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2012 Forum Forward class graduates during ceremony in Fargo

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The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class and mentors, from left to right: Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock, JobsHQ Employment Specialist/Sales Team Leader Lisa Tillotson, Forum Regional Operations Manager Curt Christensen, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo Customer Service Representative Kari Saylor, FCC Director of Multimedia Sales Operations Amy Fredrickson, Forum Features Editor Heidi Shaffer, Duluth News Tribune Ad Director Roz Randorf, FCC Digital Accounts Manager Chad Jacobsen, RiverTowns Newspaper Group Multimedia Producer Roger Sievers, Echo Press Variety Editor Tara Bitzan, Grand Forks Herald Editor Steve Wagner, WDAY-TV Regional Sales Manager Joshua Rohrer, FCC CEO Lloyd Case, Forum General Manager Aaron Beecher, Forum Reporter Ryan Johnson, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. and Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel.

FARGO, N.D. – Eight Forum Communications Co.employees were feted this week as the 2012 Forum Forward class graduated and became alumni of the company’s leadership training program started several years ago. Graduation was held Tuesday at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Fargo. Members of FCC’s senior management team were on hand to celebrate, as were each of the graduates company mentors, who are an integral component to the program. “This is a culmination of a year spent visiting various divisions within our company, including Broadcast, Commercial Printing, Digital and Newspaper,” said program facilitator Sonjia Anderson. “This has provided them insights into leadership skills, professional growth, and the opportunity to share best practices.” The graduating class also participated in brainstorming session on company innovation to generate ideas relating to reducing expenses and increasing revenue. Projects coming out of the past innovation sessions include the Forum News Service, the Green Team, and the “We Are Forum Communications” branding video. The 2013 Forum Forward participants and mentors also gathered in Fargo this week to begin their year of training.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Tara Bitzen with her certificate. Her mentor, Grand Forks Editor Steve Wagner stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Ryan Johnson with his certificate. His mentor, Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Joshua Rohrer with his certificate. His mentor, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case gives Forum Forward graduate Heidi Shaffer and her mentor Amy Fredrickson a hug.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Lisa Tillotson with her certificate. Her mentor, Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Kari Saylor with her certificate. Her mentor, Curt Christensen stands at right.

The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class included: – GRADUATE: Tara Bitzan, life/variety/special projects editor, Echo Press, Alexandria, Minn. MENTOR: Steve Wagner, editor, Grand Forks Herald, Grand Forks, N.D. – GRADUATE: Chad Jacobsen, digital accounts manager, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Roz Randorf , ad director, Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minn. – GRADUATE: Ryan Johnson, reporter, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Korrie Wenzel, publisher, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D. – GRADUATE: Joshua Rohrer, regional sales manager, WDAY-TV, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Bill Marcil Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer Forum Communications Co., and publisher, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, N.D. – GRADUATE: Kari Saylor, customer service representative, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Curt Christensen, regional operations manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Heidi Shaffer, features editor, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Amy Fredrickson, director of multimedia sales operations, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Roger Sievers, multimedia producer, RiverTown Newspaper Group, Red Wing, Minn. MENTOR: Aaron Becher, general manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Lisa Tillotson, employment specialist/sales team leader, Jobs HQ, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Harvey Brock, publisher, The Dickinson Press, Dickinson, N.D.

Forum News Service adds veteran copy editor

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Mike Florio has been hired as a copy editor for the Forum News Service.

FARGO, N.D. – The Forum News Service has added a veteran copy editor to its ranks to bolster the unit’s ability to produce, edit and distribute news, company officials have announced.

Mike Florio joined the staff earlier this month and has been tasked with evening and night editing duties for the new service. Florio worked last in Kentucky where he was a copy editor at the Daily News in Bowling Green for four years. Prior to that, Florio spent 10 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a copy editor, a position that focused on news but also involved some work in sports.

Earlier in his career, Florio worked as a copy editor for The News-Times in Danbury, Conn., and for The Express-Times in Easton, Pa. He received his journalism degree from Penn State.

Mary Jo Hotzler, director of the Forum News Service

“We’re pleased to have hired someone with Mike’s copy editing experience,” said Forum News Service Director Mary Jo Hotzler. “Mike’s position will add to our talent level and help us to produce even more high-quality news that we can provide to our internal and external clients.”

Forum Communications Co. launched the news service in January 2012 to distribute content to news organizations in the Upper Midwest. Hotzler was named director of the service in February 2013.

“Forum Communications is committed to the growth of our news service and that takes talented people like Mike,” Hotzler said. “We will continue to invest in the people and resources necessary to be a complete regional wire service.”

The Forum News Service is owned by Forum Communications Co.  Forum Communications is a multimedia information company based in Fargo, and owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co. debuts video-only website InforumTV

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Robin Huebner goes through a test run of an InforumTV webcast in the video studio of The Forum building in Fargo. InforumTV launched today at InforumTV.com. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

By Shane Mercer
FARGO, N.D. – The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and WDAY-TV and radio today launched the InforumTV website with three live morning news webcasts anchored by Robin Huebner.
Plans are to eventually offer top-of-the-hour updates throughout the workday.
Huebner’s webcasts will air at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. Monday through Friday on Inforumtv.com. The site will also have the capacity to deliver news live from the field.
InforumTV will be a separate site from The Forum’s Inforum.com website, and focuses strictly on video.
There are plans to develop a morning show for InforumTV, said media manager Jim Manney, who heads up the video department at The Forum.
Manney said InforumTV will also produce and webcast live talk shows in the future.
“It’s a place for us to deliver news, information and entertainment to readers, viewers and listeners,” Manney said.
He has big dreams for the site.
“I can see it becoming, at some point, a 12-hour-a-day network,” Manney said. “It’s very ambitious, I know, but it’s something that I think will definitely happen over the course of the next few years.”
In addition to the live offerings, the site will be home to “the nearly 27,000 videos that Forum Communications Co. has shot,” Manney said.

