10 ms·

Can design save the newspaper?

38 points by makimaki 18y ago

tjic 18y ago
Can interpretive dance save NASA?
- sho 18y ago
  That was unfairly modded down IMO. TED is great in its way, but it caters to, some would say flatters, an elite crowd of people - the type who buy expensive artwork for their houses - some of the stuff proposed there might sound great to the chardonnay-class participants but has little relevance in the real world. Can design save the newspaper? Of course not, and merely raising the question with a straight face impressively demonstrates the out-of-touch, ivory tower, art-gallery-opening-attending disconnect of the speaker. Such a question is, in my opinion, at least as prima facie ridiculous as posing that interpretive dance might save NASA, so the parent's comment is an entirely valid reductio ad absurdum.
  - h34t 18y ago
    In what way is the speaker out-of-touch? He has personally overseen circulation improvements of ~ 30 - 100% in the newspapers he has redesigned. "Design" in this sense goes far beyond "graphic embellishment" and is actually about changing the entire product/company involved -- and thus very relevant to the future of newspapers. A few quotes from his speech: "It was my personal, intimate challenge to talk to the readers." "the changes we made were not about changing the look, it was about changing the product completely" "my bosses wondered, why is he asking all these business questions, why is he not showing us pages? This is the new role of the designer, to be in this process from the beginning to end."
  - Gompers 18y ago
    From the presentation: "Did design do this? No. Not alone." Mr. Utko recognizes that design cannot create a 20 to 100 percent increase in circulation. He isn't claiming that it can. He claims that if you "put your work to the highest possible level," you can pull off changes as successful as his. I agree with your statement about TED, but this does not exemplify the "disconnect" of TED. It's ignorant to claim that his ideas are not relevant in the real world, since they very obviously increased circulation. The most important slide from the presentation showed a Taijitu (yin and yang) diagram and made the following comparison: function is to form as content is to design.
  - notaddicted 18y ago
    The speaker doesn't suggest that design will save the newspaper, he actually says that the series of challenges newspaper printers face would destroy any company. The presentation is about how to do good design, not newspapers.
josefresco 18y ago
In an industry that worships smart engineers this is pretty refreshing. I am biased being a designer but it's still a good watch for you Hackers and also a lesson for the newspaper industry (Hint: death is coming).
- noodle 18y ago
  are you talking about the tech industry? as an engineer/hacker, i think its pretty clear that design is important. its cold, hard facts that people like something that is visually appealing. the issue is, though, that this is a community of hackers, and so we're all mostly poor at artistic design, nor are we particularly interested in it, so we don't talk about it. its definitely interesting, and this meshes well with the community because its a discussion on the numbers of how design works. just my $0.02, though
- andreyf 18y ago
  You must be in a different tech industry. At least where I work, a good designer is highly respected by all of the developers - by doing a good job understanding the customer wants, he makes our lives hell of a lot easier.
kaens 18y ago
I can't watch the video right now, but I do have a question: Why would we want to save the newspaper?
- 0x44 18y ago
  A major demographic in the United States has a significant nostalgic attachment to newspapers as a vehicle for information and as a driver of the public discourse. Losing that could disenfranchise a group of people who still comprise a large portion of public opinion. More importantly, those views might not survive to be digitized if we don't soften the death spiral facing print media, so we all lose out - even if we don't consume archaic forms of information dissemination.
  - CalmQuiet 18y ago
    Shall we similarly have sympathy for the "major demographic" has an attachment to MSIE-6.x... and protect them from needing to upgrade? Or is that an unfair comparison?
    - 0x44 18y ago
      I think that's an incorrect comparison, as IE6 does not directly or indirectly create content and the newspapers do.
    - mechanical_fish 18y ago
