From Tucson’s First Youth Newspaper to the WWW
Long after newspapers and printed books are extinct, someone may dig through some old archives and come across these contributions to Tucson, Arizona’s local publishing history that spanned over four decades from the late 1970s through the early 2000s.
"Print to Pixels" is a story about how a series of newspaper titles evolved into one of earliest web sites on the ‘World Wide Web’ and the hundreds of staff members who played a role in the production of the newspapers over the decades. To accomplish this feat many local community organizations in Tucson, Arizona were also involved in the process, including the YWCA of Tucson which fostered the newspaper program in its early years. This is also a chronicle of a slice of Tucson’s history and my career.
Publishing a newspaper of any size is a daunting task. There are so many little elements necessary to work in unison to create, produce, and distribute a final printed product on a regular schedule. It was even more challenging in the days before computers, smart phones, and social media. But the biggest challenge was securing enough funding to publish at least one newspaper edition every month. It was like creating something out of nothing– every month for several decades.
My personal files and newspaper collection may not survive beyond me. So, this book is one way to preserve some remnants of this story and to explain how, and why, it all happened. While this book is not meant to be a riveting novel of “who done it” (I did), it is more of a chronicle of events that enabled me to pursue my dream career as a publisher and make a unique community contribution at the same time.
The printed copies of those original newspapers will eventually yellow and crumble away in my storage room along with the copies housed in the archives of the University of Arizona Library’s Special Collections. Fortunately, some of the early editions are stored on microfilm and are available to view in many public libraries. Digital copies of all of the newspaper editions are available online at the Arizona State Library Archives’ Arizona Memory Project. Digital copies of the web site since 1998 are archived on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Many of the articles, photographs and interviews from those 140 editions have been published in a three-volume compilation (plus index volume) titled “Entertaining Tucson Across the Decades.”
Being a part of Tucson’s entertainment scene was a tremendous experience. While I didn’t play a musical instrument, my instrument was actually a printing press.
Publishing a newspaper wasn’t on my mind after graduating from the University of Arizona with a Journalism degree in May 1977. Over the summer, Jonathan L, who published the local Tucson alternative tabloid, Mountain Newsreal, provided me with the chance to gain some bylines and learn the ropes. I watched in amazement as he scrambled every month to sell enough ads, edit enough articles, and distribute enough copies to keep the Newsreal going. Little did I realize at the time, that I would be spending the next few decades doing the same thing.
