Analog to Digital:
An “Autobiography” by Bits
This is a collection of my personal milestones, memories, articles, reports and other documents from more than 40 years in the media business. My goal is to provide an organized structure to my various files from my 
career as a journalist, technologist, consultant and educator. This is my effort to create a digital “autobiography” by bits and pieces. Or, more likely, this is just a way for me to collect and share memories. Or, perhaps, this just gives me an opportunity to scan stuff, save it digitally and then toss the paper. Whatever the reason, I hope you find something of interest. Everyone needs an “ego-based” project [is it a hobby?] and this one is mine. A special thanks to Casey Frechette for his hard work and creative energy in creating this timeline display. And for other site technology / design.
- 1960s Hot type and the analog newsroom
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The West German magazine Bunte Illustrierte published an extensive “Farewell to Kennedy” in its Dec. 11, 1963, edition. It seems this edition…
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Going to school at San Francisco State University was a great and unusual journalism education. What made it special was not the…
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While still a journalism student at San Francisco State in 1969, Howard Finberg served as a campus correspondent for United Press International,…
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While in journalism school at San Francisco State University, I was stringer for United Press International. UPI was the second largest wire…
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In late summer, I received notice that I had won the Barney Kilgore Award sponsored by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation [later…
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One of the great honors I’ve received is the Bernard Kilgore award from SDX [now known as the Society of Professional Journalists]. …
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I joined the Chicago Tribune as a copy reader sometime during the week of June 4, 1972. I’m not trying to be …
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The Chicago Tribune, in an attempt to attract younger readers, created a committee of newsroom staffers under the age of 30 to…
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And now for something completely different. During the “sectional revolution” at the Chicago Tribune, there was an opportunity for those with a…
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One of the moments of journalism history that I had a chance to live was the Chicago Tribune’s publishing of some of…
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About a year after starting the Chicago Tribune’s graphics desk, I wrote a very long and detailed memo about what those duties. …
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The Chicago Tribune Marketing Department, sometime in 1975 [my guess] produced a guide to the newspaper for the educational services department of…
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I don’t remember who asked for this memo about the future or why we were looking at “five years hence” (1980). This…
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starting to worry editors everywhere: why were readers pulling away from their newspapers? Clark, working with Yankelovich, Skelly and White, ran focus…
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One of the interesting challenges of creating a new kind of editing role, the graphics editor, was helping others in the newsroom…
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The Society of News Design [at that point the group was called Newspaper Designers of America] held its first convention. It was…
Read the full 1979 entry → - 1980s Changing newsrooms
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I gave a speech at the one of the first Society of Newspaper Designer conventions about my role as Graphics Editor of…
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My first compute was an Atari 800. It wasn't my last.
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Howard Finberg’s digital journey began not with a newsroom overhaul or a professional directive — but with an Atari 800 personal computer,…
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The launch of the Chicago Tribune Graphics Service [CTGS] provided an opportunity to learn about customer service and satisfaction. With real money…
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When I worked at the Chicago Tribune, the newsroom had a special awards dinner every December. It was called the “Beck Awards…
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With the Chicago Tribune graphics desk a success, Tribune company launched a graphics service that sent copies to newspapers around the U.S.…
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On Jan. 28, 1983 an Chicago Tribune assistant managing editor, Michael Argirion, announced that “Howard Finberg is appointed Photo/Graphics Editor, responsible for…
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Design magazine, the publication of The Society of Newspaper Designers [SND] asked a number of editors to write about various aspects of…
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While I can’t be sure, I think this is the seminar where I did one of my first Poynter teaching sessions. I…
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In spring of 1984, Mario Garcia invited me to teach at the College Seniors/graduate Students Newspaper Design Seminar August 12-18. Twelve students…
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An example of the Chicago Tribune’s photo request form used in 1985. Picture assignments were made through the picture assignment desk, either…
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In August 1985 I quit the San Jose Mercury News [that’s a different story] and joined the San Francisco Chronicle as its…
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In the past, journalism conventions serving management and editors, such as the Associated Press Managing Editors conference, were major events. Hundreds of…
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In late 1986, I wrote a memo to the paper’s publisher (Richard Thieriot) and editor (William German) urging a discussion about the…
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In the mid-1980s, I joined one of the first online services, CompuServe. [Previously, I had been a member of The Source, but that’s…
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One of my great joys working at the San Francisco Chronicle was the photography department. I was the first real photo editor…
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The Arizona Republic’s newsroom newsletter, EN, announces the hiring of Mario Garcia to redesign The Arizona Republic. And, burying the lede [grin],…
