Sharpening Visual Edge

"The year of the digital camera -- can your workflow handle it?" That's the question to be pondered by the second Visual Edge conference scheduled Aug. 22-27 in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Visual Edge is a combination of the old Digital Conference and the old Electronic Photojournalism Workshop, co-sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the University of South Florida and the Digital Conference.

Visual Edge '99 includes not only the familiar workshop -- during which a staff limited to 40 photographers and designers work together using the latest in technology and concepts to produce printed and on-line material -- but a raft of sessions on how digital photography is affecting newspaper production today.

Highlights include a session by David Yarnold, executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, who explains how he went from picture editor to executive editor of the paper, and Photoshop 5 sessions lead by Karl Kuntz, managing editor for visuals at Ohio's Columbus Dispatch.

Five theme tracks -- management, digital cameras, workflow, web publishing and convergence (digital video/still) -- will be interwoven among the four days of sessions. Rob Galbraith, formerly of Alberta's Calgary Herald and a pioneer in the use of digital cameras, will run the digital camera track; Andrew DeVigal of Poynter will head up the web publishing; Roman Lyskowski of the Miami Herald will supervise the management track; Dirck Halstead of Time magazine will handle convergence, and John VanBeekum of the Miami Herald and David Breslauer of Archives & Images will supervise workflow.

In addition, classes run by the University of South Florida will be held in Photoshop, layout-design, web page creation and digital cameras.

For more information on the event, point your browser at http://www.visualedge.org/.

Visual Edge '99, (513) 728-4671.

-- dmc

Bit bucket ...

"I've been really, really lucky with this demo that I haven't crashed."
-- David Oldham, using alpha code to demonstrate NewsSpeed 5.0 at Digital Technology International's booth at NEXPO '99.

He's good-looking and smart, too: At The Star-Ledger in Newark, James "Duffy" Farrington is moving into semi-retirement from his post as director of news operations -- as well as chores for parent Advance Publications. From his new hacienda in San Antonio Tlayacapan, Jalisco, Mexico, he'll still act as technology adviser to the newspaper in systems matters, plus direct projects such as convention and Olympics coverage. Duffy, a third-generation newspaper animal (grandfather and father both ran country weeklies), rejoined Advance in 1981 after stops with the Plain Dealer, Cleveland Press, Talstar (1973-'80) and the Rocky Mountain News. His on-site, daily systems duties at The Star-Ledger have been taken over by Bob Foxworth, who's been at the newspaper since May 1995, and before that was systems editor at the Asbury Park Press. ...

Real bits: At the Austin American-Statesman in Texas, Kit Yearty has been named production manager for press and packaging; previously he was with a sibling Cox paper in Texas, the Longview News-Journal. ... At the Chicago Tribune, Therese Shechter, associate design editor and graphics editor, is taking a four-month leave of absence to do an internship with Tribeca Productions in New York (Robert DeNiro's production company). ... At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Myra Evans has been named business manager for the news department; previously she ran the news administration office for the paper. ... At the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Christine McNeal has been named senior editor for design and graphics; previously she had been graphics editor. Replacing McNeal is Lou Saldivar, a longtime graphics artist at the paper. ...

Co-operatively co-op: At the Page Co-Op of Wayne, Pa., H. Charles Berky has been named chief executive; previously he had been general manager. Also at Page, John Synder has been named general manager; previously he had been operations manager. New directors of Page include John Lee of Lee Enterprises of Hutchinson, Kan., and Dolph Simons III of The Journal-World in Lawrence, Kan. ...

Inside the insiders: At Belo Interactive Media of Dallas, Christopher J. Feola has been named senior editor for e-commerce and technology; previously Feola was the founding director of the Media Center at the American Press Institute of Reston, Va. In previous lives he worked for seven newspapers in 18 states and five countries. Throughout some or all of this he has been a contributor to this publication and its sibling, NewsInc. ... At Extensis Corp. of Portland, Ore., Pamela Pfiffner has been named vice president of Internet content and editorial director. Most recently Pfiffner was editor-in-chief of Publish magazine; in previous lives she was editor-in-chief of MacUser and an executive with Ziff-Davis. ...

