Heavy Metal Madness: An Era Thrown Into the Dumpster

Gene Gable

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Editor’s note: Gene Gable served as President of Seybold Publishing and Events for four years, during which he formed strong personal opinions about the role of the Seybold brand in the rapidly changing world of publishing and communications. In the interest of full discloure, creative pro.com is a media and content-development partner with Seybold and its parent company MediaLive International.

Today marks the end of another era in the annals of publishing, for today is the final day of employment for the talented crew at the Seybold Report newsletter in the small town of Media, Pennsylvania. Laid off by Seybold’s current parent, MediaLive International, the editors at Seybold have been chronicling the use of computer technology to produce highly formatted pages for over 32 years. And while MediaLive has promised to keep the Seybold Report brand going, anyone who has counted on the brand’s in-depth, insightful coverage, and analysis of the industry, knows that without the crew in Pennsylvania, the brand is just a hollow trademark, with no heart and little substance.

Figure 1: The Seybold Report first issue, August, 1971.

It’s not a surprise to me that I have to write this obituary today. When I was running the Seybold operations from 1999 to 2002, I was ordered to close the newsletter several times, the result of short-term financial pressure on a corporation burdened by unwieldy debt. But each time I was able to eke out a little more time and convince the bean counters that without the integrity of the Seybold Report, the Seybold Seminars and tradeshows would lose considerable value.

The eventual bankruptcy of Seybold’s parent and the economic pressure of a slumping global economy were too much, though, and cost-cutting finally took its toll. When you combine this closure with the release of long-time Seybold content chief Craig Cline, it’s safe to say the Seybold brand has outlived its usefulness. The up-coming event in Amsterdam survives only because of contracts with outside industry talent, and the considerable good will the brand has generated over the years. Editor’s note: creativepro.com is one the entities developing content for the Seybold Amsterdam show.

In Praise of Digital
I could argue for several columns why the graphic arts and publishing markets have become less relevant in recent times. Or why it was nearly impossible to live up to the legacy of John and Jonathan Seybold, founders of the Seybold Report newsletter back in 1971. The transition of page production from analog to digital methods created incredible turmoil and opportunity during the 30+ years of Seybold’s dominance, but truthfully, the transition has been complete for a number of years.

Figure 2: John W. Seybold working in the Media, Pennsylvania office.

Figure 3: Jonathan Seybold hawking the Seybold Report in a booth at an American Newspaper Association show in the Seventies.

For decades the editors at the Seybold Report were among the few voices singing the praise of digital technology. Printers said “not good enough”; designers said “too complicated”; photographers said “it’ll never replace film”; and publishers were reluctant to jump in without clear standards. But eventually PostScript won, technology got better, and the various production constituencies embraced digital methods and returned to their own camps.

Figure 4: We take complex graphics for granted these days, but in this output example from an early Linotron digital typesetting system, the Linotype engineers were proud they could combine alphabetic characters to make a simple American flag.

As late as 1997 you could attend a GraphExpo or Photo Marketing Association tradeshow and hear nothing but resistance to digital technology. Now when you attend those shows everyone acts like they supported digital all along. It was at Seybold that products like Photoshop, Illustrator, 48-bit scanners, color printers, and powerful computers such as the Macintosh G4 were introduced and embraced. But once these things became mainstream, it was time to move on.

Figure 5: John Seybold wasn’t always serious. Here he plays Whack-a-Mole at an early industry conference.

And though we made every effort at Seybold to show the world that the excitement of digital content extended way beyond the production process, few wanted to hear about the importance of the Web, the challenges of content management, of rights issues, and of cross-media publishing techniques. Instead, the editors and content programmers at Seybold heard an unending litany about the excitement of the “old days.” Everyone wondered why Seybold couldn’t go back in time to re-live the drama that companies like Adobe and Apple provided when they shook the very foundations of page production. But you can only say so much about topics like computer-to-plate, JDF, and PDF before you bore your readers to death — those are not disruptive technologies, they’re simply refinements of the digital-production process.

The Borough of Media, Pennsylvania
One of my favorite places to visit was the Seybold Report office in the borough of Media, a city about 20 minutes outside of Philadelphia. Going to Media was like stepping back in time, and it was an unlikely place for a team of technology analysts and editors to hole up and cover the fast-moving field of digital publishing. But Media is the home of Seybold patriarch John Seybold, and when son Jonathan decided to move the business headquarters to sunnier digs in Malibu, California, he determined to leave the editorial operations in Pennsylvania.

