NNA opens new website with Newhouse student’s ‘We Believe in Newspapers’ video

The National Newspaper Association (NNA) has opened its new website, www.nnaweb.org, to its members and the public with a new video, “We Believe in Newspapers.” The video was directed and produced by Alex Parker-Magyar, a student in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a member of a New Jersey newspaper family with deep roots in NNA.

The Parker family’s commitment to NNA dates back to the involvement of Cortlandt and Nancy Parker in the 1960s and continues through the board service and 2010 presidency of Liz Parker, co-publisher of the New Jersey Hills Media Group in Bernardsville, N.J.

Parker-Magyar interviewed newspaper executives during NNA events in 2011, asking them why they believed in newspapers. The result is a heartwarming piece that attests to the important contributions that newspapers bring to democracy and civic life in America, says NNA President Reed Anfinson, publisher of the Swift County (Minn.) Monitor-News.

“People are beginning to realize that community newspapers remain strong and that local communities cannot grow and thrive without them,” Anfinson says. “So many of the people interviewed by Alex told him essentially the same thing—we are here; we are doing high quality journalism; we are indispensable to community life.” Anfinson adds that, “We are extremely proud of the result of Alex’s work and we are proud that its debut comes with our new website.”