oakland Press
APSE Great Lakes region chair

Here’s what you need to know:

Hotels: http://bit.ly/xNZq2R

ASSOCIATED PRESS SPORTS EDITORS
2012 GREAT LAKES REGION CONFERENCE

SCHEDULE

Sunday, April 22

Detroit Tigers vs. Texas Rangers at Comerica Park, Detroit, 1:05 p.m. start

Editors will meet at the main gate (by the statue of a Siberian Tiger in a sitting position) from 12:30-12:45 p.m. Tickets are $26 apiece. We are situation in section 112, where the seats down the first base line jet out close to the field.

Monday, April 23

Location: The Oakland Press
48 W. Huron St., Pontiac, MI 48342
  
Registration — 9-9:30 a.m. (collect $10 for lunch)

Workshop I: Multimedia — 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Eric Olson, sports editor at the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Ill., will explain how the Herald managed to garner two Top 10 awards in the multimedia platform in the APSE contest. Olson will discuss how to put multimedia projects together and ways sports departments can turn those projects into money-making ventures.

Workshop II: Covering the NFL Draft — 10:45-noon
Detroit Free Press staff writer Dave Birkett will take part in a Q&A forum with editors to discuss the NFL Draft, which takes place in New York three days after the Great Lakes conference. Birkett is the NFL beat writer for the Freep. He will talk about how Twitter and social media has forever changed the way he covers the NFL. Have your questions ready.

Lunch — Noon-12:45

Workshop III: Community Engagement — 12:45-2 p.m.
Steve Buttry, the director of community engagement/social media, online, for Journal Register Co., will lead a discussion on how editors can make the best use of social media to engage readers like never before. Buttry is a leading expert in this field and has been making the rounds throughout the country sharing that expertise.

Workshop IV: GoogleVoice Made Easy — 2-3 p.m.
Karen Workman, community engagement editor at The Oakland Press, put together a 60-minute teaching presentation to instruct editors and writers how to easily put together voice and photo gallery displays using Google Voice. Her presentation leads done at The Oakland Press when Ndamukong Suh stomped on a Green Bay lineman.

Workshop V: Hiring Principles — 3-4 p.m.
Eric Olson and Jeff Kuehn will lead a discussion about what editors look for when they make a hire, how they identify those qualities in candidates, and how it's changed over the years. With the precious few slots we have on staff … you can't afford to screw it up.

Closing thoughts — 4-4:15 p.m.
Trying to drum up support for the Chicago Convention and the need to reach out to other editors in the Great Lakes region.

 

Registration is under way for APSE's annual sessions with the commissioners and chief executives of the nation's major sports organizations, scheduled for April 19-20 in New York City. The meetings are open to all members.

 

Please e-mail Jeff Rosen at jrosen@kcstar.com if you or any other representatives are attending, including New York-area editors who plan to commute. We need an accurate head count to ensure we can accommodate everyone in our meeting rooms.

The schedule:

 

 

Brian France, Chairman

AP offices, 450 W. 33rd, 14th Floor

APSE LIAISON: Terry Taylor

Email: trtaylor@ap.org

 

420 Fifth Avenue, 7th floor (corner of 37th Street and Fifth Avenue)

APSE LIAISON: Jeff Rosen

Email: jrosen@kcstar.com

Cell: 713-416-0127

 

645 Fifth Avenue, 19th floor (enter on either 51st or 52nd Street between Fifth and Madison, about 100 feet east of Fifth)

APSE LIASON: Michael Rose

Email: michael.rose@newsday.com

Cell: 631-742-0285

 

245 Park Avenue, 31st floor (between 46th and 47th Streets)

APSE LIAISON: Garry Howard

Email: ghoward@sportingnews.com

Cell: 414-550-1828

 

 

AP offices, 450 W. 33rd, 14th Floor

APSE LIAISON: Terry Taylor

Email: trtaylor@ap.org

 

1185 Avenue of the Americas, 15th floor (between 46th and 47th streets)

APSE LIAISON: Eric White

Email: ewhite@suntimes.com

 

280 Park Avenue, 17th floor (between 48th and 49th streets)

APSE LIAISON: Drew Van Esselstyn

Email: dvanesselstyn@starledger.com

Cell: 973-943-9780

 

Reid Laymance, sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will take over the point role for interested sports editors. The big change is that material will be shared through AP Exchange, which many papers already use for their wire content.

 

As a refresher, here's the quick background on the network and its benefits.

 

The sharing system was based on a model that several Ohio papers were using to add content, save travel money, etc. They would post their stories to a private website where they could be used as needed by members. The only catch would be that papers would not post another paper's full story on the web, and instead would link back to the original site so it could get the web traffic.

 

Among the many papers involved in the original NSCSN — and among its regular contributors — were the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Atlanta Journal Constitution, New Orleans Times Picayune, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and others.

 

The new relationship with the Associated Press and the AP Exchange website is designed to make the filing and sharing easier.

 

For information on joining and how to share, contact Reid at rlaymance@post-dispatch.com

 

Hank Winnicki, the assistant managing editor for sports of Newsday, has been named the chair of the APSE Northeast Region.

 

He replaces Matt Pepin, of Boston.com, whose two-year term expired after the region’s fall meeting last month at Marist College.

 

Judy Connelly, sports editor of the Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record, has been elected as the vice chair.

 

Winnicki has been at Newsday since 2004, when he was hired as the night sports editor. He was named sports editor in August 2006.

Prior to Newsday, Winnicki spent 11 years at the New York Daily News. He started as a copy boy in 1993; worked the agate desk and the copy desk; and was named an assistant sports editor in 1999.

 

Connelly has been in Middletown since December 2009. She previously was the sports editor of the Scranton Times and Tribune.

 

She had been the Mid-Atlantic region chair at the time of her departure.