Multimedia developer Ryan Babb works behind the boards in the video studio at The Forum building. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Communications is the parent company of The Forum, WDAY and other media outlets in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. New video from these various outlets will be added to InforumTV’s searchable archive as it is created.
“What we want people to do is explore; to jump on the website and search the stories that they’re interested in,” Manney said. “And we want you to kind of get lost and explore and have some fun and see what we have available.”
WDAY News Director Jeff Nelson said the site will enhance what WDAY.com is already doing.
“InforumTV is going to allow us another avenue to get those stories out to people,” said Nelson, who described it as “an opportunity for Forum Communications as a company to really go out and be everywhere with everybody.”
While The Forum has already been producing video for the Web, Forum Editor Matthew Von Pinnon believes the InforumTV venture marks a new emphasis on video newsgathering for the staff.
“If there’s a news event happening, we’ll bring it to people, and we’ll stream it, and we’ll show it,” he said. “It could be a press conference; it could be breaking news, fires, weather, whatever. We can be out in the field and sharing that information with people in real time.”

Bill Marcil Jr. publisher of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Publisher Bill Marcil Jr. sees InforumTV as a “big part” of the company’s future.
“We will still provide the very best platform for news and advertising with Inforum, but by separating the two, we will have a better user experience for the person that just wants video,” he said.
“We will provide not only news updates but local news stories, weather and original content with the ability to go live any time of the day or night,” Marcil said.

Shane Mercer is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.

The Forum, WDAY-TV and InforumTV are all owned by Forum Communications Co. Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co. brings together entire sales force for continuing education

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Forum Communications Co. sales representatives recently attended a daylong continuing education training course in Fargo. The goal was give each sales rep a competitive advantage in their market.

FARGO, N.D. – Forum Communications Co. brought together its entire sales force, including sales representatives from newspaper, broadcast and commercial printing properties, on three dates in early December for sales continuing education during the 2012 FCC Core Skills Workshop.

Dozens of Forum Communications sales reps participated in a full-day course that covered multiple aspects of sales training, with the goal being to give each sales representative a competitive advantage through knowledge of how FCC’s products and services are superior to others.

Lead Trainer Mary Altuvilla of People First Productivity Solutions, a Twin Cities consulting firm, led Forum Communications Co. sales representatives through the training.

The training was organized by Duluth News Tribune Ad Director Roz Randorf, and it was led by Mary Altuvilla, the lead trainer at People First Productivity Solutions, a Twin Cities consulting company.

“By enhancing the skills of the sales representatives,” Randorf said, “we will ultimately educate our customers about the advantages of selecting and using our products and provide them with a top-notch customer experience.”

Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications Co. owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co.’s Case elected leader of Inland Press Association

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By Wendy Reuer

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Communications Co. President and CEO Lloyd Case

FARGO, N.D. – Lloyd Case, president and CEO of Forum Communications Co., recently was elected president of the Inland Press Association at the group’s annual meeting in Chicago.

The association provides training, research and consultation for all departments within a newspaper.

“It represents all aspects of the news industry – the revenue side, the cost side, and of course, the news,” Case said. “So the training and the webinars that are put on represent all aspects of our business.”

About 1,200 newspapers ranging in size from small weekly papers to metropolitan dailies belong to Inland Press Association.

Forum Communications owns nine daily and 25 weekly newspapers in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, including its flagship daily paper The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. The company has been a member of Inland Press for decades, but Case is the first from Forum Communications to be named president.

“The organization of Inland is all about representing newspapers of all different sizes, so it fits well with our company,” Case said.

Case said during his one-year-term as president followed by a one-year chairman position, he will continue Inland’s mission of providing quality training to members. He said he expects a focus on the industry’s continuing shift to digital production.

As a company, Forum Communications has bolstered its own production of digital media, online and in video production, but Case said print has not, and will not, fall by the wayside.

“Print still represents 85 percent of our revenue across the country, so there still has to be a balance between print and digital, there’s no question about that,” he said.

To become president, members must serve on the board of directors before they can be selected to serve as an officer, which is a six-year movement through the ranks. The long-term commitment gives candidates knowledge and expertise inside the association, said Tom Slaughter, executive director of Inland Press Association.

“For someone like Lloyd, it’s a real sign of service and commitment to get into the point he is now,” Slaughter said.

Case, a Goodrich, N.D., native and University of North Dakota graduate, worked in public accounting for nearly a decade before joining Forum Communications – then called Forum Publishing Co. – as a controller in 1982.

He was named vice president 10 years later and chief financial officer of Forum Communications in 1992.

He was elected president by the company’s board of directors in 2006 and CEO in 2010.

A summer Inland Press Association board meeting is planned in Fargo to discuss the association’s strategic plan for the future.

“I know Lloyd is excited to get moving on that,” Slaughter said.

Wendy Reuer is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.