In its quest to monetize its websites, MediaNews Group’s California Newspapers Partnership (Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, etc.) has named a new vice president for interactive. Jeff Herr, who appears in the You Tube video above, comes to CNP from Lee Enterprises, where he has been corporate director of interactive media for the past seven years.

According to his bio at Lee Enterprises, Herr began his career in 1985 as a newspaper reporter and editor covering business, politics and state and federal government, working for the Arizona Daily Star and other metropolitan newspapers in the West. In 1994 he began his Internet career with an online international trade law service and newsletter. In 1995 he joined Paul Allen’s Internet company, Starwave, working through 1999 on major sites including ABCNews.com, ESPN.com, Outside Online, and TheStreet.com. In 1999 he returned to Arizona to develop a suite of Internet-based financial calculators and tools that were licensed to more than 100 of the largest banks in the United States.

In the You Tube, he talks about the “Smart Phones for Smart Journalists” workshop sponsored by the Online News Association and the Freedom Forum on April 9, 2010 in Nashville, Tenn.