      If you could go to a museum and view a five-hundred-year-old version of IE6, people might shed a lot more tears when the last copy was turned off. Newspapers are one of our oldest media. There's an entire infrastructure of mythology built around them that will be difficult to replace overnight. That's one reason why everyone finds it so easy to make glib generalizations like "the death of newspapers will herald a big increase in corruption". This isn't a rational statement. [1] It's a statement of religious faith, akin to the belief that atheists can't make moral judgements because they don't go to church on a regular basis. But, more charitably, and to return to your point: Yeah, we should have at least some sympathy for the people who don't know about Firefox, or can't use it for some reason. The prisoners of corporate IT are people, too. The people who can't understand their Windows box are people, too. And the folks who are losing their jobs in journalism and have no idea what to do next are in legitimate distress. --- [1] I mean, where's the controlled experiment? The last time a case of corruption happened in an era without newspapers was three hundred years ago. Unless you're a really well-read Latin student or a Renaissance historian, every case of corruption you've ever heard of happened in spite of the existence of newspapers. Of course, if you hand-pick the data you can prove any point you like. There have certainly been many heroic acts of journalism. But there have also been many shameful acts of journalism, and one hell of a lot of mediocrity. I'd wager that for every great investigative journalist there have been a hundred mindless stenographers, several dozen shameless toadies, and at least one William Randolph Hearst. And that's without even getting into Pravda or (pace Godwin) Joseph Goebbels.
mrduncan 18y ago
I think the real problem in a lot of cases is that newspapers are trying to be something that they simply can't. They are trying to give you up to the minute news, but logistically you aren't going to receive it until the next day. They simply can't compete with the web for breaking news. Where I think they can win though is with relevant and in-depth reporting on stories which you won't see on the internet (and not just printing half of the AP feed either).
- justindz 18y ago
  Yep. I think they need to come a little late to the table with WAY more substance and to follow scandals a month later with serious indictments. Let the net build the buzz before the big reporting and then spread the news and discussion after the big reporting. A good complement. Decided to follow up on my blog with a vignette: http://justindz.tumblr.com/post/91601837/this-is-sam-he-works-at-the-miami-tortoise http://justindz.tumblr.com/post/91601837/this-is-sam-he-work...
markessien 18y ago
Imagine the web came before the newspaper, and you were an investor. Then someone came to you and pitched you : I'll take the best stuff on the web, print it daily on paper in factories, transport it all over the country in the night, then sell it for the price of a cup of coffee. I'll also hire a bunch of expensive writers to write quality content, and I'll also make that content available for free on the website so as to make people want to buy the paper. Would you invest?
- antiismist 18y ago
  If you watched the video then you'd know that the designer did a great job of integrating the content into the design of the newspaper. It isn't a copy-paste job. There was design and layout and graphics that you just can't do on the web, and he demonstrated that people like it. So if you change the question to, would you invest in a designer who had a track record of boosting circulation by 20-100% in two years time?
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Not if, even with the boost, you're still not breaking even.
  - blhack 18y ago
    Did he call it a magazine?
mhb 18y ago
Donation-funded reporting: http://spot.us/ http://spot.us/
iuguy 18y ago
No.
TweedHeads 18y ago
Newspapers must drop the 'paper' from their name and embrace the web. Profit can come from diferent ways, like ads, classifieds, job boards, obituaries, etc.
petercooper 18y ago
Fancy checking out a PDF conversion of the newspaper that was featured in this video..? I found a copy at http://rapidshare.com/files/142517365/pb.04.09.08.pdf http://rapidshare.com/files/142517365/pb.04.09.08.pdf - I'd mirror it, but even though I'm sure they'd love for people to check out their newspaper, it's just too risky legally.
misuba 18y ago
It's been a few weeks now since the Seattle P-I went web only. Anyone else notice how there were lots of news stories about that change, and now nothing? Reporters aren't even interested. They just believe that going to the web equals death.
halo 18y ago
No. British broadsheet The Guardian had a high-profile redesign in 2005 which shifted the newspaper away from the traditional broadsheet into a full-colour Berliner, and soon after the paper won multiple design awards and their circulation has increased while the rest of the industry has contracted. However, the devil is in the details: the newspaper has continued to make large operating losses (£26.4m this year compared to £15.9m last) and continues to be propped up by other businesses in the group.

