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Friday, July 12, 2002 Media Cynic | Forum | Advertising | Classifieds | Jobs Publishing Industry Soundbytes Launches and Redesigns | Miscellaneous People · J. Kirby Best was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Lightning Source Inc., a provider of digital content management solutions to the book industry. A native of Toronto, Mr. Best since 1997 has been Chairman of Publishing Solutions, Inc., which provides data collection and risk management tools for the book publishing industry. Prior to that post, he was President and CEO of Royal Book Manufacturing, Inc. He also serves on the board of directors of Coldlogic LLC, a firm that collects point of sale and inventory information for use in manufacturing. · Belo Corp. announced that Marcia McQuern, publisher, editor, president and chief executive officer of The Press-Enterprise, will retire effective October 1, 2002. Following her retirement, McQuern will continue to serve as an advisor and consultant to The Press-Enterprise. Throughout her 30-year career with The Press-Enterprise, McQuern has held the roles of executive editor, managing editor/News, deputy managing editor/News, and city editor in addition to numerous reporting positions. She was named president of The Press-Enterprise in 1992, and was later named publisher and editor in 1994. David L. Cornwall will become publisher and chief executive officer of The Press-Enterprise and Maria De Varenne will become editor, effective October 1, 2002. Cornwall and De Varenne will assume the responsibilities currently held by Marcia McQuern. · Penton Media, Inc. announced that James W. Zaremba, a corporate executive vice president and president of the Penton Industry Media division, will retire July 15, 2002, after 34 years with the Company. Succeeding him will be William C. Donohue, currently a corporate executive vice president and president of the Penton Retail Media division. John J. Meehan, executive vice president and co-founder of Donohue Meehan Publishing Company, a Penton subsidiary and part of Penton Retail Media, has been named president of the Penton Retail Media division. · National retailer Family Christian Stores, Inc. announced that President and CEO Les Dietzman will retire from the company effective in mid-July. Dave Browne, former CEO of Cincinnati-based LensCrafters, Inc., has been selected to serve as Dietzman's successor. Dietzman, 59, will continue to serve on the board of directors for the 330-store Christian retail chain and consult with the Company. Dietzman joined Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Family Christian Stores from Wal-Mart, Inc. in 1992 when the chain was owned by Christian publisher Zondervan. As CEO, Dietzman led a management buyout in 1994, changed the name from Family Bookstores to Family Christian Stores and expanded nationally. Dave Browne, 43, a marketing and retail veteran, will succeed Dietzman as CEO later this summer. · Technology Review, MIT's magazine of innovation, announced it has named Robert Buderi as Editor of the publication. In this position, Buderi will be responsible for the editorial direction and design of the magazine. He will report directly to R. Bruce Journey, Technology Review's President and CEO. A former technology editor for BusinessWeek, Buderi has been a key member of Technology Review's senior editorial staff since 2000. In addition to his role at Technology Review, Buderi is the author of two books: The Invention That Changed the World (Simon & Schuster 1996), a history of radar that was part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Technology Series and Engines of Tomorrow (Simon & Schuster 2000). · Salem Communications Corporation, announced the appointment of Dionne M. Petitpas as Director of Communications effective immediately. Ms. Petitpas will report to David Evans, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Salem Communications and will be based in their corporate headquarters in Camarillo, California. Ms. Petitpas is a graduate of California State University-Long Beach with a bachelor's degree in Radio, Television and Film with an emphasis in Communications and Broadcast Management. In the early 1990's, she was employed at various mainstream Los Angeles radio stations where her responsibilities included both programming and producing. She left mainstream radio in 1995 and moved into Christian radio by becoming the Marketing & Music Director for KWVE in San Clemente, CA. WIn 1998, Ms. Petitpas became the Director of Marketing for Maranatha! Music, a praise and worship label based in Southern California. · Tribune Company announced that Denise Palmer has been named president, publisher and chief executive officer of The Baltimore Sun. Mike Waller, The Sun's current publisher, will become chairman of the newspaper and plans to retire in January. Both changes will become effective Monday, September 23. Palmer joins The Sun from ChicagoLand Television (CLTV), Chicago's only all-news cable channel, where she has been president and chief executive officer since 2000. Before that, she served as vice president/development, strategy and finance at the Chicago Tribune from 1998-2000. · The Los Angeles Times has promoted Simon K.C. Li, the newspaper's foreign editor since 1995, to assistant managing editor, it was announced by John Carroll, editor, and Dean Baquet, managing editor. The Times also appointed London Bureau Chief Marjorie Miller as foreign editor. Li will be responsible for a variety of paper-wide projects, including reporter and editor recruitment, and serve as an advisor to Baquet. The Los Angeles Times has also appointed Rick Wartzman as business editor. Wartzman has been a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau. He succeeds Bill Sing, who was named senior editor in charge of editing and creating special editorial sections for the paper. · washingtonpost.com named Terry Neal chief political correspondent. Neal's work for washingtonpost.com will include columns, video and audio reports of the 2002 elections, Capitol Hill and the White House. He will also be keeping a close eye on the emerging 2004 presidential race. Neal is a former Washington Post reporter who made major contributions to washingtonpost.com's multimedia coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. · Corbis, a provider of digital photography and other media, announced it has hired Brian Storm as vice president of news & editorial photography. A former photojournalist, Storm comes directly from MSNBC.com where he served as director of multimedia. · Meredith Corporation announced several promotions and changes in the sales and marketing organizations of Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies' Home Journal magazines. The following executive changes are effective immediately:
