Cole buys newspaper newsletter

The Cole Group -- publishers of the newsletter you hold in your hand -- acquired NewsInc., the newsletter of the business of the newspaper business, from Cowles Business Media Inc. of Stamford, Conn., in late July.

Cowles Business Media, which publishes a variety of newsletters and magazines, is a division of the diversified Minneapolis-based Cowles Media Co., which also publishes newspapers and consumer magazines.

The transaction was handled by the New York-based investment banking firm of DeSilva & Phillips Inc.; terms were not disclosed.

NewsInc. was founded in 1989 as a slick semi-monthly magazine by Gary Hoenig and Jack Berkowitz. Hoenig, a former newspaper editor with the late Washington Star and Long Island's Newsday, aligned with Berkowitz, a magazine publishing consultant, to create a publication about the business of newspapers.

In 1993 the magazine ceased publication, and Hoenig and Berkowitz sold the nameplate to Simba Business Information, which published NewsInc. as a 24-times-a-year newsletter.

Simba was acquired by Cowles in 1995.

A combination subscription rate will be offered to subscribers of The Cole Papers who want to become NewsInc. subscribers.

More information about NewsInc. -- and what The Cole Group intends to do with the newsletter -- is available on the firm's web site at http://colegroup.com/.

-- dmc

Bit bucket ...

"The web winners are much more likely to be existing distribution businesses that have embraced the new electronic medium and adapted it to their customers' needs, rather than brand-new entrants displacing an old guard of fuddy-duddies."

-- Robert Hertzberg, WebWeek

Talk to Ken: At the Detroit Free Press for the last couple of decades, it's always been, "Talk to Ken." When you needed a new VDT, you talked to Ken. When you needed to spend money, you talked to Ken. When you needed to hire someone, you talked to Ken. When you needed a cell phone, you talked to Ken. After Aug. 31, if you need any of those things at the Freep, you have to talk to one of the four people who will be attempting to replace Assistant Managing Editor Ken Clover, who's retiring. A 38-year veteran of the Freep, Clover held a variety of jobs, including sports copy editor, assistant sports editor and systems editor. Over the last 18 years, he acquired responsibilities for systems, newsroom budgets, administrative duties and the library. Taking Clover's newsroom systems responsibilities will be A.J. Hartley, the newsroom technology director. Grace Bennett will take on increased newsroom administrative duties under the title administrative manager; Dave Robinson, deputy managing editor for sports and operations, gets Clover's role as newshole space budget guru, and Jerry Teagan, business manager, will prepare the capital budget. Clover, who was the president of the Atex Newspaper Users Group in 1984, says he plans to travel with his wife of 41 years, Betty, and to spend more time with his children (and grandchildren), who grew up while he worked nights and weekends in the sports department for 20 years. ...

The feds: New officers at the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Federation include Howard Finberg of Phoenix Newspapers Inc. (he's president), Peter Levitan of New Jersey Online (he's first veep) and Lincoln Milstein of the Boston Globe (he's second veep). ...

New media mavens: At Thomson Southwest Ohio (five daily papers including the Middletown Journal), William Cusack has been named general manager for electronic publishing. Cusack is the former publisher of the weekly Oxford Press. ... At the American Press Institute of Reston, Va., David Swint has been named assistant to the director of the Media Center. Swint -- a former editor and reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Republican-American in Waterbury, Conn., and the Charleston (W.V.) Gazette -- most recently was with a technical consulting firm in Ohio. ...

