Robert Benz

Robert Benz
General Manager/Interactive Media - Newspapers, E.W. Scripps

Robert Benz, 41, is general manager/interactive media for the 21 daily newspapers owned by the E.W. Scripps Co. He has worked for Scripps since 1986. In 1994, Mr. Benz was the copy editor on The Plutonium Experiment, which earned a Pulitzer Prize for reporter Eileen Welsome and The Albuquerque Tribune. He went from Albuquerque to the Denver Rocky Mountain News, where he worked as a sports copy editor and assistant news editor. While in Denver, Mr. Benz played a key role in launching the newspaper's Web site. From there he moved to Austin, Texas, to be content manager of GoWest.com, a collaboration between Scripps and Cox Interactive Media.

In his role as general manager/interactive media, Mr. Benz is responsible for revenue and content at Scripps newspaper sites. In 2002, those newspapers sites achieved profitability. The team Mr. Benz supervises has played a key role in:

• Creating interactive advertising for Scripps Web sites.
• Rolling out a content management system at Scripps newspaper sites.
• Redesigning the Ventura County Star site: http://www.insidevc.com/ This site won best regional portal (75,000-250,000 circulation) in the NAA's 2000 Digital Edge competition.
• Designing and helping to launch TCPalm.com, which won the NAA's 1998 Digital Edge award for Best Online Newspaper under 75,000 circulation
• Managing Net Gravity ad campaigns for Scripps sites.

Mr. Benz (bMr. Benz@scrippsweb.com) earned a BA in journalism/English from Edinboro University and holds a master's in English literature from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is married to Lara Edge, managing editor of the News Sentinel, a Scripps newspaper in Knoxville, Tenn.