NSNC’s Early Webmaster Passes Away

By Dave Lieber
NSNC Member and Dallas Morning News Watchdog Columnist

Jim Boughton, who ran columnists.com for many years, died July 5. He was 75.

Boughton, who lived with his wife Aliza in Arlington, TX, was also co-host of the 2005 Grapevine, TX, conference. He was a lifetime member of our group.

Boughton was not a newspaper columnist, but he was one of America’s first digital journalists. A computer wizard of the highest caliber, Jim was an early adopter of the Internet and was a big player in StarText.net, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s online news service, which is remembered as the second such enterprise behind the San Jose Mercury News’ news site.

He began writing a column called “Windows on Windows” when Windows 3.0 was released. He won the Star-Telegram’s Cyber Columnist of the Quarter in 1992 and 1996.

Hawaiian columnist and NSNC member Charley Memminger set up columnists.com in the mid-1990s, but Jim took over and kept it up and running with the latest and the greatest for many years.

Through his relationship with StarText, I met Jim, and together we created America’s first regular “video column.” I’d record the video and mail the tape to Jim, who would spend hours converting the videotape into a digital format, which he would then post. 

At that time, very few journalists or others knew how to convert tape to digital, but Jim worked hard at perfecting it. Still, the process took many hours, and the resulting online video column would suffer from buffering stops and starts, common during the slow modem age.

Jim became friendly with many NSNC members and offered advice about how to start their own web pages. He designed and built my first personal web page, long before most journalists showcased an online home for their work.

According to the Internet’s wayback machine, the first version of columnists.com appeared in January 1997. By the following year, Jim took over as “web editor news,” according to the archives.

In 1998, he created a separate website for the coming Louisville conference.

He also wrote, “I have added a counter to the main page so no one forgets National Columnists Day is just around the corner.”

In his real job, Jim worked for the Freeman Companies, which works with mega-conferences around the globe.
He also had a home-based business called Polywebb Enterprise, a computer consulting business he launched back in 1982. As part of that, he built computer systems from scratch for friends.

Jim set up a live online camera showing him at work in his home garage office. This was long before most of us knew how to do these kinds of things.

NSNC was lucky to enjoy his talents for so many years. And we extend our sympathies to his family.