“Phoenix Newspapers” Items

Covering the Big Story: Pope Visits Phoenix

On September 14, 1987, as a part of his whirlwind tour of the United States, Pope John Paul II visited Phoenix.  It was one of the biggest news events that The Arizona Republic and its sister newspaper, The Phoenix Gazette, would cover during my career at the newspaper.  In Tempe, he held Mass for 75,000 at Sun Devil Stadium.  As a way of celebrating successful coverage the papers jointly produced a special section about how they covered the event.  From the opening story:

The Pope is coming to Phoenix. Those six words, spoken more than a year ago, launched a herculean effort by the state’s two largest newspapers, The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette, to cover Pope John Paul II’s visit on Sept. 14, 1987. The goal was to capture the essence of the man and his effect on the city and those who saw him.

The task enveloped not only the Republic and Gazette newsrooms and such support services as the Library, Photo Lab and Promotion Department, but also Production, Circulation and Security.

What I like most about this special section was seeing all of the faces from the Republic newsroom and reading this list of managers at both newspapers.

Phoenix Newspapers Inc. publishes Arizona’s largest newspapers, The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette. Pat Murphy is publisher of both papers. The newsrooms are competitive. The Republic is a morning newspaper with a daily circulation of 343, 723 and a Sunday circulation of 539,323.

Alan Moyer is managing editor: Coordinating the papal coverage were Assistant Managing Editors Howard Armstrong, Howard I. Finberg and Robert Franken. Tom Bauer served as special sections editor. The Gazette, an afternoon newspaper, has a daily circulation of 111,253. Lynne Holt is managing editor. Coordinating papal coverage were Assistant Managing Editor / News Administration Mickey Hirten, City Editor Mike McGrevey and Photo Editor Mary Ann Nock. Nock also was special sections editor.

Running Technology at Phoenix Newspapers

In early 1997 I took on the assignment of running Phoenix Newspaper’s technology department for an 18 to 24-month period.  The goal was to bring some of my strategic thinking to the daily operational aspects of the department.

Here’s what John Oppedahl, PNI’s publisher and chief executive officer is quoted in the Arizona Republic story about the announcement:

“In essence,” he said, “we are restructuring the information services department to address some of our operational challenges and provide better service to all PNI departments.”

Here’s what I said:

“I’ve had the strategic view of technology and its importance to the company…The goal now is to get us in a position to go into the next century, and to use technology to better serve our customers.”

Customers, always the key to success.

The Digital Future: The Next Technological Steps

At the request of John Oppedahl, my boss at Phoenix Newspapers, I wrote a very long memo about technology and the company’s newspapers, The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette.  The memo was 25 pages.

Technology influences the newspaper in many different ways: From offset presses controlled by computers to database programs that help circulation, independent components become part of an interdependent system.

This connection is the strongest between the newsrooms and production. We are linked, tied electronically by common systems, common needs and common problems. In the same way siblings share bloodlines, editorial and production share an electronic network of bits, bytes and data.

I wanted to outline what technologies the company needed to invest in.  I wrote about pagination, text editing systems, color systems, advertising needs and more.  I framed the report on the idea of a new newsroom.

More important than relationships between computer systems and more interesting than the technological feat of pagination is the way the newsrooms are organized to produce the newspaper. Using new technology to produce a newspaper in the same method utilized 20 years ago or 5 years ago is a tremendous waste of money, manpower and creativity.

The top of the memo has lovely saying: “Man plans, God laughs” -Old Yiddish saying

The complete memo can be read in this PDF.

Pagination: Implementation & Human Factors

One of my roles as Assistant Managing Editor of The Arizona Republic involved steering Phoenix Newspapers [PNI] into its next generation of pagination, the electronic design and production of newspaper pages.  In early March, 1993, the Newspaper Association of America held a Prespress Technology Symposium in Phoenix, AZ. I gave two speeches at that conference, one on how The Republic implemented its system.

If you were to create an adage about the installation of a pagination system it might go something like this:

Installing a pagination system is much like building a ship while already at sea – it is possible, but be prepared to get wet.

