The only certainty about choosing new media as a career path in the early 80s was the uncertainty of it all. You could never be sure where that road was going to lead. For example, in 1983 I never imagined it would lead me to a classroom at Texas Christian University teaching electronic publishing as an upper-level journalism course.
TCU was well known for its communications programs and there was no more striking evidence of that than the just-opened J.M. Moudy Building for Visual Arts and Communications, a modernistic glass-and-steel structure that housed art, broadcast and journalism. So maybe it shouldn't have been surprising they would be among the first universities in the country to offer a course in electronic publishing.
When they asked me to teach it as an adjunct professor, I was both flattered and somewhat concerned. One, I had no prior experience as a teacher and two, between running StarText and fatherhood, my time was somewhat at a premium. But once again the lure of pioneering something new won out.
It helped I had great support from the faculty, including Dr. Jerry Grotta, a seasoned researcher, a former reporter and editor (even a linotype operator -- Jerry did it all) who helped a newbie teacher get his bearings. Now mostly retired from teaching, he maintains his research business and reflected recently on those times:
"Yes, I think about StarText often. Students and faculty members standing outside the windows of what was our first stab at a computer lab, reading StarText on that television screen as the words slowly marched across the [display]. And when I told the people about it at an API seminar I conducted, they were very interested in StarText and had never seen anything like it.
"And of course our focus groups evaluating StarText. I consider it the Pong game of online news. Still fascinating in retrospect. Twenty-seven years or twenty-seven million years in cyberspace time. Wow, what a strange trip this has been!"
Strange indeed. I continued teaching electronic publishing for the next three years until the demands of my day job became too much. If you can find it, there was a journalism textbook authored at TCU during that time that included several pages on StarText with screen shots.
Almost from the beginning StarText was no stranger to the classroom. How StarText found its way into over 200 Metroplex schools ... that's another story.
The Internet is nothing if not full of surprises. You just never know what's going to pop-up in a search engine. For example, the following post from a now inactive blog titled "West and Clear" in Fort Worth, Texas.
Co-authored by five individuals who focused on telling the story of "their piece of the Trinity River" (the river that runs through Fort Worth), one post by Steve Smith centered on StarText. It included a short video clip about an early online effort by a San Francisco newspaper.
Wiht Steve's permission I have excerpted his entry below, including the video clip which I think you'll find entertaining.
Feb. 2, 2009
"This nostalgic view of the Birth of the Death of Newspapers in San Francisco in 1981 has been making the rounds on the Internet over the past few days ... But what some people may not remember is that the Star-Telegram was actually at the forefront of online newspapers, too. The S-T launched its own effort, dubbed StarText, on May 3, 1982.
"Now look at that — does that look like something that could destroy your business model? Six months after launch, the service only had 50 customers because many computers then on the market could not connect to StarText. Ultimately, it managed to build a subscriber base of 3,000. The Startlegram pulled the plug on StarText in 1997.
"You’d think that with a 27-year head start, the Star-Telegram would have figured out the whole online thing. And that’s why many people have about as much sympathy for newspapers as they do the auto industry — both knew what the future held, but they didn’t do anything to stop it. So here’s to remembering StarText, and what might have been for the Star-Telegram."
--Steve Smith
Steve, you have certainly asked the $64,000 Question. Although in reality, the answer deserves quite a few more zeros. And just for the record, at its height, StarText was close to 5,000 subscribers. For two years in a row in the mid-Eighties, StarText generated a profit, and a six-figure profit at that. To the best of our knowledge, achieving profitability was another industry first as it relates to a local online business.
So what did happen? How did StarText race ahead of much bigger and better-financed competition only to become spectators, like the rest of our industry, to the ascent of EBay, Craigslist, Yahoo and Google? It's a question that haunts all of us who hoped t0 lead our print brethren into a digital future.
Looking back, there were multiple reasons we lost that early advantage. In my opinion, they include:
-- The Size of the Business. As noted, at its height StarText had something close to 5,000 subscribers paying $10 a month for service. We got to profitability in less than four years. We even managed to sell the software to the St Louis Post-Dispatch (something for another topic). But in truth, growth had gotten much harder. It was obvious getting the next 5,000 would require a substanially larger investment in marketing and resources. At the time, newspaper margins were north of 25%; subscribers numbered in the hundreds of thousands; profits in the millions. You're the publisher. The Internet is not here yet. No other local online service has emerged, much yet threatened. Are you going to throw a lot more money into the StarText budget?
-- The Nature of the Business. You frequently hear the phrase, "core competency." That means doing what you do best. Newspapers are great at news. They are great at circulating news. They are great at selling news. They are not as great building and managing technology-intensive businesses, like EBay and Google. It's just not our thing. A company like Yahoo employs 5,000 engineers. A large newspaper may have a fraction of that number in an IT Dept. strained to keep 20-year-old legacy systems working. Success on the Internet is a high-stakes, winner-take-all, no holds barred affair. Not for the timid or those steeped in two hundreds of years of "this is the way we've always done it."
