JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — Four Baptist communication organizations have agreed to form a new media venture that will collaborate on expansive websites, print publications and other media options for Baptists.
The partnership, tentatively called NeoVox, currently includes Associated Baptist Press and the historic Baptist newspapers of three states — the Baptist Standard of Texas, the Religious Herald of Virginia, and Word & Way of Missouri.
Organizers say their network of communications partners will eventually include Baptist institutions and more media outlets, creating a national market for Baptist news and advertising.
The venture has been in the works for two years. Coordinated editorial planning and production started this spring, when the three newspapers began jointly publishing their biweekly newspapers with shared “core content” and graphic design. Associated Baptist Press, based in Jacksonville, Fla., provides graphic-design services and participates in content development.
The first collaborative issues featured extensive reporting on immigration, church leadership, clergy sex abuse, chaplaincy, associationalism and Christians in the public square.
Now in development is an extensive Internet portal, which will link news and other original content from all four organizations' websites in a single, integrated database and eventually offer multimedia content such as audio and video feeds.
Although much of the editorial content, graphic design and production process of the new venture will be shared, each media outlet will retain its own identity and unique look, the organizers say. And no changes are planned for the four original partners' governing boards, although a joint board for the new venture likely will be created.
Leaders at the Standard, Herald and Word & Way said a partnership involving Baptist newspapers in three widely spaced geographic areas — the Mid-Atlantic, the Southwest and the Midwest — will offer opportunities to respond to regional Baptist needs as well as state interests.
“We came to realize that if we're going to provide Baptists and other like-minded Christians with the news and information they deserve, and if the Baptist movement is going to survive, then we need to work even more closely together,” said Marv Knox, editor of the Standard. “We agreed the changing demands of journalism, particularly the transition from print-dominant to electronic-dominant, require us to form a partnership to deliver news and information.”
The venture will also make the national reporting of ABP “even more useful in the field of Christian journalism,” said Greg Warner, ABP's executive editor.
“For years, ABP and every other Baptist news outlet has found it harder and harder to reach Baptist audiences with our news and information,” he said. “We've hamstrung ourselves with narrowly focused content, outmoded distribution systems, and inadequate financial models.”
“Now we have a chance to reinvent Baptist communications, just as our predecessors did 150 years ago,” he continued. “If we can make use of the new technology to provide Baptists with information they actually care about, we can truly do a service for the Baptist movement in this country.”
Warner and Knox estimated NeoVox's Web-based strategy would cost $3 million to $5 million. Set for opening as early as 2008, the Internet strategy in its final form will be customizable to the users and likely include news, features, chat rooms, streaming video, blogs and podcasts.
ABP and the Standard are working to raise $600,000 to $1 million in start-up funding, with $330,000 already pledged or given. Additionally, directors of the Standard have made available $100,000 out of reserves.
Some of this start-up funding is paying for scientific research into the media habits and interests of Baptist laity and ministers, which will guide the venture. The governing boards of the Standard and ABP are expected to act on a business plan in September.
The partnership is built on a solid business plan, Knox said, but more importantly it will help the Baptist people and churches that share traditional Baptist principles to flourish.
A key component of NeoVox is the nature of its partnerships, the organizers say.
In addition to “publishing partners,” the venture will enlist “identity partners” — organizations and institutions that have a vested interest in Baptist communications — to partner in advertising and cross-promotional activities. Texas-based Buckner International and Mercer University in Georgia have already expressed interest in becoming identity partners.
As for the publishing partnerships, they won't alter paper governing boards or relationships with state conventions, but they will significantly enhance ministry opportunities, Jim White said in a recent Virginia Herald story.
“It will increase not only national and international coverage but will expand our state and regional coverage and allow us to explore interests relevant to Virginia Baptist churches,” said White, editor of the Herald.
Bill Webb, editor of Word & Way, said the strength of the venture is in its partners.
“We are pleased that this partnership brings together the best from three Baptist newspapers and a Baptist news service that share commitments to integrity and excellence,” he said. “Word & Way's efforts to challenge readers to be ‘doers of the word and not hearers only' will only be enhanced in this exciting venture.”
Knox said he is so committed to the endeavor because the “future of the traditional, historic Baptist movement is at stake,” not to mention the future of Baptist communication. It's bigger and more important than any individual newspaper, he said.
“If we don't engage a rising generation of Christians, helping them to understand the vital nature of Baptist principles — like the priesthood of all believers, religious liberty, the separation of church and state, local-church autonomy, missions and evangelism, and Christ's concern for ‘the least of these' — then they won't survive another generation,” Knox said.
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