“Memos, Presentations” Items

Celebrating The Republic’s Centennial: How We Worked

In 1990 The Arizona Republic celebrated its 100 years — its centennial. There were many different projects that I had role in editing and/or coordinating. It was a once in a lifetime project. One of the projects involved a full page timeline [called “Paper Route”] of how a story is reported, written and edited. In addition, how do photographers and others in the newsroom work to create the still ‘daily miracle.’

Having Fun at SND Conference

At the 1990 Society of News Design conference in San Jose, there was a group of pranksters who created a “SND Funnies” publication. It poked fun at SND leaders [organization and thought] and put a little humor into an all-to-serious group of designers and graphics editors. I was way too serious myself. The humor was ‘inside baseball’ and some of the folks have disappeared. Many of those whose ox was gored did have a laugh.

Speech at the 10th Annual Interactive Newspaper Conference

In February 1999, I gave a presentation to the the interactive newspaper group gathered in Atlanta, GA. It was a speech about what was going on at Central Newspapers and about the future of newspapers. Here’s a taste:

Another couple of interesting statistics is that in less than a dozen years, in 10 years, everybody under 50 will be computer literate. We’re all basically computer literate here; and obviously, the generations coming behind us are all computer literate. And even scarier is that by 2010, everybody under the age of 21 will not knows a world without the Internet. To us, some grey hairs in the room, along with myself, is that we can remember, we don’t necessarily like to remember, hot type and cold type and all that.

Here’s the full speech transcript 10th Annual Interactive Newspaper Conference_1999

Pagination and a Look Into the Future of Newspapers

In 1999 I was asked to contribute to a book about pagination being published by the Society of News Design and the Association of News Editors. You can download the entire book from here.

At the end of the article I made some “bolder, out-on-a-limb” predictions:

  • Design as a unique job function in newspapers will slowly dissolve into other editing responsibilities.
  • Editing will encompass more than the technical aspects of copy editing and take on more responsibilities for the entire infopacks.
  • Computers will automatically handle most of the routine production responsibilities, freeing editors to do lust what we have always wanted them to do – make journalistic choices on behalf of their readers and the community.
  • Most, if not all, maps and charts will be produced by software. There will be fewer artists at newspapers doing “art work.”
  • The presentation of information will be of such importance for the organization that the senior editor with such responsibilities will report to the publisher.

I like my final paragraph:

Newspapers are on the verge of freeing themselves from the limitations of their production equipment. While I would not predict the end of newsprint as we know it, the era of print-centric delivery is coming to an end. We need to look beyond technology to find the solutions to organize and motivate our workforce for the new millennium. If we are successful, this is the last pagination book you will ever read.

Emerging Tools and Technology. Presentation in 2000

As vice president of CNI Ventures, I was charged with looking for and understanding new technologies that might impact the newspaper industry and, more important, Central Newspapers, Inc. I gave a presentation to the Interactive Newspaper Conference in early 2000 that explored a few of these new tools, including:

  • Brightstreet, a coupon site
  • NexTag, a shopping comparison site
  • Everstream, an audio streaming service
  • Kabango, an Internet radio
  • Palm Pics, a device from Kodak to allow the Palm Pilot to take pictures
  • Webphones, a Nokia device [way before the iPhone]
  • E-Ink, electronic ‘ink’ display [think Kindle, which used that technology]

Of all of the technologies discussed, E-Ink has proven the most successful.

NewsU Story Contest Finalists

Poynter’s News University liked to celebrate its users and held a couple of contests to get compelling stories from its students. This document is a worksheet for those at Poynter who were tasked to pick the best stories. [The stars note candidates that I thought were solid entries.]