Design

Created by the artist with an iPhone painting app.

Jay Small, writing on his Small Initiatives blog, comments on my latest Editor & Publisher Online column about how to smartly redesign print editions of newspapers.

One of the key points in my column is that newspapers need to provide MANY more refers and pointers to online and mobile content, in an effort to guide older print readers to a better future of reading print and consuming digital news content together.

Jay, who overall gave my advice a thumbs up, added a key tip that I overlooked:

“I would add one thing: If loyal print readers trend older, promote the online features older people would be most likely to use. E-mail, for example, remains in heavy use among older Internet populations. So rather than steering people to a Web site for breaking news updates, consider pushing them toward sign-ups for e-mail alerts.”

Absolutely. That’s smart.

Here’s my latest Editor & Publisher Online column, posted today: “Don’t Redesign the Print Edition to Ensure Failure.”

It’s an opinion piece about how the wave of print-edition redesigns by the newspaper industry is largely missing the boat.

Publishers need to focus on their core older audience when it comes to the print edition, and stop fruitlessly redesigning with the goal of attracting younger people to start reading the newspaper in paper form. And they must guide their older readers to digital offerings that supplement the thinning print product, rather than expecting them to continue to read print forever even as the quality of the product received continues going downhill.

Otherwise, look for printed newspapers to slide even faster than they have been.

The Boston Globe introduced a modest redesign of its print edition today. It’s nowhere near as dramatic as the recent redesigns by Tribune Co. papers, so the paper still looks like itself.

Kudos to whoever wrote the redesign FAQ. Sure, there’s the predictable “we’re improving the paper for YOU!” wording, but it’s also tempered with acknowledgments that, yes, some things are getting cut because we have to save money because, as you know, the newspaper industry is in real trouble. My impression reading Tribune Co. redesign announcements was that those admissions were mostly left out in favor of the “we’re putting new lipstick on the pig!” model of PR.

And here’s something smart that I noticed in the Globe’s FAQ:

“The font size for the entire paper was also increased slightly. We believe these changes will help improve the readability of the Globe.”

Very smart. Let’s acknowledge that readers who are sticking with print editions of newspapers are older. Increasing the font size to reflect that is a logical adjustment. (Of course, typography experts will say that it’s possible to monkey with font selection and x-heights to make body type more readable without actually increasing the font size.)

I’m a bigger fan of the Globe’s redesign than the flashier Tribune Co. ones, because the Globe appears to be going for improving quality and attractiveness that will keep its existing print readers around, while the Trib redesigns appear to be seeking to attract more younger readers to print (which I consider to be a fool’s errand).

Here’s a little prediction that’s been spinning around my head lately. I’ll release it here on my blog to leave room in there for something else.

As newspapers (especially the larger metros, which face the worst declines) continue to lose staff, lose ad revenues, and in general get lower in quality, their loyal older readers will get fed up. Flashy designs (like those at Tribune Co. papers) will be seen as merely masking the decline of the product, and we’ll see newspapers’ core older audience of print readers and subscribers flee in significant numbers.

Of course, that demographic (I’m talking mostly about over-45) will still want news, but the quality decline of print newspapers will force them to look elsewhere. The decimation of print editions will move older news consumers — many of whom have resisted the siren call of digital news — to adapt to the digital media lifestyle, at last.

Newspaper companies of course will have the opportunity to retain these older readers. But they’ll need to put most of their resources into improving digital news delivery and innovating further there, rather than focusing majority effort on modernizing the print edition.

I’d love to get the reaction of Tribune Co. folks to this prediction, since they seem to be investing so much into resurrecting their print franchises. (We haven’t heard as much about Tribune’s digital innovations, so I’m curious to learn more about their thinking there.)

What do you think? Am I being too pessimistic? Or do you think this is how the newspaper situation will play out in the next year or two?

A colleague at the Chicago Tribune was kind enough to send me a few print copies of the newly redesigned paper. I’ve looked over many editions online, using both PressDisplay.com and the Chicago Tribune Electronic Edition for digital replicas of the print pages. But that online viewing just isn’t the same thing as what Chicago readers who still pick up the print edition see.

My first impression at seeing the physical product: No doubt it’s a nice design, put together by a team of talented designers and editors. But I don’t find it to be, as advertised, all that “radical” or “revolutionary.” It’s more like taking a couple steps along the evolutionary ladder for newspapers.

