“Editor & Publisher” Items

Editor & Publisher syndicates and news services page from April 8, 1995, reporting United Media's World Wide Web site launch

Early Syndicate Efforts on the Web, 1995

A syndicates and news services page from the April 8, 1995, issue of Editor & Publisher, reported by David Astor. The lead story covers United Media‘s April 1 launch of a World Wide Web site at http://www.unitedmedia.com — an in-house operation for the E.W. Scripps Co.-owned syndicate — carrying the work of nine comic creators and 10 editorial cartoonists, along with feature previews, background information, photos, graphics and feedback areas. 

Comics from United Feature Syndicate and Newspaper Enterprise Association were to be collected in a two-week archive and posted online one week after newspaper publication. “The Comic Strip” section included an enhanced “Dilbert Zone” devoted to Scott Adams‘ strip, with biographical material, early sketches, a “tour” of the studio and an interactive map for locating “Dilbert” client newspapers; Adams also maintained a presence on America Online. “The Inkwell” area featured the editorial cartoonists, among them Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Benson of the Arizona Republic.

From United president Doug Stern:

“We are using the digital power of the Internet to reaffirm the awareness of an ageless art form for a new generation. It’s a way for readers to see talented cartoonists that they might not see in their local papers, and a way for us to create even larger followings for those of our strips they read every day.”

Lisa Klem Wilson, United vice president/sales and marketing, framed the audience question:

“We’re reaching a demographic — young, computer-savvy readers, who may not be subscribing to daily newspapers — and pulling them back to comics pages.”

Alma Derricks, United’s director of new media development and head of the Internet project, said the site could eventually add animation, contests, a columns area, licensed product sales and ad sponsorships:

“Six months from now, the Web site could be a much different place. We’re using only 10% of our capacity so far.”

The rest of the page carries shorter items: centennial-of-comics events announced by the Newspaper Features Council, including Sunday night live chat sessions with cartoonists on America Online beginning May 7 with Mort Walker, an AOL centennial area starting May 5, a Library of Congress comics exhibit, U.S. Postal Service cartoon stamps, and an October comic fair in Bryant Park; Universal Press Syndicate‘s new statistics column “Unconventional Wisdom” by Washington Post polling director Richard Morin; Tribune Media Services‘ new panel “True!” by Daryl Cagle; the debut of Tool User Comics, an “online comic book publisher” on the Web; Ray Walker’s promotion to news editor of Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service; and “Jill Jackson’s Hollywood” from the King Features Weekly Service.

1993 Editor & Publisher article by David Astor on the Philadelphia convention of Sunday and feature editors

Gadgets Are Allies, Not Threats: Feature Editors Meet in Philadelphia

This is a report from Editor & Publisher of Nov. 6, 1993, written by David Astor, covering the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors convention held the previous month in Philadelphia. The headliner was Matthew Lesko, the New York Times Syndicate columnist behind “Mr. Info,” whose specialty was telling readers how to pry free information out of the federal government. Lesko’s best line was about a federal pasta expert:

I talked to a government expert on pasta who’s been studying pasta for 10 years. No one asks him about it. He’s like the Maytag man! I couldn’t get him off the phone.

Earlier in the convention I moderated a session about feature sections in the 1990s. Astor identified me as an Arizona Republic/Phoenix Gazette news executive — my title at the time. The panel included Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of the Washington Post; Patrick Yack, managing editor of the Eugene, Ore., Register-Guard; and Jane Amari, managing editor for design and features at the Kansas City Star.

The discussion centered on how the walls between sections were coming down.

The line is blurring between feature and news sections.

Downie noted that news sections were running more feature stories and feature sections were carrying more hard-hitting pieces. Yack said his feature staff wrote regularly for other parts of the paper and often put profiles on the front page. Amari pointed out the flip side: moving feature stories to Page One makes it harder to fill the feature sections. The panel also talked about the difficulties of paginating feature sections, while agreeing that, on balance, pagination was a welcome development.

Technology was the other thread. USA Weekend editor Marcia Bullard urged feature editors to get involved in fax, audiotex and on-line services as a way to build a “power base” at their papers. Downie’s response is the line I’ve remembered:

We have to use and harness these media to take our products to new audiences. Gadgets are allies, not threats. But they shouldn’t take away from intelligent editing and good reporting or we’ll die and there won’t be anything to resell.

He added that readers would soon have access to “tailored” information through new media, but that Newspapers will be the one place with a smorgasbord of everything.

The story closes with AASFE board business. Susan Bischoff of the Houston Chronicle became president, succeeding Sue Smith of the Dallas Morning News. I was listed as one of the regional directors, along with Jane Marshall of the Houston Chronicle and Betsy Moye of the Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier.

