Narrow minds

A survey by the Newspaper Assocition of America released in June indicates that almost three-quarters of all North American daily newspapers have narrowed their newsprint width or are in the immediate or future planning stages of such a move.

The Vienna, Va.-based NAA said that 516 papers responded to the survey. Almost a full quarter of respondents -- 24.6 percent -- said they already had made the conversion to a narrower web width, while another quarter -- 25.5 percent -- say they are in the process of converting. Another 23 percent are considering or evaluating their need to make the conversion. Only 25.8 percent said they would not make the change.

The movement to a 12¢-inch broadsheet page is said to be a hit with readers, who find the smaller size more convenient. Publishers, too, find the newsprint savings a compelling rationale to spend the money on pre-press and press conversions.

-- dmc

Multiuser group

Bringing together the concerns of users of four different suppliers, the annual meeting of the Associated Publishing Systems Users (APSU) will be Sept. 9-13 in Phoenix.

Representatives from Agile Enterprise Inc. of Nashua, N.H., Atex Media Solutions Inc. of Bedford, Mass., Autologic Information International Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif. and Unisys Publishing Systems of Blue Bell, Pa., will meet with conference attendees to discuss issues regarding their products as well as to preview new ideas.

The keynote speaker will be Clayton Haswell, the chief of bureau in San Francisco for the Associated Press. Haswell, the former editor of California's Contra Costa Times, worked in Eastern Bloc countries prior to his joining the AP last year to assist publishers in their conversion from Communist Party organs to free press. Haswell worked with journalists in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to teach them such things as investigative reporting, establishing advertising revenues and managing a newspaper for profit.

In addition to sessions devoted specifically to the products and services of Agile, Atex, AII and Unisys, there will also be a number of sessions discussing the new newspaper circulation product, Circ2000. Developed by Central Newspapers Inc., Circ2000 is marketed by Advanced Technical Solutions of Wilmington, Mass.

A product specialist from Quark Inc. of Denver, will discuss XPress 5.0 and Avenue.quark in a session that will be repeated three times. Organizers say that everyone will be given the opportunity to ask questions about all of Quark's products and service offerings and that there will also be discussions on additional features and tools Quark should consider developing to help improve workflows.

Also on tap are business-oriented sessions that will focus on topics such as data warehousing, wireless technology, addresses, telecom transport technologies, and remote access and telecommuting.

For more information, call APSU at (914) 528-9676 or e-mail csmith@meetingassociates.com.

-- dmc

Bit bucket ...

"In forging new paths in electronic media for [Central Newspapers Inc.], he has also given unselfishly to the industry so that others find ways down those paths as well."
-- John Kimball, Newspaper Association of America's senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in presenting the New Media Pioneer Award to Howard Finberg, vice president of CNI Ventures.

This just in to NewsScene: At Texas' Longview News-Journal, Kim McGregor was named creative services manager; McGregor has been with the paper as an artist for 10 years. ... At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Pam Soucy was named a supervisor in the advertising creative department. Also at the AJC, Becki Jayne Harrleson was named new technologies coordinator for the advertising department. What do these all have in common? Besides all being Cox papers, they all happened between January and March; the information was uncovered whilst cleaning off the desk. ...

See-eye-ohs: At Southern California's Orange County Register, Joseph Schneider has been named vice president of information technology. Previously, Schneider was with CCN, a San Diego subsidiary of Columbia/HCA. ... Also in SoCal, Judith Kallet, CIO of the Los Angeles Times, has resigned; no successor has been named. ...

New media mavens: At Cox Interactive Media of Atlanta, Paul Dubsky has been named director of business analysis; previously, Dubsky was director of business operations, business manager for the Atlanta Studio, and senior internal auditor for Cox Enterprises. ... At the San Francisco Examiner, Jesse Garnier has been named editor of eXaminer.com; previously, Garnier was a senior producer on the site. Garnier is also a lecturer in on-line journalism at San Francisco State University. He replaces Tim Porter, who has been named editor-in-chief at San Francisco investment bank Epoch Partners. In earlier lives, Porter was an assistant managing editor at the Examiner and editor of the now-defunct Richmond (Calif.) Independent. ... At Sportline-Aenae Communications Ltd. of Athens, Greece, Constantine Kamaras has been named chief executive officer. Kamaras has most recently been deputy director general of the World Association of Newspapers in Paris. Sportline is the largest sports portal in Greece. ...

Pacific production: At the Orange County Register, Kathy Weiermiller has been named senior vice president of operations; previously, she had been the paper's senior vice president, chief financial officer and chief information officer. ... At California's Fresno Bee, Janet Owen has been named vice president of operations; previously, she was production director. In earlier lives, Owen worked for the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. ...

