The Cole Digest, December 6, 1995

Sorry for the absence over the last couple of weeks; things can get out of hand here at the Font of Publishing Technology Knowledge, as they did Thanksgiving week and last week.

We'll get back on track with thoughts on what some call the worst job in the newsroom. My colleague Pete Wetmore talked to the folks who took up the slack when editorial front-ends popped up in newsrooms in the late '70s and early '80s: the system editor.

Some folks have held that title since their system was installed; others have moved on, to more advanced systems jobs, back into the newsroom -- or out of newspapers completely.

What led to these career decisions? And what might a newspaper manager learn from those moves? After all, we're talking about the disposition of one of the few people in the company with access to virtually everyone; whose face, name and phone number are widely known, and who has a body of specialized knowledge no one else in the shop has.

"It's been five years since my parole," said Mike Himowitz, former system editor of the Evening Sun in Baltimore.

Himowitz -- known as Whizzz to the legions of users who relied on him in the '80s -- enjoyed the development ride that led to the installation of a System Integrators System/55 in 1985. But after it was up and running, things changed.

"Bringing in the system here was probably the most intellectually rewarding and challenging thing I've ever done professionally," he said. "I was doing something new, something I felt that if I worked at I could master.

"Once you've done that, and it becomes a matter of incremental improvement -- rewriting something you've already written before -- it became inherently much less interesting."

When the repetition, frustration and users began to wear thin, Himowitz hit a crossroads.

"The potential for advancement was very limited" at the Sun, Himowitz said. People "regard you as some sort of technical geek," he said. "Even if you had been a reporter, and a very good reporter, after a while people think of you as the computer geek -- how can he possibly know anything about real life?"

He found he had two choices.

"Eventually I had to decide whether I wanted to be a newspaperman or a computer jock," said the "titular bureau chief" of one of two Baltimore County bureaus of the Sun, which now has a single staff putting out two nameplates. "It came down in the long run that I still wanted to be a newspaperman."

Even though he moved from the systems office to the metro desk years ago, his old life still has hooks in him.

"I still have many clients for life -- people who you set up with computers with three keystrokes that no longer seem to work, who call because those keystrokes were all they ever learned," Himowitz said. "I have people who have moved on to other newspapers who still call."

Declaring that "the worst day of my life as a bureau chief is better than my last days as system editor," Himowitz pondered what he'd do if offered a systems job again.

"First of all, I would poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick about 12 times and that way maybe get used to some of the pain -- and then I'd rub myself all over with poison ivy."

Next week: one who moved (but stayed in systems) and one who stayed (but left systems).

Onward.

\dmc

[THE COLE DIGEST is written by consultant David M. Cole, editor and publisher of the industry newsletter THE COLE PAPERS. The DIGEST is made available to PressLink subscribers every Wednesday at no extra charge. Send comments by e-mail to cole@plink.geis.com. The COLE DIGEST is the property of The Cole Group, a California sole proprietorship. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of The Cole Group is prohibited. Copyright (C) 1995, The Cole Group. Opinions expressed are those of The Cole Group, unless otherwise noted.

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