John Wilpers

If variety is the spice of a journalist’s life, then John Wilper’s life has been piquant indeed. With 18 jobs over almost four decades in print and new media, Mr. Wilpers brings a wealth of experience to his consulting clients. He has been blending old and new media since 1996 when he led AOL’s Digital City Boston to the top tiers of the Internet giant’s local-play traffic charts. Today, he consults with media companies like the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, GlobalPost, Miami Herald, and San Diego Union-Tribune to increase their reach, relevance and revenue by finding and integrating top-quality bloggers into their print and online products.

For GlobalPost, Mr. Wilpers found 400 of the world’s best bloggers in 53 countries. At the Los Angeles Times, he lined up hundreds of neighborhood bloggers and more than 1,000 LA-theme bloggers for Web and print publication. At the Christian Science Monitor, he researched and delivered partnership agreements with two dozen of the world’s best economy bloggers, soon to be followed by the top astronomy bloggers. At the Miami Herald, he delivered five dozen of South Florida’s best arts and entertainment bloggers. For the San Diego Union-Tribune, he is gathering both geographic and topic-specific bloggers for a variety of products. And at the now defunct free daily BostonNOW, Mr. Wilpers pioneered the idea of publishing local bloggers not only on the paper’s Web site but also in the daily paper itself. He also webcast his news meetings, offering readers real-time interaction with the paper’s decision-makers.

Beyond the Web, Mr. Wilpers has launched and run more free dailies than any U.S. editor. He also lived a “Bonfire of the Vanities” experience in the ’90s as editor-in-chief of a chain of 240 newspapers in 17 states, Great Britain and Ireland underwritten by Michael Milken’s junk bonds and run by Ralph Ingersoll. His other journalism experience includes being the first editor-in-chief of the Boston’s Community Newspaper Co. (now Gatehouse Media) as well as stints on the editorial page of the Boston Globe, as a columnist and editor at the Boston Herald, and editor positions at suburban and rural daily and weekly newspapers.

Mr. Wipers’ other passions include an annual self-esteem-building soccer program for 300 girls he created in 1996 (hotshotssoccer.org), surfing, and his 13-year run as “Mother Ginger” in the JMBT “Nutcracker” ballet in Boston.