-- dmc

Bit bucket ...

"And now I know what hell can be. Hell is the reporter who says they're going to write 12 inches, but you you get an overwrought 20-inch monstrosity you have to whack as the composing room is screaming for the page negative. Hell is the pagination machinery that repeatedly balks on deadline, breaking down, garbling text, refusing to output your pages no matter how many times you've sent them. ..."
-- Copy editor (and recently reformed reporter) Chris Truelove, in The Burned-out Newspapercreatures Guild's newsletter, BONG BULL.

Corporate cuties: At Central Newspapers Inc., Howard Finberg has been named director of technology and information strategies; previously Finberg had been information technology director at Central's Arizona Republic. Finberg, a longtime newspaper editor and designer (Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle), spear-headed the Republic's move to a second-generation pagination system. He had been running the paper's computer services department for the last year. ... At the New York Times Co., Raymond Douglas was named vice president, information systems and technology; most recently, Douglas was vice president, systems and technology for the New York Times. Douglas, whose career in technology included a stint as part of the start-up team at USA Today, joined the Times as pre-press director. ...

Real bits: At the American Press Institute of Reston, Va., Steven Ross is temporarily joining the staff to assist with the on-line seminars operation. Ross, an associate professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, will work for API through June 1998. ... At the Arizona Republic, David Allen has been named director of information technology; previously, Allen was the information technology director at the Indianapolis Star and News; before that, he worked at Eli Lilly and Co. ...

Vendor vigor: At American Computer Innovators of Amherst, Mass., Ed Slattery has been named sales director; previously Slattery was in charge of sales at Freedom System Integrators and before that, Publishing Partners International. ... At Cascade Systems Inc. of Andover, Mass., Ian Bryson has been named marketing director; previously Bryson was sales and marketing director of the international imaging unit at the Wace Group in the United Kingdom and the United States (and was a Cascade customer). Also at Cascade, Russell Keziere has been named retail marketing manager; previously he was with Marketect Software of Toronto and a retail industry consultant at Intergraph. ... At Harlequin, W. Robert Allison has been named president of U.S.-based Harlequin Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., and director of the business services division for Harlequin Group plc; previously Allison was the company's external corporate lawyer and management consultant. Harlequin also appointed Allison to the board of directors of Harlequin Group plc. ... At the Heidelberg Group of Germany and Kennesaw, Ga., Holger Reichardt has been named director of marketing and a member of the executive board of Heidelberg Druckmachinen AG; previously Reichardt had been responsible for marketing and sales of S/390 server systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Eastern Europe at IBM Deutschland GmbH. ... At Lexis-Nexis of Dayton, Ohio, Hans Gieskes has been named president and chief executive officer; he has been with the parent company of Lexis-Nexis, Reed Elsevier, for 19 years. Previously Gieskes served as vice chairman of the company's legal division, which operates 14 legal publishing companies in 12 countries. Before that he was publisher of Elsevier, the equivalent of Time magazine in the Netherlands. ... At System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento, two new execs -- Ken Gregory and Steve Orlando. Gregory is the new executive vice president of operations; previously he'd been vice president of Database Publishing Co., a publisher of business directories and CD-ROMs. Orlando is the new chief financial officer; previously he'd been CFO of Spring Water Co. ...

Confabs: Anpe-IFRA Congress and Expo is Jan. 13-15 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is the big new annual Asian newspaper conference and expo. Contact IFRA at (011) {49} 6151 7336 for the scoop. ... The Online Classifieds Industry Symposium is Jan. 14-16 in Napa, Calif. Speakers will include Cox's Peter Winter, InfiNet's Bob Gilbert, Community Newspapers' Charlene Li and the Austin American-Statesman's Erin Coates (not to mention that Cole dude). It's sponsored by Electric Classifieds Inc., Ad-Star Publishing Technologies, FutureTense and MPI. Call (415) 659-6359 or send e-mail to tom@eci.net. ... Thunder Lizard Productions' Photoshop Conference/Monterey is Jan. 20-22 in Monterey, Calif. Dial (206) 285-0305 or e-mail tlp@thunderlizard.com for a snapshot. ... "Publishing Integration: The Advertising Angle" is the topic of the annual Harris Publishing Systems Corp. seminar, held this year Jan. 22-23 in Melbourne, Fla. Speakers include Steve Strout of Thomson Newspapers; Grady Cooper of Alameda Newspaper Group; Steve Westphal of the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press; John Kelly of the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.; Bob D'Agostino of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, and Bill Barker of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch (that pesky Cole fellow will be there, too). Chat with Jennifer Fitch at (407) 242-5330 or e-mail her at jfitch@harris.com for more information. ... Baseview Products Inc.'s annual Macintosh Pagination Forum is Jan. 29-30 in San Francisco. Scheduled speakers include Michael Martinez of the Associated Press, Bill Castronouvo of The Post-Tribune of Gary, Ind., and Jakob Nielson of Sun Microsystems Inc. (also flapping his lips will be the ubiquitous Cole). To register for the pagination forum, call (313) 662-5800 or e-mail scott_sigler@baseview.com. ... DCI's Year 2000 Issues and Answers conference and expo is Feb. 2-4 in Phoenix, Ariz. Call Digital Consulting Inc. at (508) 470-3880 for details. ... Web Advertising '98 ("Find out how to make Web advertising work") is Feb. 2-4 in New York. Speakers include Michael Tchong of Iconocast, Thom Forbes of Backchannel, Melinda Gipson of the Newspaper Association of America and Andy Bourland of Clickz. For the skinny, call (800) 221-3806 or send e-mail to tlp@thunderlizard.com. ... Interactive Newspapers '98, the annual conference focusing on newspapers' efforts to publish somewhere besides ink-on-paper, is Feb. 4-7 in Seattle, Wash. The conference is sponsored by Editor & Publisher and the speakers include Merrill Brown of Msnbc on the Internet, Nancy Bruner of the Seattle Times, Kathleen Criner of Editor & Publisher, Chris Feola of the Media Center of the American Press Institute (and The Cole Group), Leah Gentry of the Los Angeles Times, John Haile of the Orlando Sentinel, Christine Lavelle of the Arizona Republic, Jeff Menard of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) News-Press, Tonda Rush of American Press Works, George Schlukbier of Total Sports, Bill Skeet of Knight-Ridder New Media, Sharon Smith of the Pottsville (Pa.) Republican, Michael Tucker of Gannett Media Technologies International and Owen Youngman of the Chicago Tribune (would you be surprised to hear Cole is going to chatter away here, too?). For more information, call (212) 675-4380, ext.314, or e-mail michaelt@media.info.com. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, January 1998, Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved.