to create or enhance your own go-guide, for fun and profit
By Rick Nagel
First Vice President
"I don't know nothin' about birthin' no entertainment section!"
Ah, but you will, my journalistic friends, if you attend NINA's Oct. 29
fall conference spectacular: "That's Entertainment!" We've put
together as fine a package as any you've seen since Mel Gibson dropped his
kilt in "Braveheart."
Here's what you get for your registration fee:
- An explanation of how a youthful Richard Christiansen provoked John
Lennon into saying that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus."
("Holy faux pas, Batman!") - A slide presentation exhibiting all the first-place award winners in this year's NINA contest. ("Frankly, my dear, if I don't win, I don't give a damn.")
- A buffet lunch, including a carved rotisserie beef entree served by a man in white chef's hat. ("Food fight!")
- Total consciousness. ("So I got that goin' for me. Which is nice.")
Who says a fall conference can't be fun, as well as informative? A kaleidoscope
of star entertainment-section pros (writers, editors,
marketing and ad directors), a cornucopia of big-name journalists (Chicago
Tribune Chief Arts Critic Richard
Christiansen) and a cupful o' cornered
critics from small and large newspapers will host three power-packed, one-hour
sessions.
Really, truly, honestly, seriously: You should come away from this convention
with very practical information about how to start or bolster an
entertainment section in your newspapers that attracts readers, delights
advertisers and strengthens the bottom line.
Your day will go something like this:
9:10 a.m. - Invigorated by your morning drive to DeKalb, you check
in at the Campus Life Building, where a beautiful Las Vegas showgirl presents
you with a gold-embossed nametag.
9:15 a.m. - You spend a few pleasant minutes sipping a cup of designer
coffee while hobnobbing with celebrity speakers and your colleagues, the
sophisticated elite of Illinois' Fourth Estate.
9:30 a.m. - You are floored by the wisdom of the Daily Herald's David
Graham, Ernie Schweit and Karen Kraske, the respective and respected
marketing, editorial and advertising gurus who helped launch Time
Out!, the Herald's superb and profitable entertainment magazine.
10:30 a.m. - Your ears prick as Nick Pullia, Dennis Pulkow and other arts and entertainment critics tell you their secrets for writing stories and attracting readers to an entertainment section for nondaily newspapers.
11:30 a.m. - A smile cracks your usually stony countenance as you absorb by osmosis four decades worth of astonishing tales told by the grand poobah of arts critics, Richard Christiansen of the Chicago Tribune. ("I'm not worthy!")
2:30 p.m. - Weighted by a heavy meal and 27 awards plaques, you return to your rusting Honda Civic and go forth to a workaday world.
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