“Bits of History” Items

Review of Local Websites, 1999

In 1999, the PAFET group did an important information sharing project. Each group reported on their web site strategy and methods used to execute that strategy, marketing implementations, measurement of success, content mix and traffic.  Among the newspaper sites that reported was:

  • The Arizona Republic, AZ
  • Dallas Morning News, TX
  • Providence Journal, RI
  • St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO
  • News & Observer, NC
  • The Press Enterprise, CA
  • Sacramento Bee, CA
  • Star News, IN
  • Star Tribune, MN
  • Town Talk, LA

There is also a table that compares all of the website traffic among PAFET members.

Looking to the Future: 1986 to 2001

In the past, journalism conventions serving management and editors, such as the Associated Press Managing Editors conference, were major events.  Hundreds of participants, dozens of panels and speeches.  So important that the APME published what the called the “Red Book.”  This was a record of the proceedings so those who could not attend would learn what was discussed.

In 1987, the Red Book reported on a panel held in Cincinnati, OH, on “Newspapers After 2001.”  The panel was tasked to look ahead 15 years.  Among the participants:

  • James K. Batten, president, Knight-Ridder, Inc.
  • Louis D. Boccardi, president and general manager, The Associated Press
  • John J. Curley, president and chief executive officer. Gannett Newspapers
  • Katherine W. Fanning, editor, Christian Science Monitor
  • Jeff Greenfield, media critic and columnist, ABC
  • James Hoge, president, New York Daily News
  • C.K. McClatchy, president, McClatchy Newspapers
  • Burl Osborne, president, Dallas Morning News
  • Eugene C. Patterson, chairman and chief executive officer, Times Publishing Company, St. Petersburg, Fla.
  • William O. Taylor, chairman and chief executive officer. Boston Globe
  • Chris Urban, Urban and Associates 

Reading over this edited transcript of the discussion, I was struck how little the panel got right. In fact, I think most of them missed the speeding “technology bus” that was about to crash into their newsprint based business and scatter their profits and employees to the wind. There was discussion about the declining readership — one panelist suggest the industry encourage literacy — and the fragmented advertising market. There were a couple of notable mentions of technology.  Here’s one from Kay Fanning:

We’re being increasingly bombarded by trivia and through the progress of technology it will get worse and worse. With all the world coming to our back door in terms of satellite communications and transportation, the link-up of the global stock market, all aspects of computer networking, newspapers will need a content that offers the citizen a pathway through this hail of trivia. That content will require more substance, more quality, offer more understanding rather than just a lot of information. I believe in the simple bromide of the better mousetrap. If we have a quality that is relevant to the citizens and to the public interest we can easily raise the numbers from 40 to 60 percent. 

I did like the comments from John Curley about improving the visuals of newspapers to make them more appealing:

Presentation is part of it too. Color, graphics, and our ability to do more in that area will be important. I don’t mean to pick on the Cincinnati Inquirer, since we own it, but in yesterday’s paper we went 11 pages in the Life Section without a graphic or photo. and a lot of the contents suggested that there could have been some there. I don’t think that is atypical of most newspapers, and it’s a weakness in a lot of our newspapers too.

Curley was the first editor of USA Today, hence he knew about color and graphics. USA Today was launched four years earlier, in 1982. in 1988, the American Press Institute had a major design seminar looking at the future of newspapers. It was called Design 2000.  Details are elsewhere on this site.  Lots of graphics and color in those prototype newspapers.

TV News’ Future

Also at the convention was Lawrence Grossman, president of NBC News. He gave a talk on “Television News After 2001.” He was sort right when he said:

My thesis is that if you look 15 years ahead to the year 2001, it will be much like what we see now in television news, just as when you look back to 1970, television news was basically like what you’re seeing now.

But take that out a few more years and he was very, very wrong.  He got a few things right.  It was an interesting read.

Electronic Photo Workshop, 1990

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, digital photography equipment was rare [and expensive].  I’m not just talking about cameras, but also all the equipment needed to process those digital files into a format that could be used in daily newspaper production. Learning to use these digital photographic tools was the goals the National Press Photographers Association‘s Electronic Photo Workshop.

In November 1990, the EPW was in Tempe, AZ and I served as “Executive Editor.”  The real work, however, done by the workshop co-chairs: John Cornell, Newsday, and Bill Hodge, Long Beach Press Telegram. There were more than 90 participants [see page two of the PDF] and more than two dozen vendors, including Adobe and Apple. 

The published work from the conference was a 32-page tabloid that has photos and stories about life in Arizona. Each story used different combinations of equipment.

I liked what I wrote for the introduction to the publication:

This newspaper is living classroom experi­ment. Our purpose is not to highlight one program, camera, or other piece of hard­ware against its competition.

