AScribe
In The News

Building a Newswire for the Independent Sector

I'm a slow learner - it took me 25 years to get my MBA," says Ron Wolf of
his 25-year career in newspapers as a reporter and editor before returning
to school full-time in 1994. He is a cofounder and director of AScribe, The
Public Interest Newswire.

"I was spending a lot of time with MBAs who were starting companies," says
Wolf of his life before Haas. "It became apparent that they were having
more fun out on the field playing the game than I was having watching the
game. It was time to get out of the press box and get on the field."

While at Haas, he reconnected with AScribe cofounder David Irons, then
director of public affairs for the school. In his previous life as a
reporter, Wolf had called Irons often for sources for articles. "We
discussed the idea for the company before I even came to Haas," says Wolf.
"David asked why the papers didn't use more news from UC Berkeley, why
major papers don't pay more attention to the universities."

Wolf explained that newsrooms prefer electronic handling of information. At
the Mercury News, the reporter's mailboxes are right next to huge recycling
bins. "Three-quarters of all the mail is recycled unopened," says Wolf.
Helping public and nonprofit institutions to break through the clutter is
the goal of AScribe.

The first draft of AScribe's business plan for a public-interest news
service was done in the entrepreneurship course at Haas. "The year after
school we wrote a real plan." AScribe opened for business in February of
1998 in the Berkeley Business Incubator. The company recently completed a
third round of funding and Wolf says he expects black ink in 2002.

Today, AScribe serves more than 500 clients around the country, including
the Harvard Medical School, the Ford Foundation, Penn State, the University
of California, and the Haas School. They now put out 9,000-11,000 releases
a year. While most of its early clients were educational institutions,
AScribe now is reaching out to more nonprofits and public policy
organizations. "The whole brand identity is built around public interest
news and pitched to those reporters on specialty beats - higher education,
health, science, environment, public policy, foundations, and
philanthropy." -- SB