Doug Jessmer named editor of Pinellas News
When readers of The Pinellas News — a 600-circulation weekly covering Pinellas County, Fla., which is basically St. Petersburg, Clearwater and environs — pick up the latest edition Friday, they’ll find a new editor at the helm.
Doug Jessmer. Former news artist and page designer who worked in Pittsburgh, Sarasota and Detroit, and then found himself out of journalism for a while. He sold Dodge cards and worked in a print shop before landing at the News last fall.
Doug Jessmer
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He started there Oct. 1 as a columnist, newswriter, photographer and designer. Such is life in the world of tiny newspapers.
One of his first tasks was to redesign the paper:
The Pinellas News, before-and-
after Jessmer’s arrival last fall.
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Over the winter and spring, Doug has kicked major ass. Due in part, no doubt, to the visual changes Doug’s made to the paper, The Pinellas News found itself receiving orders for color ads. So the News began printing color for the first time.
And it didn’t suck:
So last month, the publisher and editor of The Pinellas News decided to put his baby into Doug’s hands. He’ll do the publishing; Doug will do the editing.
I asked Doug for comment. Doug writes:
Let’s see…
“They were looking for someone who had some idea what he was doing, and they settled for me instead.”
But seriously….
I never thought I’d be back at a small paper, but it’s been a good experience. I can honestly say I’d recommend it to someone who’s weary of coming to work every day wondering when the layoff hammer’s going to fall, or to someone who’s burned out.
…Granted, the money’s not like it was at my last three gigs. But I’ve learned the money’s not everything. I’m with a newspaper that’s growing, one with a consistent revenue stream, and one where the ownership is willing to take some risks and give people professional freedom.
I’ve been entrusted with a lot, and I don’t intend to disappoint.
I really like what Doug’s been doing there in Pinellas. I used a bunch of his pages in my presentation in North Carolina in February. I’ll be showing them again in a couple of weeks in Dallas.
He’s using color well. He’s using dramatic crops. He’s using white space. He’s using ASFs. Basically, he’s doing everything right. But on the pages of a tiny little paper like the News, those basic things make a big, big impact.
Find Doug’s NewsPageDesigner portfolio here.
Find our announcement of when Doug left newspapers here. Read about his return here.
Find Doug’s blog here.
Congratulations, Dougie! We’re proud of ya!
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Congrats Doug! The paper looks great!
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:54 am
W-O-W! This is great news for Doug and readers of his paper. Onward and upward!
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Congrats Doug! Give yourself a raise!
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Buckeye! This is great news. Congratulations. I’m so happy to hear that you’ve rediscovered your passion for journalism.
Michelle
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 pm
What can I say, it’s so beautiful – the redesign. And congratulations on the promotion. It’s great to a publisher actually take faith in what a visual journalist can do…..
April 4th, 2008 at 5:07 am
To say that the Pinellas News is now the best-looking weekly I have ever seen doesn’t begin to do those pages justice. What I love about that approach — aside from the sheer esthetics, which are wonderful — is that your slow news days are going to look every bit as hot as your big news days.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Congrats, Doug. I was lucky enough to see the bustling Pinellas News newsroom when I was in downtown St. Pete a few months ago. Glad to see you getting more freedom and responsibility. Took a bunch of your papers back home and my colleagues were very impressed.
Now, as your first order of business as editor, take that old time clock and toss it in the trash! :-P
April 4th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Dude! Florida looks good on you. GO TRIBE!!!
April 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Thanks for the kind words, folks. The redesign, which I was able to push through quickly, allowed a lot of flexibility. Funny thing is, it uses virtually the same type families as before. All it took was some organization. And the nameplate had to go.
Some visual changes happened off the bat — headline hierarchy, dominant art, layering, cutoff rules, story jumps. Within a few weeks, we retooled our story selection to focus solely on Pinellas County stories (and it’s a big county). We committed resources to staff more stories, a process we’re still working through. And then there’s the alt forms — our Page 2 every week is anchored by an ASF package.
The redesign was punctuated with the new logotype, which includes a native osprey, or “sea hawk.” The nameplate was the last thing introduced. To use Tim Frank’s word, we’ve “diddled” with the nameplate, even adding ribbons in the bird’s beak a couple of times now for election editions. I’m sure we’ll have more fun with the nameplate as time goes on. (We have fun elsewhere. For Halloween, we put a 5-column cut-it-out-and-color-it jack-o-lantern mask on the front page with the Halloween centerpiece!)
I moved back to Florida because I wanted a family of my own. I was actually willing to throw away my journalism career, thinking maybe there were greener pastures (who was I kidding? I’m an ink-stained wretch). I was burned out. But here I am, after nine months on the sidelines, working without a net, getting used to not having daily deadlines, figuring out how to outflank the venerable St. Pete Times and outperform the area’s other weeklies, and working to grow the circulation back to where it once was. On top of all that, the Web site (pinellas-news.com) will be the next thing. I’m eager for the challenges ahead.
These days, I’m playing small clubs in St. Pete and Clearwater, not stadium shows or large auditoriums, like I was in Pittsburgh, Sarasota or Detroit. I’m tanned, rested and ready, and hopefully in the coming weeks and months, we’ll raise the bar at least a couple of inches. At least.
(Hey, Bronzer — dontcha just love living in Far Southern Ohio? GO TRIBE!)
April 6th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Holy cow, did I really write that much? I shoulda saved it for a presentation, assuming anyone really wants to know!
April 30th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Of course, we want to know when exjoirnalists find their way back to fun, life, and happiness. Double bonus when found on a journalism endeavor.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
“exjoirnalists”