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Moving to the Arizona Republic was a big and important step in my career. I finally reached the level I had work…
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On September 14, 1987, as a part of his whirlwind tour of the United States, Pope John Paul II visited Phoenix. It…
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In 1988, the American Press Institute invited a group of designers and editors to the J. Montgomery Curtis Memorial Seminar on the…
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The Arizona Republic’s redesign was an interesting exercise in trying to find a way to please a publisher who had the dream…
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I’ve uploaded a collection of memos about the American Press Institute’s J. Montgomery Curtis Memorial Seminar on the future of newspaper design.…
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In 1988, as SND Region 7 director — and an assistant managing editor at The Arizona Republic — I put the Society…
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In 1988, under the direction of Mario Garcia, The Poynter Institute held a seminar titled: Writing/Graphics: Serving the Reader. This three-day seminar…
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I was a presenter and an attendee at the American Press Institute’s Design 2000 and Beyond seminar. Twenty-two leading U.S. and Canadian…
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Robert [Bob] Cochnar, whom I worked with at the San Francisco Chronicle, invited me to join his Associated Press Managing Editors committee…
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One of the first seminars I taught at was The Poynter Institute for Media Studies’ “Newspaper Design for the ’80s”. Here’s the…
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The industry publication Presstime covered the results of the API’s design seminar in its October, 1988 edition. The article’s lede: Two dozen…
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The Washington Journalism Review ran a story about how newspapers were turning to graphics [and graphics editors] to give readers new ways…
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In late 1988, Jerry Ceppos, managing editor of the San Jose Mercury News, invited a number of folks to help design an…
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As part of the 1989 Associated Press Managing Editors convention Des Moines, I developed a script for a slideshow about the history…
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In early 1990, Bruce Itule and I published: “Visual Editing. A graphic guide for journlists”. This textbook was aimed at editors at…
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In 1990, a group of editors took on the task of editing and producing the National Press Photographer Association‘s annual “Best of…
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Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, digital photography equipment was rare [and expensive]. I’m not just talking about cameras, but…
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In early 1991 John Oppedahl, The Arizona Republic’s managing editor, nominated me to attend the American Press Institute seminar for Managing Editors…
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In the early 1990s I presented a seminar in Switzerland. Sadly, I don’t remember exactly when or where — which is why…
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I was appointed the first president of the newly formed SND Foundation. We created the foundation with these goals: The SND Foundation,…
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One of the more innovative folks in the design universe was a professor from Spain, Dr. Juan A. Giner. Giner was at…
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At the request of John Oppedahl, my boss at Phoenix Newspapers, I wrote a very long memo about technology and the company’s…
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One of the challenges of any journalism association is funding. Not just year-to-year funding but long-term support. In 1992 SND created the…
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This is a short memo I wrote in February 1993 to John Oppedahl, then an executive at Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., about a…
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A February 1993 memo to Pam Johnson about the Saturday edition of The Arizona Republic. It grew out of a conversation with…
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One of my roles as Assistant Managing Editor of The Arizona Republic involved steering Phoenix Newspapers [PNI] into its next generation of…
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In early 1993 I asked the Arizona Republic’s library to pull together numbers on how many readers were actually responding to the…
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One of the most unusual and fun workshops that I have participated in was a tour of four European cities on behalf…
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In 1993 I taught a series of workshops or training sessions at the Straits Times newspaper in Singapore. These sessions were aimed…
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In July 1993, I was invited to give a series of workshops to the visual journalists at the Straits Times in Singapore.…
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Dealing with technology at The Arizona Republic, especially the introduction of new computer systems, led to a number of presentations about what…
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One of the challenges for newsrooms in the 1990s was the introduction of pagination technology. Yet many managers failed to understand how…
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In a forward-looking presentation at the Seybold Conference in San Francisco in 1993, I explore the transformational impact of digital technology on…
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In late 1993 I moved into the newly created position of senior editor/information technology. My duties were varied, but mostly I was…
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In 1994 I was a judge at the 2nd annual Malofiej Awards for Infographics, which were organized by the Spanish chapter of…
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In 1994, I was invited by the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong to lead a series of visual editing workshops…
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This is the official launch of PAFET, Partners Affiliated for Exploring Technology. It was a consortium that hoped that by exploring technology…
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In the Spring 1994 edition of Design magazine, the publication of the Society of News Design, I wrote about the creation of…
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Internal report about Online Opportunities published at Phoenix Newspapers, Inc. explored whether a partnership model would be best.