Digital Publishing · J. Kirby Best was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Lightning Source Inc., a provider of digital content management solutions to the book industry. A native of Toronto, Mr. Best since 1997 has been Chairman of Publishing Solutions, Inc., which provides data collection and risk management tools for the book publishing industry. Prior to that post, he was President and CEO of Royal Book Manufacturing, Inc. He also serves on the board of directors of Coldlogic LLC, a firm that collects point of sale and inventory information for use in manufacturing. Content Deals · Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company, signed an agreement with The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc., Japan's leading financial newspaper publisher, to add the Nikkei Report (English language) and The Nikkei Weekly (English language) to its collection of global news and business information. Factiva is the first international information provider to offer the Nikkei Report. · The Hazelden Foundation's Publishing and Educational Services Division has acquired the educational prevention products inventory from Wisconsin Clearing House, a publisher associated with the University of Wisconsin, Madison. · PhatNoise, Inc., maker of the PhatNoise Car Audio System (CAS), and Audible, Inc., announced a new partnership to integrate the Audible.com Internet audio service into the PhatNoise Music Manager interface, allowing playback of Audible content from digital media systems based on the PhatNoise platform. The companies will deliver pre-loaded Audible titles on the DMS cartridges that come with PhatNoise-based in-vehicle digital media jukebox systems beginning this summer. · TDK Mediactive, Inc., a publisher of interactive entertainment software, and Disney Interactive have announced a worldwide licensing agreement for two popular Disney properties coming to movie theaters. A Disney theme park icon, Haunted Mansion, will make its way to the big screen in 2003. The theatrical release of Haunted Mansion will be supported by TDK Mediactive on most major video game platforms in time for Halloween. Pirates of the Caribbean, the namesake of a popular theme park attraction, will hit theaters as a major motion picture and will debut on major video game platforms, as well. Launches and Redesigns · The Email Doctor, better known as Arial Software founder and CEO Mike Adams, has launched a new website at EmailDoctor.info. On the site Adams publishes feature articles, downloadable audio interviews with guests from the email marketing industry, free email marketing reports and a Q&A section for marketing professionals. Information on the site comes from Adams' eight years of experience in the email marketing industry, where he has had the opportunity to engage in problem-solving strategies for many of Arial Software's email marketing customers. The company's list of customers includes Intuit, AMD, Texas Instruments, Citibank, the U.S. Dept. of Treasury, Harvard Business School and non-profits such as the United Way. · FileMaker announced its enhanced FileMaker XML Central. Featured on FileMaker XML Central is the new FileMaker XSLT Library, consisting of freely downloadable XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) stylesheets. Each stylesheet translates XML grammars, so FileMaker can exchange data with a large and growing number of other applications. Eight XSLT stylesheets are included with the new FileMaker Pro 6 software, and more than 40 are available in the Library. That number is expected to grow as developers contribute stylesheets they create. · Peterson's, a provider of education and career information and part of The Thomson Corporation, announced the launch of GradSchoolsWantYou. Student users are asked to complete a brief survey, creating their own personal profile, including educational background, work experience, undergraduate GPA, type of intended degree, career goals and preferred field of study. Peterson's provides an institution with profile data of students whose survey responses match the institution's pre-determined selection criteria. The data can then be used to recruit and attract students who meet the institution's criteria for admission. Miscellaneous · Books for Freedom, a non-profit organization working to collect and send desperately needed professional and educational books to Afghanistan, announced its first shipment of more than 20,000 volumes, departing the United States destined for the National Library in Kabul. The mission of Books for Freedom is to support the development of library systems and enhance the public availability of books in developing nations and, in particular, Afghanistan, by providing books and other similar reading-based materials and resources in order to promote literacy, the freedoms of speech and thought, and the free exchange of ideas. Decades of war and repressive Taliban policies have decimated the National Library and contributed to the alarmingly low literacy rate in Afghanistan. The National Library of Afghanistan is one of the few buildings still standing in Kabul. However, books are in short supply. · Miramax Films and LEGO Media, the TV and film division of the LEGO Company, announced their first-ever partnership: the fast track development of a major, CGI-animated motion picture for 2004 based on the LEGO Company's Bionicle brand. The announcement was made by Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, Conny Kalcher, global vice president of TV and film for LEGO Media and Stig Blicher, global vice president for Bionicle. The deal represents two-year-old LEGO Media's premiere foray into the motion picture business. Miramax's Charles Layton, executive vice president, office of the co-chairmen, and Bob Osher, co-president of production, negotiated on behalf of the film company. Jeff Tahler, VP of acquisitions, brought the project to Miramax. LEGO was represented by Kalcher and Blicher. Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.  www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2009 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
