I’m on record as not being impressed by the Orlando Sentinel print edition redesign. There’s the issue of where to put the reinvention resources, first; I believe the Sentinel should be focusing foremost on digital strategy, and not putting too much faith in a print redesign saving the company. But I also don’t think the Sentinel print redesign isn’t truly as “radical” as it’s been touted to be by Tribune executives.
Not so with the upcoming redesign of the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. (Both papers are owned by the beleaguered Tribune Co.) Thanks to designer Charles Apple, we get a preview of the front-page mock-ups from his blog.
While I still think that a print redesign is not going to save any newspaper from further declines, a good one could slow down the erosion in print readership and ad revenues. If it’s perceived as helping spearhead an improvement in quality, older readers might stick around longer before transitioning to digital, as have most younger people.
Of course, we’re only seeing the front page. I have my doubts that on a day to day basis, the SenSentinel staff can keep up that level of front-page flash; and I doubt that everything inside will look so radically different. Still, this one looks promising. The full redesign debuts this Sunday.
And y’know, this is turning out to be a great time to be a staff newspaper designer — assuming that you haven’t been laid off already. Those folks are being allowed to let their talents flow, which is something that the conservative nature of newspaper publishing has stifled historically, allowing only smaller incremental changes. It’s good to see the designers having some fun.
I’ve been reading the classic science fiction novel Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, to my youngest daughter. It’s one of my favorite sci-fi books and I’m enjoying re-reading it. Here’s a quick synopsis from Wikipedia:
“Ender’s Game (1985) is one of the best-known novels by Orson Scott Card. It is set in Earth’s future where mankind has barely survived two invasions by the ‘buggers,’ an insectoid alien race, and the International Fleet is preparing for war. In order to find and train the eventual commander for the anticipated third invasion, the world’s most talented children, including the extraordinary Ender Wiggin, are taken into a training center known as the Battle School at a very young age.”
While Ender is the main subject of the book, his brother, Peter, and sister, Valentine, also play a role back on Earth. (All are child geniuses.) A sub-plot has Peter and Valentine pretending to be adults on “the nets” and posing as intellectuals capable of influencing masses of people. In Card’s world (the year is 2135), the great debates of the day take place on the nets.
While there’s plenty of time for Internet discussions to turn around, I suppose, I can’t help but think that Card wasn’t terribly prescient with this prediction. In Ender’s Game, “the nets” are democratic and participative — anyone can join them, as long as they have the intellect to keep up — but there’s no problem with too much noise, trolls, spammers, and plain old stupidity.
Maybe Card was looking well beyond 2008 with his prediction of worldwide networked discussions being meaningful and orderly. Perhaps by 2135 we’ll have really good spam filters. But from the vantage point of 2008, it’s hard to imagine the author’s optimism about online digital discourse playing out.
Earlier this afternoon I tossed off a Twitter post that needs more than 140 characters to explain what I’m thinking. … What raised my disgust was this memo posted on Romenesko by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s managing editor, explaining a new policy to stop posting “signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts” on the Philly.com website first. (Breaking news still goes to the website right away.)
OK, I understand the thinking: The print product is suffering and this is a way to give it an edge — to encourage people to think that there’s some good stuff that you’ll get first by sticking with print.
But this is an argument that has been decided (or so I thought), so it’s disheartening to see a major newspaper go backward.
Jeff Jarvis said it nicely and succinctly in a Twitter post: “Insanely, suicidally stupid. If we keep out the gas stations, we’ll force them to ride horses, damnit.”
What’s long held back the newspaper industry and gotten it in the current mess has been holding back online innovation that might impact the legacy product (print). The kind of serious innovation that might have avoided the turmoil we’re now seeing among newspapers (especially larger metros like the Inquirer) could only take place with an attitude of “Let’s completely forget about the print edition and just try to build the best damn online service possible.”
But the industry didn’t do that, for the most part, instead settling for incremental innovation that wouldn’t upset things too much on the legacy side. That’s exactly the thinking that’s in this Inquirer memo.
It’s in wiki format, and I’m asking your help in writing it.
Read about it in more detail over there, but briefly it’s in response to Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt’s public fretting about the state of newspapers and investigative journalism, and his suggestion that Google has a “moral imperative” to help figure out a new advertising model that will support important watchdog and investigative journalism.
If Google is willing to help, then the newspaper industry should take Schmidt up on that.
Here’s a video from AdAge.com of Schmidt sounding the alarm bell:
There’s been plenty of fretting in journalism circles this week about comment threads on news stories. My position: Don’t publish without them, but figure out ways to keep the conversation civil and ban the trolls.
The website of my local newspaper, the Boulder Daily Camera, has pretty active comment threads, and, predictably, the more bizarre the story, the longer the list of commenters. A story today generated a ton of comments: about a woman athlete cycling with her young son in a child seat who had another cyclist come up to her and grab one of her breasts. She chased the guy down while calling 911 on her cell phone, and police caught the weirdo. Yeah, you know that one is going to generate a lot of discussion.
Skimming through the dozens of comments, I was intrigued to see that the victim joined in the discussion, thanking other commenters for their support. (Many called her brave; a few said she was foolish to put her son at risk by giving chase.) Her participation in the after-publication public commenting added nicely to the story. Sure, some of the other comments were dumb, as always. But this was an example of user comments adding value to the coverage.
Dan Pacheco and the Bakersfield Californian have an intriguing project (funded by the Knight Foundation) called Printcasting. It’s a niche publication initiative that works in both print and online, and addresses “long tail” content and advertising. (OK, that description sounds a bit dull, but it’s a cool concept.)
For my ReinventingClassifieds.com site, I’ve written up a little piece about the implications for classifieds that Printcasting represents. If you’re a media geek like me, you may find it interesting:
Interesting story on NPR’s All Things Considered this evening: “Libraries Shine In Tough Economic Times.” It’s about how in these economic tough times — with families and individuals struggling with high energy prices and resulting high everything-else prices — people are cutting back on non-essentials like buying books and subscribing to newspapers and magazines. They’re going to the library instead to read the paper and check out books, instead of buying.
Yes, it’s the perfect storm for the newspaper industry. They’d be hurting from the structural change going on in media consumption even with a good economy. Add the sucky economy and this likely puts some newspapers at the brink.
My wife, by the way, is back in school to become a (school) librarian. At least I know she’s going into a field that’s in demand!
My daughter Lauren (age 10) took a web cartooning class this week, and this is her final project. So here’s a little levity to add to this usually serious blog.
But from the vantage point of 2008, it’s hard to imagine the author’s optimism about online digital discourse playing out.