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I was the first president of the SND Foundation. I had fund-raising duties. It wasn’t a slam dunk. But I didn’t get…
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In early 1995, PAFET conducted a consumer online market research survey to establish baseline information in order to measure the development of…
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In the mid- 1990s, pagination was the hot topic for editors. Most newspapers were starting on their journey to digitally produce the…
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In the spring of 1994 the Interactive Services Association conducted its third annual survey of online users. The report was released in…
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As part of the development process for AzCentral, the Phoenix Newspapers Inc. “skunk works” team undertook a couple of difficult, but important…
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You always need a memo to launch something new: Here's the memo I wrote about the multiple online platform strategy for Phoenix…
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The launch of Phoenix Newspaper’s initial efforts in publishing online was covered in The Arizona Republic’s front page on Sunday, June 18,…
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Creating AZ Central online sites with string and Post-it notes
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Some times it was fun to experiment. In 1995, Phoenix Newspapers created a fax publication call the Traveler’s Gazette. The fax was…
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Even though Arizona Central (AzCentral) was live on both AOL and the Web earlier, we needed to make an official and public…
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At the invitation of Olivia Casey, I was invited to write an article for the “ASNE and SND Technology Survey ’96” report. …
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This is the Nielsen I/PRO I/AUDIT report for Arizona Central for the month of July 1996. I was managing Arizona Central at…
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In July 1996 I presented “Back to the future” at an NAA marketing and technology business meeting in Chicago. At the time…
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In September of 1996, I was promoted to a new job and new responsibilities; from senior editor/information technology to director of information…
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In the 1990s, if you wanted to know where publishing technology was headed, you went to Seybold. The Seybold Seminars conferences were…
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The PAFET group [see item about its founding] commissioned the technology consulting group, the Yankee Group, to look at competitors in local…
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At the 1996 Society of Newspaper Design (SND) Convention in Indianapolis, Howard Finberg challenged the room to confront a growing reality: newspapers…
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As Phoenix Newspapers installed its new pagination system from its European vendor, CCI, I became increasingly interested in the human factors of…
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This is a memo/presentation that Howard Finberg presented in October, 1996. The goal twas to show senior leadership and newspaper analysts what…
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This is a January 1997 memo I wrote to Don Henninger and Steve Knickmeyer, two senior editors at The Arizona Republic and…
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In 1997 I was asked to do a presentation about pagination to a group of users of the Harris computer systems. Even…
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In February 1997, I was named as the director of information technology. Here’s what the company newsletter wrote: Howard Finberg, director of…
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In early 1997 I took on the assignment of running Phoenix Newspaper’s technology department for an 18 to 24-month period. The goal…
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One of my roles at The Arizona Republic was to run the information technology department. One of my important responsibilities was to…
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A presentation about technology projects at The Arizona Republic with the focus on IT leadership and projects for the future of the…
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One of the most read newspaper industry technologist is David Cole, who published “The Cole Papers.” In 1997 he sent one of…
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From the July/August 1997 issue of TechNews, the magazine of newspaper operations published by the Newspaper Association of America published a story…
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In February 1999, I gave a speech at the 10th Annual Interactive Newspapers Conference in Atlanta. At that time, the newspaper industry…
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In February 1999, I gave a presentation to the the interactive newspaper group gathered in Atlanta, GA. It was a speech about…
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I was a speaker at the Editor & Publisher magazine’s 10th Annual Interactive Newspapers Conference in Atlanta, Ga. My speech was recorded…
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In February 1999, I presented a forward-looking view of how technology could reshape the media industry. Speaking at the Interactive Newspapers Conference…
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The March 15, 1999 memo titled “Web Strategy: Steering Committee Working Draft” was prepared for Central Newspapers, Inc. (CNI). It outlines a…
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Here’s another presentation about future technologies.