Editor & Publisher book review column from August 11, 1990 featuring a notice of Visual Editing: A Graphic Guide for Journalists

Editor & Publisher Reviews “Visual Editing”

A book review column from Editor & Publisher for August 11, 1990, written by Hiley Ward. The column paired a review of the revised and abridged Autobiography of William Allen White with a shorter notice of Visual Editing: A Graphic Guide for Journalists, by Howard I. Finberg and Bruce D. Itule (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 270 pages, paper, $32.50).

Ward’s review credited the book for leading with technology, then acknowledged the practical limits facing editing classes of the day.

This modern editing textbook has its foot in the right place as it early on deals with the new technology — the electronic story, electronic copy editing, electronic photography, electronic everything. Interactive and passive pagination are discussed.

Even then it is still hard to shape up a textbook for the modern editing class. For one thing, a lot of classes are not going to have the capability to do what is discussed. Secondly, a lot of the basics still have to be covered, elements of good design, picture editing, typefaces.

The review noted the chapter sidebar interviews with working professionals — citing Lynn Stanley, editorial design director for the Boston Globe, interviewed in the chapter on “How Art Directors Work” — along with the book’s history of newspaper illustration and its emphasis on information graphics and picture editing.

As it compares front pages, many in color, the book is as appealing for the practitioner as for the novice.

The review closed with the authors’ affiliations at the time:

Finberg is assistant managing editor at the Arizona Republic and Itule teaches at Arizona State University.

Editor & Publisher personnel page from September 12, 1970 announcing the $2,500 Barney Kilgore Award winner

Editor & Publisher, September 12, 1970: Winning the $2,500 Kilgore Prize

A short item in the personnel pages of Editor & Publisher for September 12, 1970, reporting the winner of the Barney Kilgore Award from the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. The page around it is the usual mix of industry news: AP bureau chief moves in Latin America, a retirement at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, editor changes at papers from Corning, N.Y., to Findlay, Ohio.

Howard I. Finberg, senior in journalism at San Francisco State College, is the winner of the $2,500 Barney Kilgore Award sponsored by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.

The item also names the four other finalists, all senior journalism students, who received special award certificates:

Carl W. Schwartz III of Danville, Ill., U. of Illinois; Roger W. Smith of San Bernardino, Calif., U. of Southern California; Stephen E. Stewart of Monroeville, Ala., U. of Georgia, and June Ellen Tyhurst of Bartlesville, Okla., Oklahoma State University.

Editor & Publisher letters column from March 1, 1969, printing a letter about Phoenix, the San Francisco State laboratory newspaper

Out of the Ashes: A Letter to Editor & Publisher About the Phoenix

This is a letter of mine that ran in the letters column of Editor & Publisher for March 1, 1969. I was a journalism student at San Francisco State, and what I wanted the trade press to know was that our laboratory newspaper had made it through its first year.

It might be of interest to your readers to note the first birthday of Phoenix, the laboratory newspaper published by the San Francisco State Journalism Department.

The name was not subtle, and it wasn’t meant to be. The Phoenix came after the Daily Gater, and the letter says so plainly, along with a fairly honest account of how the first issue got out the door.

Phoenix, which rose out of the ashes of the Daily Gater, is a weekly devoted to interpretive reporting. We began publishing the last day of February with a prayer, some borrowed equipment and two printers (typesetters) who were unfamiliar with their machine. Somehow we came out and a new era in San Francisco State journalism was started.

What I described was a six-column, full-size offset paper, eight pages, with students doing all of the production work outside of the typesetting and the press run. The Journalism Department published it and paid for it, but, as I was careful to point out, students were responsible for the editorial content. We were pushing for advertising to give the paper more flexibility. The Phoenix was a member of AP and of National Educational Advertising Services.

The part of the letter I still think holds up is the paragraph about what it was like to be a student reporter on that campus, at that moment, with the professionals working the same story.

Student reporters covering the crisis learn quickly to weigh their words carefully and sometimes judge themselves against the professionals covering the campus.

And then, because even at that age I couldn’t resist talking about design, I spent a good chunk of a letter about a student newspaper describing its typography.

In its use of pictures and its make-up the paper is a flashy example of what one journalist has called the “look of the future.” Its make-up is the design that Howard Taylor writes about in his E&P Layout and Design column; good use of art, down-style heads, blocks of pictures and type, strong corners.

There’s a nice coincidence on the same page. The letter at the top of the column, from Roy H. Copperud of Altadena, Calif., is also responding to Howard Taylor’s design coverage — this time about the Daily Trojan at USC — and makes a point I would hear again and again in the years that followed about who actually does the work:

It was not I who redesigned the paper, but rather the editors, who have complete control over content and production.

A page of letters about student newspapers, journalism education in California, and the Wire Service Guild’s strike against the AP — and tucked in among them, a college student telling the industry’s trade magazine that the future would look a certain way on the page. The scan garbles my byline into “Howarp FInBerc,” which feels about right for a 1969 hot-type artifact making its way through a 21st-century scanner.