TBD or Tampa Bay Times, the name doesn’t make the brand

The St. Petersburg Times is planning to rebrand itself as the Tampa Bay Times.

Here’s the primary reason I think you shouldn’t waste time, energy, focus and money rebranding a newspaper: Print newspapers are a declining business, and news organizations should spend time, energy, focus and money on building a successful digital business for the future, not trying to rebrand the product of the past.

I’m a longtime fan of the St. Pete Times and the Poynter Institute, the non-profit organization that owns it (and depends on Times profits for its prosperity). I wish the Times well in its rebranding effort. I hope it reaps in great profits that fund growth of Poynter’s programs.

However, I think MediaNews Group (my colleagues in Digital First Media) made the right decision in reversing a move toward a regional brand, retaining the established local brands, including the Oakland Tribune, a name with a long and distinguished history.

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A mobile-first project for your community on the go

I will be making a presentation to newsroom leaders Tuesday about the mobile-first strategy I have proposed and promoted in this blog.

I was pleased to hear Eric Schmidt tell the American Society of News Editors (that N in ASNE used to stand for Newspapers) in Sunday night’s keynote address that Google is taking a “mobile-first” view of digital opportunities. News organizations must do the same. Amy Webb of Webb Media Group also underscored the importance of mobile communication and location-based information at a Monday address to ASNE. I will attempt to follow by giving the editors advice and encouragement to start moving ahead right away with their mobile operations.

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User experience is the key to success

User experience is critical to the success of a business.

As I work on community engagement plans for a startup Washington metro news operation, I know that the user experience we provide will determine our success. We need to give users the news they want. We need to help users engage with us and each other in meaningful and fun ways. They need to enjoy spending time with us and tell their friends they should spend time with us.

If they don’t enjoy spending time with us and don’t find our content useful, or if they find their time with us annoying or unpleasant, no amount of excuses or rules will make that experience right.

As if to underscore the importance of user experience, Mimi and I have been having some horrible user experiences lately with United Airlines and the U.S. Postal Service.

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Anonymity or identity: Which is the best way to handle comments?

I was too busy yesterday enjoying beautiful spring weather, a beautiful baby granddaughter and exciting NCAA basketball to join a lively Twitter discussion of anonymous comments.

One of the primary discussants (it wasn’t combat, but it was pretty vigorous) was Mathew Ingram of GigaOm, who blogged about the topic (and has a link to a search string that pulls much of the discussion together). Steve Yelvington also blogged on the topic, noting that an ounce of leadership is worth a pound of management.

They summarize the issue well in detail, so I will summarize more broadly (and, admittedly, oversimplify) here:

One side (led on Twitter yesterday by Howard Owens) argues that anonymous comments inevitably become ugly and you have a more civil, responsible online discussion if you require people to participate by their real, verified names, as newspapers have always done in letters to the editor.

The other side (led by Ingram) embraces the freewheeling discussion of the anonymous comments, noting that responsible moderation of and engagement with the conversation can rein in (or remove) the ugliest exchanges, while keeping debate lively and honest. Without anonymity, whistleblowers are less likely to join the discussion, they rightly note (and the other side will rightly note that the anonymous bigots way outnumber the anonymous whistleblowers in story and blog comments). And besides, don’t we sometimes want to know how ugly people can be?

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Thoughts on redirecting and rejuvenating a career

I knew a lot about journalism in 1997. I was 26 years into an exciting career, enjoying a rewarding run as a reporter following success as an editor. But I’ve redirected and rejuvenated my career twice since then. Those efforts led me to opportunities and success I could not have imagined 13 years ago.

From 1997 to 2005, I consciously developed my skills, experience, connections and reputation in the field of journalism training, eventually getting a full-time job in the field. I was always interested in innovation and took steps in the mid-1990s to learn digital skills. Starting in 2006, I made digital innovation my primary pursuit and have consciously developed my digital skills, experience, connections and reputation (I still have a lot that I need to do). That pursuit led to two new jobs, first as editor of The Gazette and gazetteonline and now I’ve left the newspaper business to join a digital local news operation in the Washington metro area.

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Editor of the Year? Who, me?

Looking back over the past year or so, in many ways it was the most frustrating, disappointing period of my career. I normally would avoid looking back on it at all. I am a positive person and have been looking forward to a new job that has taken me out of the newspaper business.

But I sort of had to look back, mostly in surprise, when I learned in January that Editor & Publisher magazine, which boasts that it is “America’s oldest journal covering the newspaper industry,” was naming me Editor of the Year. The magazine announcing the honor arrives in newspaper offices this week, the week after I left the industry.

A year before I received the news, I was preparing to do two of the most difficult things of my career:

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Farewell to Gazette Communications and Iowa

Today was my last day at Gazette Communications. Tomorrow morning Mimi and I will start our drive to Virginia, weather permitting, for my new adventure with Allbritton Communications.

This will be the fourth time I’ve bid farewell to Iowa. This state will always be special to me. I’ve spent more than 14 years working for three different newspapers in Iowa, and spent a lot of time over here in the 10 years I worked for the Omaha World-Herald.

I will cherish many memories of my time at the Gaz. All the best to the many colleagues, supporters and even critics I encountered during my time in Eastern Iowa.

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