But here’s the big thing that struck me: Here’s this nice design, with lots of fancy graphics, layout tricks, and color … but the whole things looks dull and flat, because it’s on dingy newsprint, and the ink coverage isn’t particularly bright. Despite all that excellent work, the paper still looks like something out of the past because of the printing and paper quality!

Perhaps I’m just so used to seeing sharp and colorful content on my computer screen, and of course on the print magazines I still read, that the newness of the redesign on top of thin, grayish newsprint was a disconnect.

I don’t have a good solution for this, frankly. I’m sure than improving the quality of the paper and increasing the ink brightness are costly tweaks that the floundering Tribune Co. isn’t eager to institute. But for a “reinvented” newspaper that’s supposed to represent 2008 and beyond, it looks to me more like the 1980s.

What do others who’ve seen the physical Tribune since the redesign debuted think?

I’ve been thinking more about the Tribune Co.’s “radical” print newspaper redesigns, which started with its Orlando Sentinel last Sunday. I’ve checked out the print edition each day this week.

Overall, my impressions are big-time negative — not so much from a how-it-looks perspective (the design is nice enough), but rather from a corporate strategy perspective.

1. It’s not that radical of a redesign. I wrote last week after viewing the online preview of the print redesign that it didn’t seem that much different from a USA Today-like revamping. After looking over its pages this week, I just can’t see that this is something that is going to “save” printed newspapers. It’s hardly a “reinvention” of the print medium.
2. It’s not going to win over younger people. To the Internet-savvy young person for whom newspapers are another generation’s relic media, this revamping of the printed newspaper won’t even register. Instead, the abrupt change in how the paper looks will annoy established readers who still value the print edition. My prediction: 6 months from now the Sentinel will have fewer print subscribers.
3. The redesign is flash disguising editorial cutbacks. I get a strong sense from this redesign that it is an attempt to win over people with short, Internet-fueled attention spans by using flash and splash to cover up the fact that there’s less to the paper. It feels like a TV or radio mentality applied to newspapers, and it won’t work, IMHO. Look at the negative reactions in Hartford, Connecticut from readers who are hearing about Tribune owner Sam Zell’s instructions to the Courant’s publisher to reduce editorial content to a 50/50 editorial/ad split. The redesign in Orlando is meant to cover that up (Zell’s edict applies in Orlando, too), but I’m confident that Orlandoans will see this as a ploy and reject it.
4. The redesign goes in the wrong direction. I think Zell is misguided to think that putting a corporate team of TV and radio people in charge of reinventing the company’s printed newspapers is the way to go. They seem to be steering it to in-your-face visuals and make-it-shorter articles. But people still willing to read printed papers tend to be older and more thoughtful, so that’s the wrong direction. Orlando’s paper would do better to aim for New York Times instead of New York Post.
5. Redesigning print won’t save the company. This is the key point. A good, smart print redesign could go far in retaining existing readers who like reading on paper; it will hold on to them a bit longer. (A badly conceived one, as I view Orlando’s, will result in readers fleeing.) But a redesign is not going to bring new readers to print. The Tribune Co. needs to put all its creativity and crazy ideas into Internet strategy, which is what is going to save the company.

One reason for my sense of Tribune Co. doom is employee morale, which must be pretty low right now. An indicator of that is this video of a speech by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who insults his Tribune Co. bosses at a Los Angeles Press Club awards event (to hearty laughter from the crowd). I don’t know how an effective turnaround is going to happen in an atmosphere of employee disdain and disrespect for company leaders. (If I’m wrong on this, perhaps some folks inside Tribune newspapers will set me straight.)

My prediction: Zell, famous for his expletives, will be doing a lot more cursing before Tribune starts to go down in flames after not making its debt payments within the next year or two.

This Sunday, the Orlando Sentinel will debut a significant redesign of the print edition (prompted, of course, by Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell’s company-wide call to go crazy and reinvent newspapers). While I’m writing this in advance of seeing the actual paper, there is a nice multimedia presentation that shows what’s coming. So I’m commenting on what’s being shown there.

The Orlando Sentinel’s new design debuts on Sunday.

This feels very much like the introduction of USA Today so many years ago. Lots of the innovations feel the same: Let’s assume that readers don’t have much of an attention span and that we have to hit them over the head with a 2×4. Shorter. Punchier. Flashier. Perkier writing. Big photos and art. Bigger and better digests showing what’s inside.

