“Bits of History” Items

Convergence and the Corporate Boardroom

In early December 2002, I published an article for Poynter Online based on a speech I gave at the opening of Newsplex, a prototype newsroom of the future, at the University of South Carolina. Newsplex was a cooperative project between private and public media organizations and academia at the USC’s College of Mass Communications and Information Studies.

My topic was convergence and the changing media corporate culture. I talked about how before convergence can succeed in the newsroom, it has to be adopted in the boardroom, where major cultural and business changes are also needed.  Here’s a taste of the article:

The bigger issue isn’t whether we can change the corporate culture of the boardroom to embrace convergence. Rather, it’s the need to focus on learning and adjusting the characteristics of the entire organization.

With education we can affect the learned behaviors of the media industry’s leaders, its journalists and other workers.

And when I talk about the media industry leaders, I am not talking about just the people who sit in the boardrooms. Leadership includes managers and staff members, who actually can be more influential than their bosses.

Looking at the Local Marketplace Providers, 1996

The PAFET group [see item about its founding] commissioned the technology consulting group, the Yankee Group, to look at competitors in local markets. In other words, look at who could compete against newspapers for viewers and advertisers. Here’s a touch of the overview:

PAFET has asked the Yankee Group to research the variety of institutions providing localized, Web-based consumer information services.  The firms were researched from two perspectives: investment opportunities and partnership opportunities.

  • Local content/city-based
  • Enhanced Yellow Pages
  • Other (combination of both camps/directory services)

On-line services such as AOL’s Digital Cities and Microsoft’s Sidewalk were not covered in this effort. 

We evaluated these companies on a series of criteria which were in turn weighted according to strategic importance. These criteria included positioning in four main categories:

1. brand/marketing/sales,

2. corporate and competitive,

3. content and services, and

4. technical

 

The report gives a snapshot to the time when newspaper companies knew there was danger ahead. How much they were willing to act is another matter.

Survey of the Online Consumer, 1994

In the spring of 1994 the Interactive Services Association conducted its third annual survey of online users. The report was released in spring 1995. The survey goal was to better understand how online [and early Internet / Web] users went about their cyber business.

These four services represented 85 per cent of the total consumer online market in the spring of 1994. Users were self-selected, in that they participated in the survey of their own volition. These are the service providers whose data appears in this report:

In total, the survey received more than 12,000 completed responses. As the volume of  response varied from vendor to vendor, data were weighted to reflect the subscriber market share associated with each of the service providers at the time of the survey to give a more accurate national picture.

Some of the headlines from this report:

  1. The consumer audience for online services is broadening. The income levels of online users, as well as their age and usage patterns, are becoming more diverse, reflecting a growing acceptance of online services by consumers outside the traditional high-tech early adopters.
  2. Given this trend, it appears plausible that by the end of 1995, for the first time, consumers who have been active for one year or less will make up the majority of all consumer online users-a sea change in member composition in just three years.
  3. Online subscribers who also use the Internet represent a different user profile. Internet traffic is driven by users who are younger than traditional online subscribers.

It is fascinating to look at users from that period — more than 30 years ago from the date of this posting in 2022.

Introduction to Best of Photojournalism Book

In 1990, a group of editors took on the task of editing and producing the National Press Photographer Association‘s annual “Best of Photojournalism” publication.  This annual book showcases the awarding winners from the NPPA and University of Missouri contest. This was our first efforts at producing this incredible book.  Here’s what I wrote as to our goals:

The design goals, for me, were very simple: define the book as a record of the contest; bring more order to the arrangement of pictures and develop a pleasing typographic style that would complement the photographs but not overpower them.

The full introduction can be read in this PDF about the process of producing the book on computer. Amazon still has the book for sale.

Technology and Pagination

In 1999 the Society for News Design and the American Society of Newspaper Editors published a book about how managers could more successfully integrate new technologies into their newsrooms.  This project include a number of chapters from the leading technologists in the newspaper industry, including:

  • David M. Cole
  • Heidi de Laubenfels
  • Olivia Casey
  • Ed Kohorst

While pagination, strictly speaking, is an outdated technology, the concepts about workflow and organization are still very valid. 

I wrote about Embracing Change when it came to future technologies. There were a few things I got right:

  • Working at home, even doing newspaper design
  • Always connected to a network
  • Using databases to edit and present content
  • Constant feedback on what consumers are reading

Remembering Nelson Poynter and Poynter Colleagues

In celebration of Nelson Poynter’s 100th birthday, the entire Poynter Institute staff gathered for two staff photographs in 2003.  The top photos is the traditional. The bottom photos has everyone wearing bow tie, a Nelson Poynter trademark. This photograph probably captures the height of staffing at the Institute. There are about 60 folks in each photograph [a couple are hidden].

Only a couple of folks in the photograph were still at the Institute as of 2001.

How Consumers Spend Their Media Day

How consumers use media has always been an interesting topic. However, it never really got the attention of those at the top of newspaper organizations.  One of the better studies was this one:

The Center for Media Design at Ball State University conducted the Middletown Media Studies in 2003-2004. These investigations tracked the ways in which ordinary Americans residing in and around Muncie engage with the many new forms of media available in the twentieth century. More details are available in the CMD Reports and White Papers listing.

Here’s a copy of a paper about the study in the International Digital Media & Arts Association Journalism from Spring 2004.

Here’s a link to Ball State’s documents about the project.

Chicago Tribune Photo Request Form, 1985

An example of the Chicago Tribune’s photo request form used in 1985. Picture assignments were made through the picture assignment desk, either in the main city room or in the suburban Hinsdale, IL, bureau. Assignments were requested by either the reporter working on a story or by the source editor who is handling the story.  However, according to note Howard Finberg wrote in 1985, “the picture assignment editor of the picture editor controls photo assignment traffic and determines which story takes precedent when time and manpower are short.“