Vendor voluptuaries: At AdOne Classified Network Inc. of New York, a bunch of changes, including new Midwest sales manager Janet Ketcham (she came from the Portland Newspapers in Maine, where she was interactive media director), new southeastern sales rep Monika March (she had been with Dow Jones Financial News Sales Group), new New York and New England sales rep Mike Stivers (he had been with Automatic Data Processing) and new Director of Client Services Richard Bassler (he had been with Packet Publications Inc. in New Jersey, where he had been founder and director of the new media division). Also at AdOne, founder and Vice President of Affiliate Relations Roddy de la Garza will be opening a new West Coast office in San Francisco. ... At Bitstream Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., Wendy Darland has been named chief financial officer; Darland had served as president of Xitron -- the division of Autologic Information International -- since 1983 (is there a coincidence that Bitstream CEO Charles Ying worked with Darland when he was the chairman of Information International Inc., which owned Xitron?). ... At Contex Prepress Systems of Wakefield, Mass., Harry Dahl has been named general manager; previously Dahl was an executive with the aforementioned Triple-I and Atex. ... At Freedom System Integrators Inc. of Wichita, Kan., Joe Francis has been named western regional sales manager (he's been in the industry for more than 20 years, with most recent stops at Camex/DuPont and Advanced Technical Solutions). Also at FSI, Christine Siefers has been named sales support specialist; she has been with the company for four years. ... At InfoSeek Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., Bill Krause has been named to the board of directors; Krause is the president and CEO of Storm Technology Inc. (the JPEG people) and is the former CEO of 3Com. ... At Gerber Systems Corp. of South Windsor, Conn., Eric Tarnowicz has been promoted to director of materials; previously he was procurement and supplier programs manager. ... At Heidelberg USA Inc. of Kennesaw, Ga., Axel Zöller has been named the company's first marketing director of pre-press (Heidelberg now handles the Linotype-Hell product line); previously Zöller directed Linotype-Hell's South American business. ... At UMI, the on-line database company of Ann Arbor, Mich., Kenneth Tillman has been named senior vice president for information partnerships; previously he was vice president for publisher relations. Also at UMI, Valerie MacLeod has been named vice president for strategic alliances; previously she was director of corporate sales. ... At X-Rite Inc. of Grandville, Mich., Mat Peabody has resigned as president after less than seven months. "We just found ourselves incompatible," Chief Financial Officer Duane Kluting told Reuters; no new president has been named. ...

Confabs: Online Advertising -- Madison Ave. Confronts the Web is Aug. 12-14 in New York. Speakers include George Bell of Excite, Inc., Rick Boyce of Wired Digital, Steven Brotman of AdOne Classified Network, Kathryn Creech of Hearst's HomeArts Network, James Docherty of Hachette Filipacchi New Media, Steve Goldberg of the Ad Business Unit at Microsoft, Scott Kurnit of The Mining Co., Mark Kvamme of CKS Group, Lincoln Millstein of the Boston Globe and Martin Nisenholtz of The New York Times Electronic Media Co. More information is available at (212) 780-6060 or on the Web at http://www.jup.com/. ... Interactive Multimedia '97, a conference sponsored by the Society for Applied Learning Technology, will be Aug. 20-22 in Arlington, Va. Topics include distance learning, telecommunications and the World-Wide Web; instructional systems design and development; Electronic Performance Support Systems (Epss); industrial training and academic education systems; legal issues in multimedia delivery, and special design and technology innovations. The scoop is at (540) 347-0055 or at http://www.salt.org/. ... The Java Internet Business Expo is Aug. 25-28 in New York. Speakers include Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems; John Thompson, IBM; Eric Schmidt, Novell; Larry Ellison, Oracle, and Jim Barksdale, Netscape. Digital details are at the web site at http://www.javaexpo.sbforums.com/. ... Internet Strategies for Business Transformation is Sept. 7-8 in Los Angeles. Case studies on N2K (the web music distributor), the E! Entertainment Channel and the Hollywood Reporter dominate the sessions. ... Following is the Internet Commerce Expo, Sept. 8-11, also in L.A. Seven keynote addresses, including speeches by Marc Andreessen of Netscape and Ed Zander of Sun. For either conference, call (508) 820-8618, or point your browser at http://www.idg.com/ice/. ... Reading in the Electronic Age -- The Challenge for Newspapers is an international newspapers in education conference Sept. 10-11 in São Paulo, Brazil. For more information, fax (011) {55} 11-210-6419. ...

Mark your calendars: Seybold San Francisco -- which will include the Seybold/Cole Newspapers & New Media Seminar on Sept. 30 -- is Sept. 29-Oct. 2. ... The Society of Newspaper Design's annual workshop and exhibition is Oct. 9-11 in San Diego; point your browser at http://www.uniontrib.com/snd97/ for details. ...

Errors and Omissions: Last issue we printed the fax number for American Computer Innovators Inc.; the voice number is (413) 256-1147. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, August 1997, Copyright © 1997, All Rights Reserved.