38 points by makimaki 18y ago

tjic 18y ago

Can interpretive dance save NASA?

sho 18y ago
That was unfairly modded down IMO. TED is great in its way, but it caters to, some would say flatters, an elite crowd of people - the type who buy expensive artwork for their houses - some of the stuff proposed there might sound great to the chardonnay-class participants but has little relevance in the real world. Can design save the newspaper? Of course not, and merely raising the question with a straight face impressively demonstrates the out-of-touch, ivory tower, art-gallery-opening-attending disconnect of the speaker. Such a question is, in my opinion, at least as prima facie ridiculous as posing that interpretive dance might save NASA, so the parent's comment is an entirely valid reductio ad absurdum.
- h34t 18y ago
  In what way is the speaker out-of-touch? He has personally overseen circulation improvements of ~ 30 - 100% in the newspapers he has redesigned. "Design" in this sense goes far beyond "graphic embellishment" and is actually about changing the entire product/company involved -- and thus very relevant to the future of newspapers. A few quotes from his speech: "It was my personal, intimate challenge to talk to the readers." "the changes we made were not about changing the look, it was about changing the product completely" "my bosses wondered, why is he asking all these business questions, why is he not showing us pages? This is the new role of the designer, to be in this process from the beginning to end."
- Gompers 18y ago
  From the presentation: "Did design do this? No. Not alone." Mr. Utko recognizes that design cannot create a 20 to 100 percent increase in circulation. He isn't claiming that it can. He claims that if you "put your work to the highest possible level," you can pull off changes as successful as his. I agree with your statement about TED, but this does not exemplify the "disconnect" of TED. It's ignorant to claim that his ideas are not relevant in the real world, since they very obviously increased circulation. The most important slide from the presentation showed a Taijitu (yin and yang) diagram and made the following comparison: function is to form as content is to design.
- notaddicted 18y ago
  The speaker doesn't suggest that design will save the newspaper, he actually says that the series of challenges newspaper printers face would destroy any company. The presentation is about how to do good design, not newspapers.

josefresco 18y ago

In an industry that worships smart engineers this is pretty refreshing. I am biased being a designer but it's still a good watch for you Hackers and also a lesson for the newspaper industry (Hint: death is coming).

noodle 18y ago
are you talking about the tech industry? as an engineer/hacker, i think its pretty clear that design is important. its cold, hard facts that people like something that is visually appealing. the issue is, though, that this is a community of hackers, and so we're all mostly poor at artistic design, nor are we particularly interested in it, so we don't talk about it. its definitely interesting, and this meshes well with the community because its a discussion on the numbers of how design works. just my $0.02, though
andreyf 18y ago
You must be in a different tech industry. At least where I work, a good designer is highly respected by all of the developers - by doing a good job understanding the customer wants, he makes our lives hell of a lot easier.

kaens 18y ago

I can't watch the video right now, but I do have a question: Why would we want to save the newspaper?