To the contrary, we wanted to bring to­gether the technologi­cal marvels of our time with the trained eye of journalists using cam­eras. Only by explor­ing technology will we learn how best to use the computer software and hardware that have greatly influenced our newsrooms.

Readers need to !mow of the almost superhuman efforts undertaken by both vendors and participants to publish this newspaper, and the great sense of pride in attempting to capture images that communicate information.. Despite the lure of the hardware and software, the primary purpose of the pages produced here was to communicate.

…

Content was our overall goal. Content married with technology.

There are some other articles that are worth a historical read.

Social Contract with Readers, 1978

The American Society of Newspaper Editors asked Ruth Clark to look at the issues between readers and editors.  She refers to this as the “new social contract.” The study, done in 1978, discussed one of the most important issues, behavior influences and “the changing relationship between readers and their newspapers.”  From the summary:

We know very little about the subtle forces that seem to be weakening the emotional ties of many readers, making newspapers less wanted, less needed or, in extreme cases, resented. Analyzing the chemistry of individual relations is difficult enough; explaining group attitudes is even more challenging.

The present pilot study is an attempt, nevertheless, to provide some preliminary insights into what might be called “The New Social Contract between Newspaper Editors and Readers.” It is an effort to deepen our understanding of findings that have been emerging from major reader surveys of the Newspaper Readership Project.  As a by-product, it is also a demonstration of techniques that editors can use  to establish a direct dialogue with readers and non-readers as part of a continuing search for new ways to increase newspaper reading.

The work was commissioned by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and funded by the Readership Council. It was carried out by Yankelovich, Skelly and White, Inc., under the direction of Ruth Clark.

More that 120 regular readers, occasional readers, and non-readers were interview­ed in informal focus group sessions in 12 different daily newspaper markets, both competitive and non-competitive, chain and non-chain. As a special feature, editors not only observed all the sessions but participated part of the time. 

Straits Times, Singapore, Workshops

In 1993 I taught a series of workshops or training sessions at the Straits Times newspaper in Singapore.  These sessions were aimed at the copy editors and visual editors of the newspaper.  Attendees also came from the Business Times publication, the New Paper and two non-English language newspapers: Zaobao and Berita Harian. 

Actually, there were two weeks of training, with a different group for each workshop.

Workshop goals were:

  • The challenge of serving readers more fully today
  • The challenge of serving readers in the next century

And the topics covered were:`

    • Readership issues
    • Typography & readability
    • Designing
    • Photography
    • Graphics
    • Critique

At the end of each workshop, I looked at the Year 2000 and views of top designers and what the newsroom might be like.  This was based on an API seminar I attended and presented at.

I also did critiques of the Straits Times, the Business Times and the New Paper.

Michael Bloomberg on Newspapers

Michael Bloomberg, president and founder of Bloomberg Financial Markets gave a keynote speech at the International Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 1997.  His speech was about the future of electronic devices and he spent a lot of time talking about newspapers and whether there’s an electronic solution that would make consumers give up on print. [That’s why I’m posting his speech]. An excerpt:

And if we are going to build consumer products, if our businesses are going to grow and let electronic devices replace newspapers they are going to have to provide the same functionality. Now another answer to the problem would be don’t let radio and television become the substitute for newspapers. But find some way to make newspapers more valuable, more economic. And if you think about it, it is a very easy thing to do. Right now we go and we chop down an awful lot of trees in Canada, we haul them to the mill, we grind them up into paper, we put ink on it, we deliver it to the comer newspaper stand or the newspaper boy or girl throws it on your doorstep. You read it once and you throw it away. It is a phenomenally inefficient thing screaming for a technological solution.

Bloomberg also so the coming of streaming television:

No matter how many times people tell you that broadcast is here to stay, the feet of the matter is it is not here to stay. It is so compelling to be able to get what you want, when you want it, independent of everybody else that we are going to give you video on demand no matter what it costs and no matter who’s axe gets gored and people will try to protect their industries. They will try to protect their jobs, but the feet of the matter is, if you look at the public, the public has the interest in getting a movie they go to Blockbuster, they want to see it when they want to see it. The public even goes to the comer movie theater to see it when they want to see it. The public wants to be able to jump over commercials, which is going to be a very big problem. Who is going to pay for all of this? The public wants to be able to stop that football game for two minutes when the phone rings or when the diaper needs changing. And we are going to have to deliver those kinds of products, those facilities, those attributes for television.

His speech had some good visionary moments.

Phoenix Newspapers Enter Cyberspace

The launch of Phoenix Newspaper’s initial efforts in publishing online was covered in The Arizona Republic’s front page on Sunday, June 18, 1995.  The story was written by David Hoye, a staff writer on The Republic. Here’s his lede:

Arizona is getting wired.

By late this year, the best the Grand Canyon State has to offer will be available online, thanks to an agreement between America Online and Phoenix Newspapers Inc., publishers of The Arizona Republic, The Phoenix Gazette and the Arizona Business Gazette.