What’s new here that USA Today didn’t do years ago? Bringing in more outside voices — reader comments, bloggers — is the main difference I spotted. Am I missing anything?

Personally, I think I’d prefer this newly designed paper over an older and more traditionally designed one. I’m not one who gets freaked out by drastic overnight changes in my media. But I wonder if older readers who still cling to reading print editions will freak out, and feel like the new paper is dumbed down (despite the editor’s assurance that it’s not).

It feels like the redesign is aimed at getting more younger readers. OK, that’s a rational goal. But I don’t think that’s achievable, because printed newspapers are simply not the medium of choice for today’s younger generation.

What I fear may happen is that this radical redesign will not attract significant numbers of new young readers. Rather, it will turn off the loyalists who still buy the print edition.

OK, that was rather negative. How about a more positive comment?

First off, I’ve been immersed in online for a long time; I left my last print newspaper job in late 1993. I’m not a big believer anymore in print newspapers, and I think they’ll continue to slowly wind down as the masses switch to digital and mobile means of consuming news. So from my (admittedly not mainstream) view, trying to improve the printed newspaper is a bit of a “putting lipstick on a pig” exercise. (Hmm… I’m still being pretty negative. )

If Zell wants his newspapers to truly innovate, perhaps he should get his people to do something truly innovative. (Flashy print redesigns don’t strike me as the best use of innovators’ brain cells. That’s not to say that they’re without merit; on the contrary, I think they are of value. I did spend several years working in a newspaper art department, and have affection for and appreciation of the value of newspaper design. No, I just think there are bigger fish to fry, and most of it involves figuring out a new business model for online and mobile, not trying to gussy up the print edition.)

I see a couple key issues that newspaper companies need to address: 1. news-on-demand, and 2. personalization. Print editions are anything but news-on-demand, so we can strike that; you can’t pick up a newspaper and go read or view something that’s not already on the printed page.

Personalization of the print edition, on the other hand, may be a good area to innovate. Next Thursday and Friday I’m attending the Conference on the Individuated Newspaper, which is being hosted by the folks at Denver-based MediaNews Group. The event’s focus is not just online but also on individualizing print editions, in recognition of printing technology advances that make it feasible. Perhaps some interesting ideas will come out of that, and I’ll share them.

I’m sure I’ll write in more depth after the conference, but just to give you an idea of what’s coming, think about a newspaper with a personalized section (or wrapper) that contains news happening in your neighborhood — which could be from sources beyond just the newspaper staff (local bloggers, school websites, etc.) — and that matches your recorded preferences (sports teams you like, specific industry news, etc.). That’s all stuff that you can do “fairly easily” online. True innovation offline would be adding some of this to the print edition.

I’m less of a print fan than many in the newspaper industry, but if I were to steer some of my thinking to print again, I wouldn’t expect even an excellent redesign to do much more than pretty up that pig.

On this blog (and many others), if you post a comment your personal avatar will automatically accompany your comment — assuming that you have an avatar assigned to your e-mail address using either Gravatar or MyBlogLog (both free services).

Many of you have yet to assign yourselves avatars. These can be comic characters (as I use) or graphic illustrations, or photos (of yourself or some object). So how about it? I’d love to see more photos and illustrations accompanying your comments!

(And I have some personal interest in this, since one of the projects I’m working on will let people create personal avatars. That’s not ready yet, but there are plenty of other options for creating avatars of yourself; or just use a photo.)

This is a great quote, by Dan Gillmor (via a Twitter post by Dan Pacheco):

OK, perhaps the second sentence is paraphrased, but I really like it. “‘Dog bites man’ is newsworthy if you know the man, or dog,” so nicely sums up what I’ve been thinking for some time about what many have termed “hyper-local” journalism.

Yes, dog bites man, or 5th-grader hits winning home run, or woman wins teacher of the year award at Smith Elementary are boring items to nearly everyone — but not to the people involved and the people who know them. For the latter group, it’s important stuff.

We now have the technology available online (and for mobile devices) to deliver that boring-to-everyone-but-me stuff to the right people. We don’t need to produce a weekly give-away print product filled with boring dog-bites-man stuff, because we can deliver it to the people for whom it’s important, interesting, and vital — and not bore everyone else.

To critics of hyper-local news or “citizen journalism,” I will argue that it can be powerful stuff when and only when it’s targeted well. I can envision a future — and I look forward to it — when services are available to send me news on my smartphone letting me know that the guy down the street got bit by a dog.