Ibargüen comes well-equipped for the task of reinventing newspapers. He was a newspaper executive at the Hartford Courant, New York Newsday, and the Miami Herald, where, during his seven years as publisher, the newspaper won three Pulitzers and its profit margin rose from 18 to 22 percent in his first three years, a remarkable feat in an era of diminishing returns for newspapers. He was also an innovator at the Herald. As the paper’s first Hispanic publisher, he turned the existing Spanish-language daily insert into a separate independent newspaper that reflected the different needs and interests of the Spanish community.

He did learn one lesson at the Miami Herald that informs his current efforts. “I spent a lot of time trying simply to transfer the print newspaper into the Web site, sort of like trying to make a movie of out of a book. That’s not good enough,” he says. “You need to come up with unique digital platforms.”