Europe might have it right.
There has been lots of discussion on the death of newspapers since news content has been made available in new media, but most thoughts about saving the newspaper industry consist of cost-cutting ideas (reducing the physical size of the newspaper, etc). One thing that isn’t really taken into account is reader satisfaction in regards to smartly marrying the content of the newspaper and its design. The Society for News Design chose 4 newspapers to win its 28th edition of the World’s Best-Designed, none of which were American papers. Maybe, instead of focusing on cutting costs, American Newspapers should focus on merging design and content, and creating a visually more appealing newspaper (Think Al Ries’ Retailers Make Same Marketing Mistake as Airlines). While having a nicely designed paper won’t save the newspaper industry, it is certainly a start in the right direction of focusing on improving and moving-forward.
Thoughts?
March 18th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I definitely agree with you regarding content and design. As the web houses torrents of unreliable information sources, newspapers have the ability to use their brand in building trust with users. I like to point to the New York Times as a great paper that has, in my NY-biased opinion, really done the best job in terms of evolving with the times. Their brand is known for its reliability, and their website is built to serve up content anyway requested. And by mixing their traditional articles with podcasts, videos, blogs entries, and collaborative sharing - they can justify their paid services.
For the paper concerned with cutting costs, the same technology that they fear can be leveraged to make the paper much stronger. It’s up to the managment to see that the right moves be made, and like in every other industry it’s adapt-or-die.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Newspapers are struggling with their subscription base mostly because our generation is not reading. As much as I admire certain newspapers and simply do not take the time to sit down and read them. This has nothing to do with the way they are designed. Rather, more accessible and up-to-date sources are available (i.e. the Internet).
Sure, having a well designed newspaper would be nice. But only for those that are already reading the newspaper. A new design is not going to prompt me (or other non-readers) to call up and subscribe.
As JoeW mentioned above, newspapers need to utilize technology to integrate new media with their traditional content. This is how they will attract a generation that expects more from their news source.