-- The Pace of the Business. We all know about "dog years." Now we hear about change measured in "Internet years." As an editor, I frequently participated and helped manage changes in the look, feel and content of the newspaper. It was a lengthy and convoluted process. Typically it started with a brainstorming session to develop ideas. Those ideas eventually turned into prototypes. The prototypes went through a rigorous reveiw process up and down the chain of command, changing multiple times along the way. At some point the revised prototypes were presented to focus groups. The results were analyzed and more changes made. More review process. Some day it might actually get to the launch phase. I have seen this take anywhere from six months to two years. The combined amount of angst and effort over a change in type font, launching a new section, altering the white space in the masthead, was immense. And more often than not, readers never notice what changed. Try using that as a model for the Internet, where mighty Google labels everything "Beta." No wonder we have tire tracks on our backs when it comes to online.
-- The Willingness to Experiment -- and Fail. Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, the originator of StarText, heard it first hand from his boss in NY: "We don't experiment." We plowed ahead anyway. But newspapers are not known for their R&D departments. I can't verify its accuracy, but I did read somewhere that as an industry (at least in the Eighties) newspapers "spend less than one half of one percent on R&D." Makers of video games plow back 20% and more. No one likes to fail. But "new media" is just that -- "new." Everything we try isn't going to succeed. Don't forget "Share-A-Plane" from my earlier post. The mantra at Google is it's okay to fail, just "fail quickly." Generally failure has not been recognized as a good career path in newspapers.
Other reasons StarText faded? A round of management changes at the Star-Telegram in the late Eighties and early Nineties; our slowness in recognizing the opportunity that become the World Wide Web. Like the gradual demise of newspapers themselves over the last decade, it wasn't like the single fireball that killed the dinosaurs but the proverbial "death from a thousand cuts."
But we have to note for the record the final chapters are yet to be written. StarText may be relegated to history but the fight goes on. Newspapers are down but not out. They are investing in online and getting return from those investments. They are even innovating despite the budget challenges. And yes, I'm still in the fight and proud to be with my fellow troops on the front lines of change.
Call me old-fashioned but I still like communicating via good old E-mail.
You can find me on LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. You can even find me on Twitter. Of the four I have used LinkedIn the longest and find it the most useful for professional networking. MySpace I enjoy on occasion just for fun. It definitely beats Facebook for all the creative options it offers, IMHO. Facebook is probably the best if you want to locate long lost friends or colleagues. It's becoming the world's White Pages.
But Twitter? I checked it out and sorry, just don't get it on a personal level. I do see plenty of utility for marketeers, advertisers, organizations, individuals with lots of time on their hands. The use of it in Iran during the news blackout was amazing. But all the crazy competition to collect "followers" and inundate the cyberways with "guess what I'm doing right now" just seems a little too naracissistic for my taste.
So please don't follow me on Twitter. I haven't "tweeted" in months and don't think I will again any time soon.
But I am addicted to email and getting an iPhone hasn't helped that. It just made it worse.
My StarText posts brought in a batch of new emails as word got around via search engines, Facebook and LinkedIn. Who knows what I might have gotten if I tweeted the news. (Gosh, I'm having a flashback to a Saturday morning cartoon ... "I thought I saw a puddy tat." Is that you, Tweety?)
Sorry.
A few selected emails from the past week:
From: Judith L Sylvester Manship School of Mass Communication Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA
"I didn't get through it all (21 papers still to grade after grading a midterm exam), but you really knocked me back to the early 80s when I took a computer class at Stephens College (a perk for being a staff member) in Columbia, MO. The first keyboard I touched was a Radio Shack Tandy.
"Fast forward a few years and a computer specialist at the University of Missouri (who was trying to help me figure out a new PC version of SPSS) introduced me to the Internet. As I recall the conversation, he thought there was a scientist in Sweden who could impart some wisdom to me, so he set me up with an email address and the rest is history.
"I spent more than one night in the University of Missouri's news room (I was an editor back then) waiting for the new FAX machine to bring in the copy from our student reporters covering the capital about 35 miles away. It whirred and groaned for about 30 minutes to produce a 12-inch story. My job was to type it into the Aztec system that the J-School had and make sure it was in the right queue for copy editing.
"By 1985 I had my first home computer and learned to use a LISTSERV for one of my classes. I also thought I had it made when a remote editing system was developed so I could edit my students' stories at home and then eventually grade papers from my writing class.
"When I returned to MU to set up and run the Media Research Bureau in 1984, I learned about CATI systems, and the J-School got a huge grant from IBM to set up a new operating system -- OS2 -- and had the joy of getting a Cobalt Cati Program to run on OS2. But, that's another story...."
Judith: It's just almost impossible to separate journalism and technology, at least in the last few decades. Along with learning the "Five W's" J-students need to master the finer points of HTML and video editing. Thanks for taking time to read the blog and commenting. Try and stay cool down there in Tiger country.
