05/15/2015

Seven Questions with an ONA Member: Deb Zwez

by Josh Park, Program Support Specialist

After receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in communication arts from the University of Dayton, Deb Zwez began her career in the news industry. Zwez worked as a business and farm reporter at the Wapakoneta Daily News, where she currently serves as publisher for the past three years. She has also been publisher of The Community Post since 2001 and became an ONA Board of Trustees member last year.

Zwez hails from Kenmore, NY and has a husband, John, and 17-year-old son, Michael.

What sparked your interest in this career?
My first job out of college was at the Wapakoneta Daily News. I thought it would just be the first step to a career in public relations. Wrong. Journalism gets into your blood; in my case, it was the opportunity to meet so many different people, live so many different experiences and share so many unique stories that I ended up never looking back.

What’s the most difficult part of your job?
These days it’s ensuring we stay relevant – providing a product that our audience wants to read and finds essential, which in turn allows the newspaper to be a vehicle that allows our advertisers’ messages to reach a receptive audience – which affects the bottom line, and which helps keep everyone employed.

What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
Hearing a compliment – whether it results from a story, or hearing that an advertising campaign brought results.

What are the two coolest new things your newspaper is doing?
“AP Free Tuesdays,” a day dedicated to only local news; and our “Growing Up” columns that feature local residents who share their memories of coming of age in their respective local communities. We have four men of different generations who are submitting columns that are wildly popular.

What’s the biggest problem and biggest opportunity in our industry that people should be talking more about?
It frustrates me to see our newspaper get lumped into perceptions about “all media.” And we don’t do a great job of working to set ourselves apart. As a small newspaper in a small city we provide exclusive coverage our residents won’t find anywhere else. We need to separate ourselves and can only do that ourselves.

If you could get an exclusive interview with one newsmaker past or present for your newspaper, who would it be and why?
Selfishly, I’d love to spend time interviewing Hillary Clinton. I’ve been fascinated by her career, by her choices and am most curious about what drives her.

What are the most important benefits you get from ONA?
Both The Wapakoneta Daily News and weekly Community Post are small market newspapers that rarely face any “big metro” issues; however, knowing we have a professional organization we can turn to for almost any reason is reassuring. From lobbying to being included in large ad buys and everything in between, we’re assured our membership investment brings results.

For upcoming issues of the Ohio Newspaper Association’s Bulletin, we want readers to get to know their fellow members, who are leaders in their organization and the newspaper industry. If you would like to participate in our Q&A, please send an email to Josh Park at jpark@ohionews.org.