The second speech involved the human factors in pagination:

A design department using pagination can be one of two things:

  •  A creative department using a specialized electronic tool
  • A service or production department using new tools but following the direction of the paper’s editors

A design department using pagination can’t be both.

This is the fundamental linchpin of any discussion about the human factors of pagination. How to manage the people doing the work.

 

Named to New Job: Senior Editor/Information Technology

As I moved out of the newsroom, I had a number of different roles/titles.  In late 1993 I moved into the newly created position of senior editor/information technology.  Among my duties were:

*Working on the planning and establishment of new ventures by PNI. These could include on-line news and advertising services; new printed, fax and audiotex news and advertising products, and CD/ROM marketing of databases and photos.

*Directing the introduction of new text-editing and pagination systems for the newsrooms.

*Leading PNI in assessing the possibilities of new technology, especially those efforts relating to the integration of newspapers, telephony, fax technology, television and computers. He will work to keep PNI abreast of all developments that could affect its interests in news-gathering and advertising and will make recommendations for PNI’s involvement in new technology in these areas.

It was an exciting opportunity to help influence a company and the digital revolution was about to take hold of the media industry. I’m indebted to John Oppedahl‘s vision and his trust.

“The consumer’s need for information is changing and so is the delivery of that information,” said John Oppedahl, PNI executive editor. “PNI is in a unique position to be Arizona’s source for news and other information regardless of how it is delivered. While we’ll still publish on newsprint, PNI needs to look at other forms of delivery, such as via computers.

 

Dual Online Strategy Memo

You need to have a memo about the plan, even though there are lots of conversations along the way.  Here’s the memo I wrote John Oppedahl (my boss), editor of The Arizona Republic.  It outlined our strategy to launch on both AOL and on the Web.  And we also had a bulletin board service for home sales.

June 2, 1995

TO:                     John Oppedahl

FROM:               Howard I. Finberg

SUBJECT:         Executive Summary/Online Plan

This is an executive summary of Phoenix Newspapers’ Online Plan:

As outlined in the “Online Opportunities” report, PNI will take a multi-platform (or multi-newsstand approach).  This will allow PNI to control where content is placed and will provide opportunities to reach readers through different services (America Online, the Internet/World Wide Web server and PNI’s existing bulletin board service). PNI will not sign an “exclusive agreement” with any online service, and hence will be free to take advantage of upcoming opportunities in 1996 and 1997 (e.g. Microsoft Network and New Century Network).

The full memo has more details about staffing and revenue expectations.  The revenue was optimistic, but realistic given the AOL bounties.

Arizona Central’s Official Launch Announcements

Even though Arizona Central (AzCentral) was live on both AOL and the Web earlier, we needed to make an official and public announcement about both services.  The Phoenix Newspapers (PNI) marketing department created an excellent package of materials, including press releases (one for each service) and screenshots of the online services.  And, of course, a FAQ about going online.  It reads quaint today, but the basic “here’s how to get online” information was essential in 1995.  The other members of the launch team were Dave Gianelli, special projects manager, Dan Hontz, online project for AzCentral on the Web, and Jeff Unger, online producer for AzCentral on AOL.

Both press releases are here: pni_annouces azcentral_12_08_1995

The FAQ about Arizona Central on AOL and on the Web are here: azcentral faq sheets_12_08_1995

Understanding the Online Future

In early 1994 I was given the task to figure out, with help of some great colleagues, the online future for Phoenix Newspapers [The Arizona Republic, the Phoenix Gazette and the Arizona Business Gazette]. Dave Gianelli and I spent a lot of time looking at different partnerships, such as America Online and Prodigy.  And we also looked at “going it alone” also known as the Web or Internet.  Remember, this was 1994.  The Web was something newer than the online services.  We created a report to help guide the company’s decision.  In the end, we urged a dual approach — partner with AOL [for the cash bounties] and go it alone, via the Web.  At the time, it was a bold and unusual strategy.

The first section is available as a PDF: PNI Online Opportunities Report 01_09_1994