Mark Fitzgerald, editor at large for Editor & Publisher Magazine for 26 years, was fired from the ``bible of the newspaper industry’’ in 2010 during a tumultuous time he could only describe as the ``10 weirdest months of his life.’’
The Nielsen Co, which had owned E&P since 1999, announced it was closing the 125-year-old magazine in January, 2010. The publication shut down for only two weeks before being bought by Duncan McIntosh Company (Irvine, California), publisher of Boating World, Sea Magazine and The Log newspaper. Fitzgerald was named the publications’ top editor under its new owners.
Despite never missing an issue and maintaining a robust website, Fitzgerald and two other colleagues were fired in October, 2010 and replaced by employees from the Duncan McIntosh Co. Fitzgerald told the Maynard Institute which reported on the firing that ``"It was almost like working with a cult with these people. I got no clear explanation of why we got fired.’’
But that is old news; Fitzgerald is now seeding new pastures in other projects.
In May, Fitzgerald tells me he started on a contract basis as publication manager for Inland Press Association, the 127-year-old association of 1,134 member-newspapers that's best known for its extensive training programs for newspaper staffers at all levels and across all print and digital properties. Specifically, he’s responsible for the monthly The Inlander newspaper as well as digital and print collateral marketing materials.
What excites Fitzgerald the most about this new project is that he will help launch Inland's groundbreaking Executive Program for Innovative Change, a yearlong program for senior newspaper executives that includes intensive multi-day sessions with media leaders such as Richard Gingras, head of news products for Google, and Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify.
``What sets this Inland program apart’’, Fitzgerald explains, `` is that this small group of executives (it's capped at 18) will each come to the program identifying a goal or opportunity for their companies. Over the course of the year they will plan, develop -- and execute -- a game-changing project at their workplace that produces measurable results.’’ Their dedicated website has been launched while Alan D. Mutter, the former editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and San Francisco Chronicle who now teaches media economics and entrepreneurship at UC-Berkeley will serve as its program leader.
Aside from his challenging new venture with Inlander, Fitzgerald has been freelancing for Adweek and has written an account for the Chicago Jewish Star about being a tourist in Egypt the day the Tahrir Square revolution erupted into violence.
A native of New Jersey, Fitzgerald graduated from Kent State University and began his newspaper career in 1977 at the Passaic Herald-News in northern New Jersey, where he covered politics, the Abscam scandal, and growth and development issues.
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
June 26, 2012
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