Figure 6: Media, Pennsylvania is “everybody’s hometown.” A small borough outside of Philadelphia, Media was the home to the Seybold Report editorial team.

Figure 7: Media is the home of two of my favorite stores, B. Gross Menswear, and Fish Jewelers.

Media’s roots date back to 1702 when Thomas Marshall leased a large parcel of land from William Penn, and established a farm and small village. By 1850 the town was named Media because of its central location in the county. Media is still a small town, and the most happening place is the bar at the Media Inn on Thursdays for Karaoke night. I spent many sleepless hours in a room above the bar, listening to drunken renditions of “Midnight at the Oasis,” and other classics. But I knew from my first visit I would like the place — they had Zagnuts in the lobby candy machine.

Figure 8: At the Media Inn, you can count on lively karaoke and Zagnuts in the candy machine, but no free shampoo in the rooms.

Seybold Report was housed in a brick building on the main drag of Media, and assumed a low but consistent profile over the years. Once a bustling office where vendors vied for appointments to show their products, there is now a huge dumpster in the parking lot, filled with the artifacts of 32 years of industry coverage. Fortunately, much of the Seybold archive of photos, product brochures, and other memorabilia has been donated to the Rochester Institute of Technology where it will be housed in the Carey Collection. MediaLive International apparently didn’t want to deal with any of it.

Figure 9: The Seybold building on the main drag of Media.

In places like New York and California, you don’t get the sort of loyalty you do in a small hamlet like Media. Maybe it’s the history, maybe it’s the Quaker influence, but quite a few of the Seybold employees put in over 20 years of service, and showed the sort of dedication that is rare in any industry. Lillian Mathews, who handled customer service, was at the brand the longest (more than 25 years) and still returned phone calls and knew customers by their first name. She was let go last year.

The remaining Seybold editors, Pete Dyson, George Alexander, Mark Walter, and Patricia Evans, have been cleaning out the files, wrapping up the final issues, and reminiscing about better times, along with production manager Ed Rozecki. Between them they have more than 65 years of service to the Seybold brand, and even more to the publishing industry. When you add back in the time of previously departed editors like Stephen Edwards, Andy Tribute, Victor Votsch, and others, it’s fair to say that the Seybold Report was, by any standard, one of the greatest gatherings of intellectual talent an industry has been fortunate to see. In this quick-and-dirty publishing era we live in, I was always impressed by the focus on detail, accuracy, and impeccable grammar that the Seybold editors upheld.

Figure 10: Long-time Seybold Editor-in-Chief, Steven Edwards in his rather cluttered office.

I’m Still Not Sleeping Well
While I’d love to place full blame of the current situation at Seybold on recent management decisions, and a three-year period under the dictatorship of a maniacal corporate CEO, it still troubles me that while I had the opportunity, I couldn’t find the answers that would save the Seybold brand. We spent endless hours in front of a white board in the Media offices trying to determine which topics and what approach would spur interest and generate enthusiasm for the industry again. The market was fragmenting and we made difficult choices to leave constituents behind in favor of new readers. The challenges of publishing content in an era of linked databases and global branding are different than those of a few years back.

I think what saddens me most about the closing of the Seybold Report office, though, is not the loss of jobs it represents (I’m pretty sure everyone will be fine), or the sinking feeling I still sometimes get in my stomach as I share responsibility for Seybold’s fate. No, it’s that this closing represents the end of a time when quality, integrity and standards still mattered. At Seybold Report if it took three months to finish an article that was okay, if it meant a better, more complete story.

It is thanks, in a great part, to the Seybold editors that we saw PostScript publishing technology move from “good enough” to “better than.” By never giving vendors a pass, by setting the bar for digital input and output very high, and by always analyzing new developments with a cynical eye, the editors at Seybold Report can rightfully claim their place alongside industry notables like John Warnock, Chuck Geschke, Steve Jobs, and the many others who changed our work lives for the better.

Figure 11: The Seybold Report staff in happier times, 2001. From left to right, top to bottom: Pete Dyson, Luke Cavanagh, Mark Walter, Mike Letts, George Alexander, Giap Edwards, Patricia Evans, Edith Davis, Dorothy Engel, Lillian Matthews, Ed Rozecki.

Thanks, all, and good luck in the future.

Read more by Gene Gable.