You can’t learn if you skip class

MPA’s 160th Annual Convention and Trade Show will have something for everyone, including lots of learning opportunities. But you have to show up.”

Bryan Chester, 2026 MPA President

I’ve spent a good part of this year telling you to show up. Show up for your newspaper. Show up for your community. Show up for MPA. I’ve asked that you bring new ideas, that you not hesitate to ask questions, and that you get involved. So, with the 160th Missouri Press Convention and Trade Show just around the corner, I’m going to make one last pitch.

Show up.

I’m excited about this year’s convention because I think it comes at an important moment for the industry. We spend a lot of time talking about the challenges facing newspapers, and there are plenty of them. But I’m increasingly convinced that we also need to spend more time talking about what we still do exceptionally well. We’ll have opportunities to do exactly that at convention.

We’ll talk about revenue-producing special events. We’ll hear about artificial intelligence and the tools available to news organizations. We’ll talk about mobile strategy, education reporting and archiving our newspapers for future generations. We’ll hear from student journalists about what they see coming next, and we’ll have roundtables where you can sit down with other newspaper leaders and talk about what is actually working in their communities.

And then there’s the trade show. Go walk through it, talk to the vendors. Ask what they’re seeing. Find out what other newspapers are buying and why. Maybe you’ll discover something that solves a problem you’ve been wrestling with for months, or maybe you’ll hear an idea from the newspaper sitting two tables down that makes you think, “Why aren’t we doing that?”

I’ve said before that I want MPA to be an organization where people participate instead of simply belong. I want us to be a place where newspaper people share ideas, challenge each other and leave a meeting with something they can take back to their own newsroom. This convention is our chance to do that.

Thursday night, we’ll start with tours of the Missouri School of Journalism and Reynolds Journalism Institute. We’ll share food and drinks at the Heidelberg and watch a screening of “Seized,” followed by a conversation with Eric Meyer, publisher of the Marion County Record in Kansas. Later that night, I’ll lead the first, and hopefully not last, Journalists’ Haunts Pub Crawl through downtown Columbia. I promise there will be no PowerPoint presentations involved.

Friday is packed with programming, networking and opportunities to learn. Friday night at the Hall of Fame banquet, we’ll celebrate the people who have helped make Missouri journalism better.

On Saturday morning, we’ll wrap up with the Better Newspaper Contest awards and recognize some of the best work being done by newspapers across our state. Yes, there is a mimosa bar. You’re welcome.

In all seriousness, there really will be something for everyone at MPA’s 160th Annual Convention in Columbia, but you have to be here. You have to show up.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence, this is my last attempt to knock you off it. Show up with an idea. Show up with a problem you need help solving. Show up because you want to meet the person running the newspaper down the road. Show up because you want to hear what the next generation of journalists thinks our industry will look like. Show up because you want to see what other newspapers are doing to generate revenue.

Show up because you believe local journalism still matters.