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Name: Mike Kilian
Newspaper: Observer-Dispatch, Utica, N.Y.
What do you do? As managing editor, I oversee the various newsroom departments that create our local news report — online, in the daily newspaper and in various nondaily publications and special sections. I spend a lot of time leading planning sessions, encouraging fresh ways of doing things and emphasizing immediacy online and second-day approaches in print. If I can help the departmental managers who report to me think in terms of innovation and creativity, then I know I'm doing my job right.
Tell us a little about your career? I'm an Upstate New York guy, born in Rochester, educated at Cornell University and a veteran of multiple Upstate newspapers. I've held editing jobs now 17 years, first at Troy, then at Saratoga Springs and since 1995 in Utica. I moved to Utica because the woman I married teaches school here, and we've put down solid roots. That's generated a commitment both to the community and to the Observer-Dispatch, which plays such an important role in the community.
What's unique about your newspaper? Utica is still an old-fashioned newspaper town, the type of place where you'll hear plenty about our coverage from neighbors, at church or at the hockey rink. Residents think of the O-D as THEIR newspaper, so they're going to feel strongly about what they read. So we bear a clear responsibility to be as complete and as accurate as we can because readers never let us forget they expect us to succeed.
What's been the highlight of your career? In the early 2000s, I conceived of and helped plan an ambitious coverage plan for Utica's growing refugee population. Thanks to the commitment from our publisher Donna Donovan and thanks to the hard work of reporters, editors, photographers and page designers, we created incredibly sophisticated sections that drew parallels between the refugee experience and that of previous waves of immigrants. We capped the effort with a trip to Bosnia in which a Utica refugee found the remains of her family in a morgue. Reporters and I also wound up presenting to students in different schools about topics such as assimilation. The O-D showed clear community leadership, and we managed to connect with the community on many different levels.
What got you into the business? By the 1969 moon landing, I already had the daily newspaper habit. I was fascinated as a child by the ability of newspapers to sort fact from rumor, to tell the BIG story well and to be there so reliably on our doorstep every day. That excitement has never left me.
What are your thoughts on the changes our industry is currently going through? I think it's the single most exciting time in journalism we've seen. As we post Web updates, photo galleries and even video regularly throughout the day, we're building a daily online habit in our readers the same way our predecessors long ago helped build the daily newspaper habit in their readers. Ever since we began thinking, "Web first, print second," page views to our Web site have gone in only one direction -- way up. I have no doubt the revenue model will eventually catch up with all the expanded content we're offering online.
Tell us about a story, headline, photo or design that you'll still be talking about 20 years from now? In the summer of 1999, Woodstock came just up the road to Rome, N.Y. We planned coverage for months, right down to which reporters and editors would be living in RVs onsite for the duration of the concert. Well, after four hot days, Woodstock's last night ended in an explosion of rioting and vandalism. The crowd managed to burn 12 -- 12! -- tractor-trailers and basically trash the place. We had nearly gone to press with a concert-ending newspaper that included a commemorative section we'd built throughout the week. Suddenly, we had to rip it all up and cover the biggest story of the year. In the midst of it all, our News Editor came up with the perfect headline "Woodstock ends aflame." When I dragged myself home much later, it struck me I might never a local story that exciting again.
Name: Mike Kilian
Newspaper: Observer-Dispatch, Utica, N.Y.
What do you do? As managing editor, I oversee the various newsroom departments that create our local news report — online, in the daily newspaper and in various nondaily publications and special sections. I spend a lot of time leading planning sessions, encouraging fresh ways of doing things and emphasizing immediacy online and second-day approaches in print. If I can help the departmental managers who report to me think in terms of innovation and creativity, then I know I'm doing my job right.
Tell us a little about your career? I'm an Upstate New York guy, born in Rochester, educated at Cornell University and a veteran of multiple Upstate newspapers. I've held editing jobs now 17 years, first at Troy, then at Saratoga Springs and since 1995 in Utica. I moved to Utica because the woman I married teaches school here, and we've put down solid roots. That's generated a commitment both to the community and to the Observer-Dispatch, which plays such an important role in the community.
What's unique about your newspaper? Utica is still an old-fashioned newspaper town, the type of place where you'll hear plenty about our coverage from neighbors, at church or at the hockey rink. Residents think of the O-D as THEIR newspaper, so they're going to feel strongly about what they read. So we bear a clear responsibility to be as complete and as accurate as we can because readers never let us forget they expect us to succeed.
What's been the highlight of your career? In the early 2000s, I conceived of and helped plan an ambitious coverage plan for Utica's growing refugee population. Thanks to the commitment from our publisher Donna Donovan and thanks to the hard work of reporters, editors, photographers and page designers, we created incredibly sophisticated sections that drew parallels between the refugee experience and that of previous waves of immigrants. We capped the effort with a trip to Bosnia in which a Utica refugee found the remains of her family in a morgue. Reporters and I also wound up presenting to students in different schools about topics such as assimilation. The O-D showed clear community leadership, and we managed to connect with the community on many different levels.
What got you into the business? By the 1969 moon landing, I already had the daily newspaper habit. I was fascinated as a child by the ability of newspapers to sort fact from rumor, to tell the BIG story well and to be there so reliably on our doorstep every day. That excitement has never left me.
What are your thoughts on the changes our industry is currently going through? I think it's the single most exciting time in journalism we've seen. As we post Web updates, photo galleries and even video regularly throughout the day, we're building a daily online habit in our readers the same way our predecessors long ago helped build the daily newspaper habit in their readers. Ever since we began thinking, "Web first, print second," page views to our Web site have gone in only one direction -- way up. I have no doubt the revenue model will eventually catch up with all the expanded content we're offering online.
Tell us about a story, headline, photo or design that you'll still be talking about 20 years from now? In the summer of 1999, Woodstock came just up the road to Rome, N.Y. We planned coverage for months, right down to which reporters and editors would be living in RVs onsite for the duration of the concert. Well, after four hot days, Woodstock's last night ended in an explosion of rioting and vandalism. The crowd managed to burn 12 -- 12! -- tractor-trailers and basically trash the place. We had nearly gone to press with a concert-ending newspaper that included a commemorative section we'd built throughout the week. Suddenly, we had to rip it all up and cover the biggest story of the year. In the midst of it all, our News Editor came up with the perfect headline "Woodstock ends aflame." When I dragged myself home much later, it struck me I might never a local story that exciting again.