For the first time, anyone with a computer and an account with America Online will have immediate, 24-hour access to news and information from around Arizona.

You’ll note that the paper’s initial online efforts were on America Online.  It would take a few more months before AzCentral launched on the World Wide Web.

All of David’s stories about the launch in a PDF.

More information about the launch of AzCentral can be found elsewhere on this site.

The Future: Embracing Change

In 1999, the Society for News Design published a handbook for editors about dealing with pagination and technology. I was asked to write a chapter about “the future” and embracing the changes new technology would bring.

Some of the 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

Here’s the opening to the chapter:

Firing up her monitor with a verbal “log on” command, Kate gets ready for the daily meeting with her fellow editors and a managing editor at The Republic.

Almost instantly, her monitor is on the “virtual network” and eight images of her co-workers start to appear. Three are at home; two are at remote or shared offices. One is on the road with his team covering a live event. The rest are at the paper’s head­quarters building.

After discussing reports from the teams that worked the previous “info cycles” – each cycle is four hours and there are teams working around the clock – Kate and her fellow editors start the business of producing material for The Republic.

She doesn’t have a computer in her house, only a 27-inch flat-screen that is about one inch thick and connected to The Network. Everything is on The Network: broadcast entertainment signals, written communications and voice messages.

It was a fun assignment.  Thank you, Olivia Casey.

Online Consumer Survey, 1992-1993

The Interactive Services Association, a trade organization for companies that marketed online services [think AOL or CompuServe] to consumers, issued several reports about consumer behavior online.  The 1993 report was done just before the wide-spread use of the World Wide Web.  Here are some of the highlights from the report:

  • Active users find that no one system meets their needs completely, and seek out unique content and bargain features. Three in five online survey respondents use at least two online systems, and more than half subscribe to three or more. This should strongly encourage innovations by incumbents and unique offerings by new entrants – right-minded efforts will be recognized and rewarded by a market that restlessly seeks out new and improved services. (More representative survey data suggest that only about one-fourth of all online users use more than one system.)
  • BBS’s appeal to online users on both price and content. About two-thirds of respondents use bulletin board systems (BBS’s) in addition to commercial online services. A third or more cite cost, software libraries for downloading, and communication with other users as the reasons for BBS’s appeal. Commercial services must continue to expand their offerings beyond these latter areas in order to justify their higher fees.
  • Software downloading, communicating with others who share interests, and getting PC-related help and information lead in popularity among applications. Respondents were asked to choose, from a listing of 10, the three applications they use most. In addition to the three just mentioned, exchanging electronic mail with friends and family, and obtaining current, general news round out the first tier of most-used applications. Systems and services competing for the core of today’s market must continue to advance their offerings in these areas.
  • Online use by multiple household members is substantial and growing. Regular use by other family members was reported by a full 42.5% of respondents, almost double last year’s percentage. In addition, a remarkable one in ten of all respondents report regular use by a child or children 12 or under. Although Prodigy did not participate in the survey, its use by multiple-system users may underlay this phenomenon – along with the growth of family-oriented features on other systems. This paradigmatic change, regardless of its source, presents a new opportunity to be addressed broadly by the industry.

In a couple of years, there would a report on how to build online services that were Web-based.

Named as IT Director

In February 1997, I was named as the director of information technology.  Here’s what the company newsletter wrote:

Howard Finberg, director of infor­mation technology, will direct the Information Services department for the next 18 to 24 months, effective Jan. 30, Vice President/Operations & Product Development Rich Cox announced last week. Sam Young will remain as Services director and turn his full attention to expanded responsibili­ties with several important Services issues and projects. Finberg will report to Cox on IS issues and continue to report to Publisher & CEO John Oppedahl on strategic technology issues.

A couple of months later, I wrote a memo to the IT staff outlining my goals:

As we discussed a little more than a month ago, the leadership structure of the information services department will be changing. During our first staff meetings I outlined my vision for the department. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to discuss this vision with many of you. Your enthusiasm has confirmed my thinking and serves as a guiding force towards our future. That vision statement is worth repeating:

“There are no system projects, only business projects enabled by information technology.”

To reach our vision, we need clear and consistent expectations. At our staff meeting I outlined those expectations. They are also worth repeating. An effective information services department:

• Makes sure all infrastructure works properly and is positioned for future growth.
• Develops a coherent architecture and clearly communicate its structure to the company. Standards can save companies money if they are applied properly; a poorly chosen standard or standards that do not change as technology changes can cost a company time and money
• Develops a team structure at both management and staff level. In addition, every team member needs to understand everything that is going on; you need to know more than your own projects.
• Makes sure that the company and its directors understand the full cost of the latest technology and the risks involved in trying to satisfy all demands all the time.
• Provides leadership, advice and it assists and works with customers so they can accomplish their business goals with a minimum of effort and expense.