Vendor vitality: At Bitstream Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., Anna Chagnon has been named president, running Bitstream's type and technology business; she has held various positions at Bitstream since 1998. Chagnon succeeds Paul Trevithick as president; Trevithick will continue to serve as president of Bitstream subsidiary Pageflex Inc. ... At Corbis Images of Seattle, Patrick Donehue has been named vice president of commercial photography; previously, Donehue was with Gettyone, a division of Getty Images Inc., where he was director of photography for special collections. ... At CText Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., Dick Steensma has been named president of the Net-Linx Publishing Solutions subsidiary. Previously, Steensma was president of Xitron Inc. and has been with Autologic, Monotype, Dunn Technology, Dainippon Screen and had a private consulting practice. ... At Mactive Inc. of Melbourne, Fla., Donna Beasley has been named a sales support representative; previously, Beasley was with Atex Media Solutions and Alabama's Birmingham News. ... At Managing Editor Inc. of Jenkintown, Pa., Steven Haught has been named vice president of sales; previously, Haught was director of sales. ... At Monotype Systems Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Ill., four new salespeople and two new sales executives have been named. Jeffrey Bernhardt will cover the east; previously, Bernhardt had been with Graphic Enterprises. Lowell Allen will cover the Midwest; previously, Allen was with Atex and before that, Dupont. John Caron will cover the New England states; previously, Caron was with Graphic Enterprises and before that Pre-Press Image Technologies. Randy Sievers will cover the west-southwest; previously, he was with Graphic Enterprises. And the company's new western regional sales manager is Jim Hanger, formerly of Autologic, while Randy Johnson has been promoted to eastern regional sales manager; previously he had been the southeastern sales rep. ... At Monotype's Pre press subsidiary, Anne Marie Levie has been named to human resources and personnel; previously, Levie was with Gortons of Gloucester. ... At Neasi-Weber International of Northridge, Calif., Michael Brier has been named chief operating officer. Brier, who has been with Neasi-Weber since 1989, began his career as an applications engineer with Composition Systems Inc. (CSI) in 1973. ... At Softlock.com Inc. of Maynard, Mass., Kurt Dressel has been named executive vice president of marketing and sales; previously, Dressel was senior vice president of marketing and business development at MediaBridge Technologies Inc. In previous lives, Dressel was the sales chief at Quark and Gannett Media Technologies. ... At Xitron Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., James Thrush has been named president; with the company since 1996, Thrush has been vice president of sales and marketing. Previously, he had been with Gerber, Crosfield and Scitex. Taking Thrush's old job is R. Patrick French; previously, French was OEM sales manager and before Xitron, he was with Purup Eskofot, PrePress Direct and Itek Graphic Supply. Also at Xitron, Karen Crews has been named vice president of finance; she has been with Xitron for 14 years in various financial roles. ...

Confabs: The California Newspaper Publishers Association meets Aug. 10-12 at the Hotel del Coronado, in suburban San Diego. Speakers include authors Paul Erdman and Kevin Starr, comedian Will Durst and the editor and publisher of the very journal you now are reading. For more information, call Cnpa at (916) 449-6000 or send e-mail to diane@cnpa.com. ... Digital Rights Management and Digital Distribution for Publishing is Aug. 14-17 in San Francisco. Speakers include representatives from DigitalOwl.com, Nuevo Media, NetLibrary.com and Harvard Business School Publishing. For more information, call (973) 256-0205 or send e-mail to info@iqpc.com. ... Mastering Adobe Photoshop, a two-day seminar that covers color and layers, is Aug. 15-16 in New York City. For more information, call (913) 432-1400 or send e-mail to compumaster@mcimail.com. ... The Roundtable of Strategic Marketing, sponsored by ASTech Intermedia, is Aug. 27-30 in Vail, Colo. Speakers include Rodney Joffe of Centergate Research and Steve Hannah of Knight Ridder. For more information, call (303) 296-9966. ... Seybold Seminars San Francisco will be Aug. 27-Sept. 1. Keynote speakers include Mark Anderson of Strategic News Service, Jonathan Seelig of Akamai Technologies, Norman Meyrowitz of Macromedia Inc., Dick Brass of Microsoft, Vin Crosbie of Digital Deliverance, LLC, Eli Barkat of BackWeb Technologies and Steve Jobs of Apple. For more information, call (650) 578-6900. ... Effective Visual Leadership, a Poynter Institute workshop, is Aug. 31 in Minneapolis. Speakers include Monica Moses of Poynter, Ron Reason of the Chicago Sun-Times, George Rorick, Kenny Irby, Mario Garcia and Andrew DeVigal of Poynter. For more information, call Poynter at (888) 769-6837 or e-mail mmoses@poynter.org. ... The Society of News Design's annual workshop and conference is Aug. 31-Sept. 2 in Minneapolis. Speakers include John Finneman and Warren Watson of the American Press Institute, Kris Viesselman of Southern California's Orange County Register, design consultants Deborah Withey and Robert Lockwood, Christine McNeal of the Milwaukee Journal, typographers Jim Parkinson and David Berlow, J. Kyle Keener of Detroit Free Press, Harley Soltes of the Seattle Times and Susie Hopper of Minneapolis' Star Tribune. For more information, call SND at (401) 276-2100 or e-mail snd@snd.org. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, August 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.