September 5, 2008
The Hard News About Associations
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
I’ve always been frustrated by the dearth of objective news reporting about the association sector. There’s a lot of content available for association executives in the form of case studies and commentary — national and regional magazines, websites, listserves, even blogs — but actual news reporting about association-specific activities is much more limited.
I subscribe to and read Association Trends, and find it occasionally interesting (sometimes I get a kick out of Jill Cornish’s editorials), but it is thin and tends to lean toward the press release. I read it online while the print version (which seems to arrive rather randomly) is sometimes passed around and sometimes simply thrown away — so I wish they would offer an online-only subscription option (it doesn’t even have to cost less). (UPDATE: Trends tells me they actually run four online issues and one print issue each month, and mail the print issue. I did not realize that this is how they ran their publication schedule and probably explains why I thought the print delivery seemed random.)
The revamped CEO Update has fleshed out its coverage and partially filled the vacuum. While it contains the expected personality profiles, it also fills out its news section with articles on association activities that are a little more in-depth than the usual fare. But they too seem very wedded to their business model of “print newsletter of job listings” and I believe they would find it to their advantage to offer a monthly online subscription option.
And there are all sorts of publications and websites that take a news approach to covering the meetings industry — but it’s not the same thing.
Most of us associations are very familiar with trade press, because we either work closely with trade press in our own membership sectors, or, in some cases, we are the trade press in our own membership sectors. But associations themselves lack significant trade coverage.
I wonder why. Is it because we’re too close-knit, too closely-guarded, too interested in our members’ industries to be much interested in our own? Is it too hard to build a business case for an association trade newspaper? Or are association executives just not that interested?
I’d be curious to know what type of coverage you’re specifically looking for. Does ASAE’s magazine come close? Anything we on the meetings end of things can do to close the info gap?
Sue, ASAE’s magazine is an excellent resource, but it strikes me as primarily a “feature” publication than a news publication. I would put it more in the “case studies and commentary” category. When I think of “trade news” I’m imagining more coverage of association (and association supplier) projects and programs, trends, and organizational news (not just limited to “who’s in and who’s out”).