0x44 18y ago
A major demographic in the United States has a significant nostalgic attachment to newspapers as a vehicle for information and as a driver of the public discourse. Losing that could disenfranchise a group of people who still comprise a large portion of public opinion. More importantly, those views might not survive to be digitized if we don't soften the death spiral facing print media, so we all lose out - even if we don't consume archaic forms of information dissemination.
- CalmQuiet 18y ago
  Shall we similarly have sympathy for the "major demographic" has an attachment to MSIE-6.x... and protect them from needing to upgrade? Or is that an unfair comparison?
  - 0x44 18y ago
    I think that's an incorrect comparison, as IE6 does not directly or indirectly create content and the newspapers do.
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    If you could go to a museum and view a five-hundred-year-old version of IE6, people might shed a lot more tears when the last copy was turned off. Newspapers are one of our oldest media. There's an entire infrastructure of mythology built around them that will be difficult to replace overnight. That's one reason why everyone finds it so easy to make glib generalizations like "the death of newspapers will herald a big increase in corruption". This isn't a rational statement. [1] It's a statement of religious faith, akin to the belief that atheists can't make moral judgements because they don't go to church on a regular basis. But, more charitably, and to return to your point: Yeah, we should have at least some sympathy for the people who don't know about Firefox, or can't use it for some reason. The prisoners of corporate IT are people, too. The people who can't understand their Windows box are people, too. And the folks who are losing their jobs in journalism and have no idea what to do next are in legitimate distress. --- [1] I mean, where's the controlled experiment? The last time a case of corruption happened in an era without newspapers was three hundred years ago. Unless you're a really well-read Latin student or a Renaissance historian, every case of corruption you've ever heard of happened in spite of the existence of newspapers. Of course, if you hand-pick the data you can prove any point you like. There have certainly been many heroic acts of journalism. But there have also been many shameful acts of journalism, and one hell of a lot of mediocrity. I'd wager that for every great investigative journalist there have been a hundred mindless stenographers, several dozen shameless toadies, and at least one William Randolph Hearst. And that's without even getting into Pravda or (pace Godwin) Joseph Goebbels.

mrduncan 18y ago

I think the real problem in a lot of cases is that newspapers are trying to be something that they simply can't. They are trying to give you up to the minute news, but logistically you aren't going to receive it until the next day. They simply can't compete with the web for breaking news. Where I think they can win though is with relevant and in-depth reporting on stories which you won't see on the internet (and not just printing half of the AP feed either).

justindz 18y ago
Yep. I think they need to come a little late to the table with WAY more substance and to follow scandals a month later with serious indictments. Let the net build the buzz before the big reporting and then spread the news and discussion after the big reporting. A good complement. Decided to follow up on my blog with a vignette: http://justindz.tumblr.com/post/91601837/this-is-sam-he-works-at-the-miami-tortoise http://justindz.tumblr.com/post/91601837/this-is-sam-he-work...

markessien 18y ago

Imagine the web came before the newspaper, and you were an investor. Then someone came to you and pitched you : I'll take the best stuff on the web, print it daily on paper in factories, transport it all over the country in the night, then sell it for the price of a cup of coffee. I'll also hire a bunch of expensive writers to write quality content, and I'll also make that content available for free on the website so as to make people want to buy the paper. Would you invest?

antiismist 18y ago
If you watched the video then you'd know that the designer did a great job of integrating the content into the design of the newspaper. It isn't a copy-paste job. There was design and layout and graphics that you just can't do on the web, and he demonstrated that people like it. So if you change the question to, would you invest in a designer who had a track record of boosting circulation by 20-100% in two years time?
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Not if, even with the boost, you're still not breaking even.
- blhack 18y ago
  Did he call it a magazine?

mhb 18y ago

Donation-funded reporting: http://spot.us/ http://spot.us/

iuguy 18y ago

No.

TweedHeads 18y ago

Newspapers must drop the 'paper' from their name and embrace the web. Profit can come from diferent ways, like ads, classifieds, job boards, obituaries, etc.

petercooper 18y ago

Fancy checking out a PDF conversion of the newspaper that was featured in this video..? I found a copy at http://rapidshare.com/files/142517365/pb.04.09.08.pdf http://rapidshare.com/files/142517365/pb.04.09.08.pdf - I'd mirror it, but even though I'm sure they'd love for people to check out their newspaper, it's just too risky legally.

misuba 18y ago

It's been a few weeks now since the Seattle P-I went web only. Anyone else notice how there were lots of news stories about that change, and now nothing? Reporters aren't even interested. They just believe that going to the web equals death.

halo 18y ago

No. British broadsheet The Guardian had a high-profile redesign in 2005 which shifted the newspaper away from the traditional broadsheet into a full-colour Berliner, and soon after the paper won multiple design awards and their circulation has increased while the rest of the industry has contracted. However, the devil is in the details: the newspaper has continued to make large operating losses (£26.4m this year compared to £15.9m last) and continues to be propped up by other businesses in the group.