Response to Terry Williams' visit

Terry Williams, the president and Chief Operating Officer of Keene Publishing Corp. came to our class to talk about what we should be do to prepare for our future and the current state of the journalism industry. Terry was my favorite guest speaker for one reason: he was optimistic. 

Right when he started he had good news and bad news. The bad news was that ad revenue is extremely low and that there are fewer jobs in the journalism industry. This is far less worse than I thought; we hear about this all the time in journalism classes, so I'm used to it. The good news was that the only way is up. Sixty five percent of publishers are optimistic about the journalism industry, Terry said, and news outlets all over America are figuring out ways to survive and survive well. We did talk about Patch.com's failures for a little bit, but the conversation was mostly about the industry's successes.

Two of the most interesting examples he gave were those that sold extra products in addition to magazines (like cowboy gear) and the newspaper that is completely free. I've never thought about the extra products business plan before. It's kind of like my semester project idea for the video game developing company but at a different level. I might add this to my business plan.

Overall, Terry's visit was positive and inspiring. I've wanted to go into newspapers for a while know because I figured the industry experienced it low points. Based on Terry's presentation, it looks like I was right. The industry had it's low points, but now things are getting back to normal, and I can't wait to see what it looks like in the next few years.