Veritable vendors: At AdOne L.L.C. of New York, David Prizer has been named vice president of affiliate network; previously Prizer was with Maine's Portland Press Herald, where he was classified advertising manager, and before that worked at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. Also at AdOne, David Teitler has been named vice president and director of advertising and sponsorship sales. Before AdOne, Teitler was with the Newspaper National Network, most recently as vice president, and before that was with the magazines Glamour, Newsweek, McCall's and Redbook. ... At Atex Media Solutions Inc. of Bedford, Mass., Karen Weltchek has been named president and chief executive officer; previously Weltchek was a consultant with McKinsey & Co., working with Atex to develop long-term strategy. She succeeds Larry Mihalchik, chief executive since 1997, who resigned from the company. Also at Atex, Max Coebergh, senior vice president, international operations, has been given "broadened responsibility" as head of global media operations, which now consists of international operations, North American operations, engineering and marketing. Further, Knut Holli, executive vice president of Kistefos Industrial Group of Denmark and Atex's largest shareholder, has been elected chairman of the board. Lastly, recently added to the Atex board is Chuck Martin, late of IBM, Interactive Age magazine, Time Inc. and the Washington Star (Martin currently has his own business called the Net Future Institute). ... At Kodak Polychrome Graphics of Norwalk, Conn., Senior Vice President John Robinson's responsibilities have been increased. Under a new structure, all three worldwide product management groups -- film, plates and proofing -- will report directly to Robinson, along with high-level technical support operations. Prior to joining Kodak Polychrome Graphics in 1998, Robinson was responsible for all U.K. manufacturing operations for Eastman Kodak Co.; he has been with Kodak since 1971. ... At Optronics International Corp. of Chelmsford, Mass, Bill Lutz has been named western regional sales manager; previously, Lutz was with Hell Graphic Systems, Fuji, Linotype-Hell, Pitman and most recently, Heidelberg U.S.A. ... At Reed Technology and Information Services Inc. of Horsham, Pa., Lynda Brooks has been named vice president of customer requirements and project management. Brooks, an 11-year Reed Technology veteran, most recently was senior director of customer requirements. ... At Reuters of London and New York, Andrew Nibbly has been named president of New Media International, a new unit of the venerable wire service. New Media International is a part of Reuters Ventures, the recently formed global division which focuses on initiatives in the Internet and e-commerce areas. ... At Thomson Newspapers of Stamford, Conn., and Chicago, Paul Camp has been named chief executive officer of a new division that combines Thomson Target Media and Thomson Interactive Media (Target Media sells syndicated material to newspapers; Interactive Media sells on-line classified systems to newspapers). Before joining TTM, Camp was a features editor at the Chicago Tribune and had written three books. Also at the combined Thomson unit, Ed Manning has been named vice president of sales and marketing and Peter Johnson has been named vice president of operations. Before joining TIM in 1997, Manning owned Night Music Productions, where he produced and performed jazz/pop recordings and concerts. Immediately before joining TIM, Johnson was director of marketing for the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald. ... At Tribune Media Services of Chicago, Alison Sweeney has been named movie advertising sales manager for its database and advertising products division; previously, Sweeney was with PolyGram Films, where she served as national director of co-op advertising. ...

Confabs: The Rochester Institute of Technology will hold "Preserving Photographs in a Digital World" Aug. 14-19 in Rochester, N.Y. The session combines lectures and workshops in traditional preservation techniques with the theory and practice of digital imaging. For more information, call RIT at (716) 475-7090, ext. 815, or send e-mail to webmail@rit.edu. ... The Jupiter On-line Advertising Forum will be Aug. 17-19 in New York. Speakers include John Dooner Jr. of McCann-Erickson WorldGroup, Phil Guarascio of General Motors N.A., Tim Koogle of Yahoo and Kevin O'Connor of DoubleClick. For more information, call (212) 780-6060, ext. 7, or send e-mail to customerservice@jup.com. ... The Call Center Management Conference and Exposition will be Aug. 30-Sept. 2 in Chicago. More than 200 exhibitors are scheduled to show state-of-the-art products and services for call centers, as well as a free keynote presented by Richard Teerlink of Harley-Davidson Inc. and a "Call Center Demo," with case studies where return on investment has been realized. Call (218) 723-9130 or point your browser at http://www.callvoice.com/. ... Seybold Seminars SF will be Aug. 30-Sept. 2 in San Francisco. Keynote speakers will include Isabel Maxwell of CommTouch Inc. (daughter of the late newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell) and Dick Brass of Microsoft (former features editor of the New York Daily News). A "special" keynote will be delivered by Steve Jobs of Apple Computer Inc. For more info, call (781) 433-1665. ... #

From THE COLE PAPERS, August 1999, Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved.