Last Updated: June 29, 1999
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Portrait of the president
1999-2000 president — the publisher of The Orange County
Register — offers innovative ideas, can-do style
It was the summer of ’69. A summer of Woodstock, Vietnam and men on
the moon; a summer of exploration, transformation and revelation. A good
summer to discover your destiny.
For an energetic 18-year-old named N. Christian Anderson III, it was
the summer he grew up. It was a blink of time that irrevocably altered
his view of newspapers and rocketed him at the speed of light into journalism’s
future.
“It was the summer when the newspaper’s role and its connection with
the community became clear to me,” says Anderson, publisher and CEO of
The Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif., and president of ASNE.
“It’s when I realized that the newspaper confirmed what the community was:
Who the people were, what they did, what they cared about.”
Anderson has followed his vision of community-focused, customer-driven
newspapers ever since — and he has helped change the industry along the
way. In the past three decades, he has gone from whiz-kid boy editor to
visionary publisher. He’s a man who rarely takes the time to visit the
past — or the present, for that matter — because he’s too busy living in
the future.
But it’s the past that provided the catalyst for everything Anderson
is today.
The summer of ’69 wasn’t so much about self-discovery as it was about
glimpsing — and comprehending — the Big Picture for the first time. After
all, Anderson already had targeted newspapers as a probable profession.
But that summer was the first time he beheld a newspaper’s true power,
the first time he felt the wonderful, frightening feeling of journalistic
responsibility. The experience was brief — about three months as the general
manager and managing editor of his hometown weekly paper, the Heppner (Ore.)
Gazette-Times — but mesmerizing. From that time on, Anderson knew that
his future was painted in inky black and wood-pulp white.
It was no surprise that Anderson gravitated toward the written word.
Buoyed by his mother’s commitment to learning, Anderson, the second-youngest
of seven children, became enthralled with language while growing up in
Heppner. In many respects, he was like any other little boy in the small
(population 1,500), rural town; he played Little League baseball, went
swimming, rode his bike and mowed lawns. He enjoyed playing Scrabble with
his grandmother, even though she always won. But more than anything, he
loved to read. He read newspapers (his family subscribed to three dailies),
Hardy Boys mysteries, sports fiction, anything he could get his hands on.
“I remember the librarian always telling me, ‘That book’s too old for
you — you can’t read it,’ ” Anderson says.
Of course, that just made him want to read more. And read faster, faster,
faster. His voracious reading habits weren’t impeded by television, either,
since his family didn’t have a TV set until Anderson was 17.
But life wasn’t all books, fun and games. Everyone in the family worked
to augment their father’s modest income as a county extension agent. For
Anderson, the newspaper took on a new meaning; it became a way to make
money so he could buy a new baseball glove or bat or bike. Newspapers became
his passion.
At age 8, Anderson hawked the East Oregonian — from Pendleton — for
a dime on Main Street. At 11, he home-delivered The Oregonian from Portland
every morning. At 12, he wrote his first story for the local Heppner Gazette-Times:
an account of a junior-high football game (“The ultimate conflict of interest,”
he says. “I played halfback at the time ...”). He worked as a printer’s
devil, became sports editor, then went off to Oregon State University,
where he wrote for the school paper and worked weekends for the Democrat-Herald
in nearby Albany during his freshman year.
Then came the summer of ’69. It was a special opportunity for Anderson,
who moved back to Heppner (his parents had relocated), to learn the newspaper
business top-to-bottom from local editor/publisher Wes Sherman and his
wife, Helen. The Shermans were leaving town for two weeks to attend their
son’s wedding in Boston, and Wes entrusted his young friend with the heady
responsibility of putting out the newspaper. Imagine, an 18-year-old with
the keys to the town’s voice.
But this wasn’t just any 18-year-old. This was a fellow who, amid the
craziness of copy deadlines and production cycles, took the time to watch
and listen. Hey, these people love this paper, he noticed. It’s important
to them. In some way, it confirms their existence. The paper is the town.
So shouldn’t we do our best to serve the readers?
That lesson wasn’t all Anderson learned that summer. Early in the two-week
stint, he received unexpected news: Wes Sherman was dead. Heart attack.
The youngster was devastated by his mentor’s passing. Anderson telephoned
his parents and, in tears, asked what he should do.
“You’ll do fine,” Anderson’s father told his son. “Just think of what
Wes would do.”
Anderson wrote Sherman’s obituary, followed by an editorial on the man
he so admired and respected. And he made sure the Gazette-Times rolled
on ...
Sherman’s widow sold the paper at summer’s end, and Anderson returned
to college.
“It was an experience that influenced me forever,” says Anderson, who
still sometimes opens his briefcase of old clippings and reads his farewell
to Sherman. “I carry so much of that with me.”
***
Whether due to fate, hard work, talent or an amalgam of all three, Anderson
always has been on the fastest of fast tracks. He was 25 and working at
his first full-time newspaper job when Frank Blethen hired him as editor
of the Walla Walla (Wash.) Union-Bulletin in 1975. Two years later, he
was in management at The Seattle Times. And in 1980, publisher Dave Threshie
took a chance by naming the relatively inexperienced Anderson as editor
of The Orange County Register, flagship of the Freedom Communications Inc.
group.
In 14 years at the Register, Anderson helped the paper attain national
prominence for its reporting, content, innovative design and emphasis on
color photographs and graphics. The Register, while going head-to-head
against the Los Angeles Times, won two Pulitzer Prizes (1985 and 1989)
and Anderson was recognized as Newspaper Editor of the Year in 1989 by
the National Press Foundation.
“He’s the same guy with the same enthusiasm and same vision as he had
then,” says Blethen, now publisher of The Seattle Times. “He was always
an advocate of high-quality journalism, but high-quality journalism that
connects with the readers, that is relevant to the readers. He was one
who, early on, recognized that those concepts are not mutually exclusive.”
In 1994, Anderson the editor became Anderson the publisher at The Gazette
in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he helped the paper play a more active
role within the community. He also supported the news staff’s commitment
to civic journalism, and created an interactive division that established
three online Web sites. After 4 1/2 years in Colorado, Anderson has returned
to the Register as publisher — and he hopes to build upon the paper’s community-oriented
foundation and continue the turf war with the Times.
Orange County Register editor Tonnie Katz says, “When I heard that Chris
was coming back, I wrote my top managers a note that said, ‘Paint your
face blue, clean your kilts and sharpen your staves. We’re going into battle.’
“I think the staff views him as a proven visionary. He’s the person
who taught me that building community and understanding community and listening
to people in the community is far more valuable than listening to other
journalists.”
Everywhere he has gone, Anderson has remained faithful to his personal
beliefs as to what a newspaper should or should not be. And he’s used charisma,
imagination and just-plain perseverance to spread his mantra: Newspapers
are here to serve the customers, so let’s give ’em what they want.
Anderson is always in motion, physically and mentally, and seems to
be one of those high-energy people who only need five or six hours of sleep
a night. “Like my mother says: ‘You sleep when you’re dead,’ ” he says.
His wife, Aletha, says, “He wakes up cheerful, without coffee, which
I think is inhuman.”
Truthfully, Anderson does need a morning fix: a daily newspaper, or
two or three. He says, “Boy, do I have a stomach ache all day if I get
up and get going without reading the newspaper first.”
To many, Anderson remains an enigma. He’s part attention-to-details,
part grandiose dreams. Part whirlwind workaholic, part devoted father and
husband. Part efficient businessman, part curious journalist.
His friends describe him as intense. But is that intensity a bad thing?
“I think of (intensity) as being passionate about what we do,” Anderson
says. “But this job is an intense job, and our business is an intense business.
It’s a challenging business, not something you can do in eight hours a
day.
“I’m not as harshly judgmental or critical as I used to be. ... But
I guess I’m still relatively intense.”
His friends agree that Anderson has mellowed, that he is no longer a
person who sometimes cares more about the product than the people who work
hard to achieve it. But Anderson sees himself as a work in progress.
“I don’t have enough patience — that’s a deficiency I wish I could overcome,”
he says. “I wish I were better at saying, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Great job.’
I wish I spent more time with my family.”
OK, so he’s not perfect. Never has been. He notes, with a self-deprecating
chuckle, that “I didn’t know what I didn’t know” when he embarked upon
his first editor job at Orange County. But along the way, even as he has
continued to nurture his community-based view of the future, he has learned
to relax.
He skis. He reads. He plays on his computer. He consumes vast amounts
of Tootsie Rolls. And yes, he laughs — something that the legion of folks
who know him only from afar, who view him as cold, aloof and mysterious,
likely would not believe. Not only does Anderson have a well-developed,
if slightly askew, sense of humor, he’s also a master of the deadpan delivery.
And more ...
Bill Boggs, a consultant with Synectics, tells the story of an unusual
evening in Chicago. After Anderson, Boggs and Dave Zeeck of The News Tribune
of Tacoma, Wash., emerged from a long, brain-frazzling meeting, they went
to a nearby shopping mall. Inside, Anderson (“C’mon, this’ll be fun!”)
led the trio into a store where customers can star in their own music video.
The raincoat-clad newspapermen lip-synched and danced to The Rolling Stones’
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Boggs says he still has the only copy
of the video.
“The great thing about the video is that the song title could be a great
epitaph for (Anderson’s) tombstone,” says Boggs. “He’s always pushing.”
Always has, always will. That determination to succeed in all he does
may be Anderson’s defining character trait.
“He’s the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to play Monopoly with,” says
Steven A. Smith, editor in Colorado Springs. “Chris plays to win.”
Ah, but Anderson plays by his own rules. He’s not afraid to explore
non-traditional methods of solving problems. Indeed, it seems as if he’s
happiest when he’s floating outside the box, exploring the unexpected and
taking chances, Smith says.
“And that’s exciting,” Smith says. “If you’re interested in growing
and developing ideas and breaking the rules, then Chris is the ideal publisher.”
So what will Anderson bring to ASNE in his year as president? That’s
impossible to predict. But Anderson does say he’ll “try to take some different
approaches to things” while helping the organization pursue its established
goals and projects.
And, of course, he’ll keep looking forward.
“We’re going to have to grow out away from the one-size-fits-all product,”
he says. “I hope we continue to view ourselves as the indispensable source
of information for our communities, but we may not be able to do that in
exactly the form we’re using right now. I hope we’ll open our minds to
the possibility that we might give different people different products
in the future. If the time comes when we’re delivering it all electronically,
so be it.”
One last question: What does the N. stand for in N. Christian Anderson
III?
“The fun thing is to tell people it stands for ‘Nothing,’ ” he says.
Actually, it’s Nelson. But it could be Newspapers.
Smith is a reporter for The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo.
