Sean Fitzpatrick starts Aug. 30 as director of new media
Sean Fitzpatrick, a pioneering new media journalist who helped launch one of the first 10 online newspapers in the country, has been named Director of New Media for Wick Communications Company.
Fitzpatrick, 37, was one of the founders of StarNet (www.azstarnet.com), the online presence of The Arizona Daily Star, in 1995. During his five years at StarNet, Fitzpatrick oversaw editorial and production development as editor, while leading a small team of reporters, designers and programmers in the creation of the experimental online magazine, Dispatches. He also helped create an award-winning advertising program for sponsorship of the newspaper online.
Fitzpatrick has also worked for The Arizona Republic, overseeing the development and launch of its newspaper site, www.arizonarepublic.com, and leading a task force that provided online recommendations for the redevelopment of The Republic’s community sections.
Fitzpatrick served as Director of Content for MySanAntonio.com, the largest web site in South Texas. Under his guidance, site traffic doubled to the combined online presence for The San Antonio Express-News (Hearst) and KENS 5 television (Belo). In addition to his editorial duties, Fitzpatrick handled creative director responsibilities for advertising and web development clients.
Most recently, Fitzpatrick was the web coordinator for the University of Arizona athletics department, where site traffic has doubled in the last two years. He has also been serving as senior media strategist for Interface Guru, a consulting firm focused on usability and user-centric design. While at Interface Guru, he has worked with Fortune 100 companies, national magazine clients and large non-profits in maximizing return on investment for their web sites and strategies.
He is also president of the board of directors for Voices: Community Stories Past and Present, Inc., a Tucson non-profit that trains at-risk youth in writing and photography skills to produce community publications. He has served as Project Director for its after-school magazine program, 110 Degrees, and worked with The Arizona Daily Star to create a successful publishing partnership in the newspaper.
Fitzpatrick will join Wick on Aug. 30 and will be based at Territorial Newspapers, where he will report to Tom Lee, manager of Wick’s Copper Group newspapers. Paul Bucalo, Fitzpatrick’s predecessor, will continue working with the company through the transition.
While continuing to develop web revenue and content strategies is important, Fitzpatrick says his first objective is to understand the needs of Wick’s individual publications and communities. “I want our publishers to feel that they are part of the discussion as Wick continues to evolve into a full communications company, Community newspapers and alternative weeklies have unique opportunities in the online medium, and the expertise of all our staff will be instrumental in realizing this potential.”
