Alyssa Choiniere | for Editor & Publisher
In the early days of the internet, a few early adopters were starting careers in the news industry and seeing opportunities in digital that their bosses did not fully understand. Today, digital pioneers have become the bosses.
The field was at a crossroads in the 90s. Print journalism was nearing the end of an era of money pouring into the industry, but that end was not yet visible. News leaders saw the internet as a chance to add even more revenue to an already profitable industry, said Conan Gallaty, the Tampa Bay Times CEO.
Those ahead of the digital movement saw their careers take shape in ways they never expected.
Conan Gallaty, CEO of the Tampa Bay Times
Soon after Conan Gallaty landed his first job as online editor for The Victoria Advocate in Texas in 1998, he checked out a book from the public library on HTML. It was the mid-90s, and newspapers were economically strong.
“A lot of publications were putting up websites for the first time, really without much of a strategy. A lot of those attempts were the wild west of ‘Let’s try a few things and see what sticks,’” he said.
He said the digital side of news in the early days of the internet was “more like an R&D shop than a business unit.” But it was an era of brainstorming, and newspapers had the finances to support new ideas even if they failed. He said that the print industry was so strong that news leaders saw the internet as a way to grow their revenue even more.
The online editor position was new then, but it was becoming a familiar role in newsrooms. Most newsrooms had a small team dedicated to the digital side of the business.
News leaders saw the potential to grow advertisers and subscribers, and they had “excess money,” Gallaty…
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