Two heavyweights leave The Californian

This has been a tough week in Bakersfield, as The Californian said goodbye to two supremely talented people who helped take our company to new heights.

Editor Mike Jenner left the paper today after nearly two decades in Bakersfield. He's taking a prime journalism teaching gig at his alma mater, the University of Missouri, one of the best journalism schools in the country. If there's paradise in a tumultuous business like ours, that might be it.

Mike started working with the paper as a design consultant 17 years ago, but soon was hired to fill a series of top newsroom and "new media" positions, including executive editor. I've never met anyone who had a better mix of news, design and technical skills. Some editors are great wordsmiths or managers but lack the knowledge or want to understand the processes and technology that can make or break good journalism. It's hard work to get "underneath the hood," but that knowledge is invaluable, and I've always marveled at Mike's thirst to understand exactly how things like press configurations worked so he could take full advantage in producing a newspaper every day.

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FeedBrewer taking Printcasting into the future

Updated on Friday, October 15, 2010 at 8:23 PM by Logan Molen

It’s exciting to finally be able to talk publicly about the launch of FeedBrewer Inc., a new company created to provide custom publishing services utilizing the Printcasting tools that have their roots in Bakersfield.

FeedBrewer is the next evolution of Printcasting, a self-publishing venture funded by the Knight Foundation and Participata LLC, a subsidiary of The Bakersfield Californian. Participata, which provides staff and other funding for the two-year Printcasting project, is a minority shareholder in FeedBrewer.

The goal with FeedBrewer is to continue Printcasting’s mission of simplifying the concept of “publish once, distribute multiple places” by providing custom services. By spinning off a new company, we think we’ll be better positioned to find the outside investment that can ensure the project’s long-term success. Printcasting will remain a free service at its core, but we envision FeedBrewer as a business that provides a variety of "freemium" services.

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