Recovery, in a clinical sense, takes different shapes and sizes: there are recovering alcoholics, recovering gamblers, recovering food addicts, recovering smokers; and yes, even recovering journalists.
Mark Potts not only calls himself a recovering journalist, but uses the description as the title of his blog , a site considered one of the leading sources of analysis of involving the merging of technology and media. He is frequently quoted in industry publications.
Potts spent 15 years of his journalism career, working as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner and the Associated Press before reinventing himself in the digital media in the early 1990’s, just when the Internet was taking off like a rocket into the dark sky.
Addressing exactly why he calls himself a ``recovering journalist’’, Potts writes on his Website, ``I think a lot of journalists—and traditional media executives—are caught up in old ways of thinking about the industry that are being wiped clean by the digital revolution. Without radical new approaches, the old journalistic institutions are suffering through horrible death spirals.’’
So, rather than write his own obituary and get left behind in the mass migration to the Web, Potts not only embraced the digital revolution, but went a step further and began developing new habits for the audience to receive, create and interact with news, information and advertising with a keen eye toward finding business models that would help pay for this new platform.
In 1992, while working as a business journalist at The Washington Post, Potts created one of the first electronic newspaper prototypes. That led to the cofounding of Digital Ink, the Washington Post Co.’s initial efforts to explore the digital world, which later evolved into WashingtonPost.com. Potts served the Post’s new-media editor and then as Digital Ink’s director of product development and chief creative officer until 1995, when he moved to Silicon Valley as a member of the founding team and editorial director of pioneering broadband startup @Home.
Potts also was co-founder of Backfence, an early hyperlocal user-generated citizens media company, and of GrowthSpur, a company that helped hyperlocal websites develop advertising tools and networks. Today, in addition to consulting for a variety of media and digital clients, he is developing a new social-news startup, Newspeg, which aims to be a “Pinterest for news,” allowing users to easily save, share and comment on news stories that interest them. Newspeg is currently in alpha-test stage.
Though he met with much success in his new role as media consultant and entrepreneur, with the moniker ``recovering journalist’’ serving him well, Potts jokingly admits he once fell off the wagon. In 2007, he went back into the traditional print business, though only briefly, when he accepted a six-month assignment as Acting Vice President-Editorial at Philly.com, the Web site for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, where he oversaw a major redesign and relaunch of the site.
Potts assumed a similar role in 2000-2001, when he served as Chief Product Officer for Cahners Business Information (now Reed Business Information), the nation’s largest trade publisher, where he managed Cahners Digital and oversaw the development of 120 trade magazine Web sites, including Variety.com and PublishersWeekly.com.
Taken together, Potts has developed strategies and products not only for The Washington Post Co., Philly.com, and Variety.com, but also for the Los Angeles Times, Cox Communications, HealthCentral Network, Allvoices.com, the Connecticut Mirror, Classified Ventures, Tribe Networks and others.
What advice, then, does one of the leading digital strategy and product development consultants have for media companies struggling with plummeting circulation figures with its print editions, while trying to remain relevant in the digital age? ``The sooner media companies embrace things like user-generated content’’, Potts writes on his Website, ``new kinds of storytelling, Web 2.0 tools, new forms of advertising and revenue generation, and wide-open interaction with their audience, the sooner they'll halt their slide into oblivion.’’
And what if they don’t take his advice? ``They’re toast’’, Potts writes.
Potts serves on the advisory boards of Internet startups PaperG and MixedInk, and teaches Media Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland. He tells me he strongly believes that journalists must prepare for their own “recoveries” by becoming more savvy about the business of journalism and exploring opportunities to start their own media startups—but with a sharp eye on ensuring that their ideas are underpinned by a sustainable business model.
Is there life after journalism? Most definitely,” Potts assured me. “Journalists making the transition need to understand that their skills for writing, storytelling, fact-finding and analysis are readily transferrable to other professions. But journalists who want to stay in the modern world of journalism will also need to augment their natural expertise with solid understanding of business and digital skills.”
Potts was the Business and Technology editor of the San Francisco Examiner from 1985 through 1986, a reporter and editor at the Washington Post from 1982 through 1992, and a reporter for the Chicago Tribune from 1980 through 1982. He also reported for the Associated Press from 1977 through 1979. In addition, he has written two books: ``The Leading Edge’’ and ``Dirty Money’’.
Potts graduated with a degree in journalism from George Washington University.
-Bill Lucey
July 5, 2012
WPLucey@gmail.com
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