From: Alan Melson News producer at DallasNews.com
"Gerry - Thanks so much for posting this - I've been reading ever since I saw the link. My school had a StarText subscription on an Apple IIe with a 300-baud modem in the mid-80s, and I remember the teacher letting me log on after school to read Rich Casey's columns and other content (and I remember thinking how incredibly cool it was that I could read more news right off the wire). Reading your histories brought back pleasant memories of an online experience that piqued my interest, and ultimately led to the career I have now. Oh, and thanks again for hiring me. :)"
Alan: What's funny is I'm not sure that when I interviewed you that your prior experience with StarText came up. Not that that would have made any difference, of course! How StarText became a mainstay in hundreds of Fort Worth-Dallas schools will definitely be a topic of a future post. Thanks for the email and please give my regards to my former colleagues in Dallas.
If you have any StarText-related materials, like photos from events, copies of StarText INK, marketing items -- such as the 7 Days of StarText product -- newspaper ads, etc. I would appreciate hearing from you or sending them via email to: gerrybarker1108@yahoo.com.
For those who call the Metroplex home (Dallas/Fort Worth don't you know), you may be familiar with the "online newspaper" called Pegasus News (http://www.pegasusnews.com).
In their "About" statement they describe themselves as:
"Pegasus News is a local news and information service dedicated to bringing you everything -- and we mean everything -- you could possibly want to know about the things that most interest you about the place where you live. We start with the idea that what happens in your neighborhood -- to your family and in your niche areas of interest -- is more important to you than things happening on the other side of town, and certainly far more important than what's happening elsewhere. For that reason, we customize content and advertising for each individual user, in a mechanism we call The Daily You™."
I have to give founder and president Mike Orren props for calling attention to this little endeavor in his blog, "Square Pegs" under the heading, "The StarText Story":
Truth be told, Pegasus News and StarText share a lot in common. Both were (are) local, grass roots efforts to connect readers in an intensely personal way. I am reminded of my favorite marketing tagline once used by the online edition of The Wall Street Journal: "The first newspaper for a circulation of one."
In its own way, Pegasus is keeping the StarText flame burning.
To join the Information Revolution and subscribe to StarText you needed more than $9.95 a month. You also needed 1) a computer or communications terminal 2) a telephone line or connection 3) communications software and last but not least, 4) a modem -- that gizmo that acomplished the "handshake" between you and the computer with all the information you desired.
Modems came in several varieties. Early on it was the acoustic coupler, where you actually set the telephone receiver into a pair of rubber cups. Simply walking around the room could disrupt the connection. Not great. They evolved eventually into cards that fit into the slots inside the computer or slid into a port on the side. The one pictured above, courtesy of Jim Boughton, was the "StarText 1200-baud direct connect modem" that you could handily plug into your com port and presto! -- your personal on-ramp to the Information Superhighway.
What, you ask, was that about? Did StarText branch into manufacturing modems? Thereby hangs a tale.
One year, when 1200 baud (1200 characters a second) was the standard for personal computers (1984 going into 1985), we hatched a marketing idea which we were certain would explode our numbers. What if we bundled a three-month subscription with a free, 1200-baud modem? Even Ries and Trout would surely bless that one.
The trick was finding a source for reliable, low-cost, easy-to-use modems. And eventually we did. Of course, "low cost" is relative. What might seem low cost for many marketing budgets became the most money we ever spent on a single promotion. But coupled with the three-month, nonrefundable subscription, we would make it up on volume. And regardless, it was an idea that got the whole staff pretty jazzed. So much so we ordered hundreds of them to meet the anticipated demand.
We cranked up a marketing campaign that included ads in the StarTelegram, flyers for schools and libraries, speeches at meetings -- it was the proverbial full court press.
The results? Yes, we did definitely gain new subscribers, but it ultimately fell woefully short of our expectations. Alas, like computer makers whose products were almost obsolete by the time they hit the shelves, modems moved quickly to 2400 baud, then 9600 baud and ... well, you get the idea. The modem parade had passed us by.
So we were left with dozens of boxes of 1200 baud modems which we decided were best relegated to a dark corner of a storage closet. Who knows? They could still be there today, somewhere in the recesses of the Star-Telegram.
And as the late Paul Harvey would say ... now you know the rest of the story.
The Star-Telegram unveiled the latest redesign of their web site this week and Dave Lieber, longtime S-T columnist, friend of StarText and leader of the "Watchdog Nation," noted the occasion by linking to this blog on his Facebook page. I think he wanted everyone to know the roots of that web site run deep -- certainly deeper than just about any other newspaper site out there.
Thanks for the mention Dave, and for keeping watch over the nation. Lord knows we need that, too.
Dave will be sharing more about his interactions with StarText and the Virtual Texan over the years. I'll just leave you with two words ... "Yankee Cowboy."
Long before people began surfing the web, computer owners in Fort Worth, Texas were reading their hometown newspaper online. This is an ongoing attempt to tell the story of StarText. It begins here.
about me
My name is Gerry Barker, who joined the StarText project in 1982 after working in the newsroom of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a copy editor, rock music critic, columnist and features production editor. After making the switch from print to digital, I never looked back. After over 15 years with StarText, I continued my digital career with The Dallas Morning News, The Columbus Dispatch, TBO.com in Tampa, Florida and currently, with the Cox organization at The Palm Beach Post.
