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This profile was automatically generated using 10 references found on the Internet. This information has not been verified. Learn more...
This profile was automatically generated using 10 references found on the Internet. This information has not been verified. Learn more...
Employment History
View...View all 10 references Web References
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1. www.telegram.com
www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll - [Cached]Published on: 9/16/2007 Last Visited: 9/16/2007
Please send resume to: Alberta Saffell Bell, Publisher, The Gardner News, P.O. Box 340, Gardner, MA 01440 or fax (978)630-1346. -
2. Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association
www.masspublishers.org/members - [Cached]Last Visited: 5/13/2008
Alberta S. Bell, Publisher, The Gardner News, 309 Central Street, Gardner, MA 01440 (2008 to 2010)Secretary -
3. NEPA -The New England Press Association
www.nepa.org/archives/200303ne - [Cached]Published on: 3/1/2003 Last Visited: 1/15/2005
Transforming a community paper into an accurate representation of its community requires much flexibility, according to Alberta Bell, publisher of The Gardner News. As a former dentist, she described her career change to journalism: "Once it gets in your blood, there's nothing else you'll want to do."
Throughout the discussion, she offered creative solutions for maintaining a loyal readership, describing one instance where a reader complained that the Little League was absent from the pages of the Gardner News. Bell translated complaints into helpful suggestions, changing the format of the paper to include weekly coverage of community sports and biweekly full-page photo spreads of children and community members.
Bell also tried to increase the paper's appeal to children by including an interactive kids' page full of math problems, stories and spelling quizzes, a page that has become popular among local schoolteachers.
The seven roundtable participants shared ideas for reaching the elusive twenty-somethings and making them loyal readers. Bell recounted her paper's "Breakfast Serials," a weekly adventure story that has become popular among local community college students. Another participant reported a 20 percent retention rate after rewarding high school graduates with free yearlong subscriptions to her paper.
