By HERB STUTZ
Convention Coordinator

The sale of Knight Ridder was less than a week away, a day marked by thousands of people in the newspaper industry seeing their paychecks signed by a new employer. So, almost predictably, the best-attended, best-rated session at the 33rd annual APSE Convention at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Hotel was "The State of Our Business."

It was the first time new employes of MediaNews Group met and heard from CEO William Dean Singleton, who was joined on the panel by the McClatchy Company's Vice President News Howard Weaver, Detroit Free Press' Vice President News/Editor Paul Anger and moderator Randy Harvey, sports editor of Los Angeles Times.

Of the 41 who responded to a convention survey, 19 ranked the session Excellent, 15 as Very Good and 4 as Good. The theme heard from all the panelists was not one of gloom, but excitement about the changing face of the industry. The panelists were also uniform in their message: Make way for change in recognizing the import of your websites and the necessity to reassign many members of your staff from the print aspect of the business to the Internet.

With that message clearly ringing in the ears of the large crowd assembled, it should not come as a surprise that the second-highest rated general session and the highest-ranked workshop in the survey dealt with the Internet side of our industry.

SECOND-HIGHEST RATED GENERAL SESSION

"Surfing for Success: How Sports Sections Can Thrive on the Internet:" was listed on every survey completed with respondents awarding 12 Excellents, 15 Very Goods and 11 Goods to the general session. Moderator Ronnie Ramos, sports editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and panelists Tom Keegan of the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, Dave Morgan of Yahoo Sports, John Papanek of ESPN and Sherry Skalko of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel got the sessions off to a rousing start Thursday morning with their presentations, which drew much audience response. The 90-minute session set up the convention's theme perfectly and led to two excellent workshops on the internet.

TOP-RATED WORKSHOP

"High Schools Online: Worth Every Stat. How to Drive Traffic to Your Site" drew an overflow crowd of 70 attendees. Conducted by Greg Gibson, sports editor of the Orange County Register, and Dean DeLuca, high school sports coordinator for The News-Press of Fort Myers, the pair used a live hookup to the internet and terrific handouts to capture their live audience. The session received marks of 15 Excellents, 8 Very Goods and 2 Goods.

NO. 3 AND NO. 4 GENERAL SESSIONS

The third- and fourth-best ranked general sessions were "Disappearing Access" and "Celebrating Our Successes: How Gulf Papers Worked in the Shadow of Hurricane Katrina." The former was moderated by Tom Jolly of the New York Times, with Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Alex Marvez of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times as panelists. "Celebrating Our Successes" was moderated by Fred Faour of the Houston Chronicle, with Doug Tatum and Jeff Duncan of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Michael Peters of the Beaumont Enterprise.

SECOND-BEST WORKSHOP

Ranked right behind "High Schools Online" as the best workshops were "Making Enterprise Happen" (panelists Bill Dwyre of the L.A. Times, John Cherwa of the Orlando Sentinel and David Sell of the Colorado Springs Gazette) and "Examining Non-Traditional Storytelling" (Michael Anastasi and Josh Awtry of The Salt Lake Tribune).

SEEN AND OVERHEARD

■ In the eyes of the respondents, the most popular and informative general session panelists were Singleton, Weaver and Simers, while Dave Milliron ("No Secrets to Accessing Public Documents"), Anastasi and Gibson topped the workshop panelists.

■ Numerous respondents cited the import of handouts, one saying, "Can't get enough handouts" to another "there were good handouts and there were great ones (Michael Anastasi)."

■ An 18-year convention attender probably summed it up best when he said: "The general sessions and workshops were maybe the strongest during my APSE Convention years. Ideas and measured optimism carried the days. The only downside was logistical – hotel rooms too distant from the conference center."

■ As a result, however, most of us left Las Vegas in a little better physical shape than we arrived.

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