New media director. Twitter addict. One-man rototiller.

Tony Ronzio is a man of many faces. And suits.

We asked him about it all.

Name: Anthony Ronzio

Age: 32

Lives: Hallowell

What does a “new media director” do? Technically, the new media director is charged with developing strategies to increase the online audience and revenue for Sun Media Group, which owns and operates the Sun Journal. In reality, I’m tasked with figuring out how our company adapts and excels in the digital age. This is an exciting, if a little unsettling, time for news organizations. The Internet has fundamentally changed how we operate, how we engage with our readers and how we serve our advertisers. Each organization is charting its own course through this, based on what’s right for their business and their audience. It’s fun and frustrating, but it’s the job I’ve always wanted to do. I’m thrilled to have it here.

Do you have counterparts at other papers in Maine or New England? I’d like to think I do. My job was based on one that existed at the Cape Cod Times, I believe. Yet every newspaper is different. Some have completely integrated their digital positions into management, so there is no such thing as a separate digital division. Others have kept digital apart from the traditional newspaper operations. There’s no one perfect model. For us, my position was created to figure out what works best for us — as a company — and us as a business. I think we’ll see many tweaks in my job description going forward as opportunities arise.

Peer into your crystal ball, please: What will the newspaper experience be like in 10, 20 years? Without question, we’re in a steady evolution to digital publishing. Not seismic in any way — papers are changing slowly, much to the chagrin of some — but slow, cautious, strategic change that allows us to preserve our current business while building for what’s to come. The next 10 years will be a bellwether. Print will remain, but more as an important niche, than primary product. We will publish to phones and tablets primarily, not desktops or laptops. If I had to guess, I’d say the desktop computer is more in danger of extinction than a print newspaper, because reading experience will become such a priority. Nobody settles into their couch or chair with desktop computer, but they do with their iPhone, iPad or printed periodical.

First two websites or apps you check in the morning: I’m a Twitter-addict. It’s my caffeine, nicotine and bad daytime TV all wrapped into one. As a conduit for easy engagement with others and browsing multiple news sources at once, it’s perfect. So that’s usually my first scroll. Sun Journal online is next, on my phone, as well, and after breakfast I read the New York Times on my laptop, using its slick Times Reader app. (Morning’s aren’t all digital though; I still get the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel daily, and those papers plus the Maine Sunday Telegram and New York Times delivered on Sunday.)

Social networking: Waste of time, a 2012 must or something in between? It’s a must. Facebook, for us, is a major source of readers. Twitter is the perfect engagement and communication medium. Other sites, like Pinterest and Instagram, are redefining how we communicate visually — which for news organizations is a must to understand. Most important, though, social networks are places where people interested in our product reside. We ignore them at our peril.

Hmm. How to put this. Since your return, you’re wearing a lot of suits. Does Casual Friday Tony still exist? He does. The jeans-Oxford shirt-and-Patriots-cap of the 2006-2009 Tony (when he was Sun Journal editorial page editor) has not retired. But the jobs I’ve had over the past few years, as publisher of the KJ and Sentinel and now back with Sun Media, have not only expanded my worldview but also my wardrobe.

As a wee lad, you dreamed of becoming: The first job I can really remember being excited to become was a writer for Automobile magazine. My family owns car dealerships, so I grew up in that world. We always had car magazines and newspapers around my father’s house, which I grew up reading. And that lofty world of driving exotic cars in even more exotic locales was attractive to the 12-year-old me. It was this dream that prompted me to study magazine writing in college, where I also was first exposed to new media. New media has won out so far, but my dream of driving a BMW on the Autobahn still remains.

What’s the most low-tech thing you’ve done this week? Nothing this week, but I will till my vegetable garden soon using my neighbor’s ancient tilling wheel. It’s the very definition of manual labor, but after too much time connected to the digital world, forging a connection to the earth in my backyard strikes the perfect balance.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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