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In 1999 I was asked to contribute to a book about pagination being published by the Society of News Design and the…
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Lotus Notes became an essential technology at Central Newspapers. We were fairly innovative. Innovative enough to be invited to the big user…
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In 1999 the management of Phoenix Newspapers, publishers of The Arizona Republic and AZ Central, embarked on an ambitious project to take…
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Randy Bennett, a friend and industry colleague for more than 20 years, ran an interesting project at the Newspaper Association of America…
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As vice president of CNI Ventures, I was charged with looking for and understanding new technologies that might impact the newspaper industry…
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As head of Central Newspapers‘ venture capital investments, I sent quarterly reports to the CEO and other senior executives. This one —…
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Presented at IFRA’s Beyond the Printed Word conference, 2000. In Amsterda In his 2000 presentation at IFRA, Howard Finberg posed a provocative…
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This is the announcement of the Digital Credibility Study, which was funded by the Knight Foundation
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One of the more interesting and challenging project I undertook as a consultant was as a co-author on a study of online…
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The ONA project used virtual brainstorm, facilitated D.S. Griffen & Associates. It was a way to gather a large number of people…
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A copy of the announcement that the study results will be released at the ONA convention in Berkeley, Ca. on Oct. 27,…
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Here’s a copy of the main online credibility presentation given at the ONA convention in 2001. The goal was to share the…
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In 2001 I worked with the Newspaper Association of America’s circulation federation to develop a report on how print and online departments…
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This is a PDF of the Online News Association study on digital credibility, co-authored by Howard Finberg and Martha Stone with assistance…
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At Editor & Publisher’s 13th annual Interactive Conference and Trade Show in San Jose I gave a presentation titled “Digital Deliverance: Impact…
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You have to start someplace when you are looking a big project. I had joined The Poynter Institute in 2002 as its…
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In my 2002 presentation at the IFRA Asia Conference, held in Bangkok, I addressed the critical topic of credibility in online journalism,…
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At the 2002 IFRA Asia Conference in Bangkok (held March 20–22, 2002), I presented findings from a research project close to my…
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It was clear, even to me, that by the early 2000s, the newspaper industry would be facing its greatest challenge. The disruption…
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As Poynter’s Presidential Scholar, one of my tasks was to look at the viability of e-learning. This fit within my portfolio of…
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In 2002, a forward-looking proposal to the Knight Foundation laid the groundwork for a bold new chapter in journalism education: Poynter’s News…
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Even before much of the foundation of Poynter's e-learning project was laid, we tested the concept of an online group seminar, thanks…
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A speech at the opening of The Newsplex at the University of South Carolina. Topic is convergence and changing media corporate culture.
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In early December 2002, I published an article for Poynter Online based on a speech I gave at the opening of Newsplex,…
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In a 2003 commentary published in the Newspaper Association of Amereica‘s Presstime magazine, demographics expert Peter Francese offers a sobering but forward-thinking…
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With this memo, Robin Sloan and I outlined the technology that would power The Poynter Institute’s ‘s e-learning platform, News University. NewsU…
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I’ve have learned that when trying to create something new, it is helpful to draw a picture. Some folks learn by reading;…
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Poynter’s e-learning site was originally built upon two different platforms. The first was a Web-based content system that used Microsoft technology. That…
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In celebration of Nelson Poynter’s 100th birthday, the entire Poynter Institute staff gathered for two staff photographs in 2003. The top photos…
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With great sums of money comes great responsibilities to explain how the funding is used. That’s the way it works when it…
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As we geared up development of Poynter’s e-learning project, the lack of information about journalists and online training was very evident. While…
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J. Paige West, an interactive learning producer at Poynter NewsU, came up with a great idea to help folks understand what we…
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Shortly after the launch of Poynter’s e-learning platform, News University, I was interviewed by the Newspaper Association of America’s monthly magazine, Presstime. …
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In 2005, the Newspaper Association of America [NAA] asked the Digital Futurist Consultancy to undertake a research and communication project to help…
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Among the challenges facing Poynter’s e-learning project, NewsU, was the problem of explaining why e-learning could be an effective way to train…
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One of the ways to push a new product: write an article. For the start of NewsU, I wrote a two-page story…
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Part of the mission of Poynter’s News University was to provide research on the whether e-learning would be an effective method of…
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The initial plan for News University, the e-learning site created at The Poynter Institute and funded by the Knight Foundation, was to…
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Presented at Journalism in a 24/7 World: Decision-making for the Online Editor Knight New Media Center, October 2006 Generated by AI, Edited…
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Bob Andelman, also known as Mr. Media, does lots of interviews — celebrities from film, TV, books, music, and more. I was…
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Even though it was 2007, I was still making speeches to editors [and publishers] about the need to embrace change and transform…
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When I wrote the original grant request to the Knight Foundation to create an e-learning program at The Poynter Institute, I put…
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The future of journalism education was the topic of my speech at EJC's 20th Anniversary celebration in Maastricht, Netherlands.
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In March 2014, Poynter took its teaching on the road to India — three three-day workshops, one each in Chennai, Kochi and…
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As part of the development of The Poynter Institute’s international strategy, I traveled to Istanbul with colleague and friend Vicki Krueger. We…
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As part of the grant to The Poynter Institute for the creation and running of News University, an online training program, the…
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The Poynter Institute has named the interactive learning internship at News University the “Finberg Fellowship.” The honor, along with my retirement, was…
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Poynter' e-learning project, News University, had its public debut on April 11, 2005.
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I asked Chat GPT to summarize and review my textbook, Visual Editing. The book was published in 1990, so it is now…
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[This post was written with the help of AI (ChatGPT) under the direction of Howard Finberg, using original materials from the 1993…
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