It has been a sad week in journalism. It was really no surprise, but still a sting when the Seattle P-I ran it's presses for the last time. The P-I's excelling alternative story-telling and creative "big type" designs always inspired my work. In fact, my Idaho Press Club 1st Place award winning design was inspired by a P-I headline format. It's stark crisp white and bold black look also gave me a lot of great ideas for the Daily Evergreen's redesign in 2006.
At the same time many of us at McClatchy newspapers waited on the edge of our seats to hear how as 15 percent cut in workforce would break down at the individual newspapers. The ADN let 47 go Thursday (nearly a fifth of it's workforce) and gave pay cuts to most remaining staff members. The Idaho Statesman laid off 25. Many other McClatchy newspapers announced their cuts the same day.
More sadness:
"Freedom Communications to implement one-week furloughs"-- Editor & Publisher
"And then there were nine: 'News-Gazette' to stop all day publication" E&P
Hopefully we'll pick ourselves up and innovate our way out of this mess.
4 comments:
It has been said the driving innovator of the Internet age has been the pornography industry. Some say the scurge of the earth. If the world would have waited for newspapers to lead the charge of the information age, we would still be using teletype machines and printing color separations with the LeafDesk . . .
Unfortunately, the lack of innovation is what lead newspapers into this mess. We thought "the rail" and the "quick read" were going to bring readers in, by the droves. Mid-sized and smaller papers waited for the large "mother" papers to lead them by example to prosperity. Any "innovation" by an individual newspaper was held close to the chest, as if a top secret. Company newspapers within the same state or geographic area conducted business as bitter enemies. Even though their stated goals were the same. NandOnet was one of the first news organizations on Internet. It no longer exists . . . Seeing a bandwagon and jumping on is different than building your own bandwagon. News organizations, including non- newspapers, have a WORLDWIDE network that is utterly and totally underutilized to bring individuals the information we promised. We have failed.
Page Designer - News ('98-'08)
News & Observer, Raleigh, NC
Office politics, good ol' boy networks and corporate greed worked together to strangle the life out of newspapers, also. Newspapers have been fleecing their employees for years. At 20+% profit margins, newspapers could have inspired innovation by showing true concern for the work of the rank and file, the ones doing the heavy lifting. The NEWS, for years, has not been the end to the means. Newspapers, long ago, lost the original vision. One would be hard pressed to find someone that has left newspapering with favorable memories of their own end. Newspapers create jaded curmudgeons. In newspapers without unions, newsroom salaries are notoriously below average. To where did the profits go? Newspapers became fat, bloated and complacent. Promotions are given out like Presidential cabinet positions, not by qualifications. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
It is not here to pretend to have answers. But in the end, "newspapers" in the future can not be run as they have been in the recent past.
This was written last year for a "The Future of Newspaper" contest, but was submitted. I submit, here, lest no one claim I am only pointing my finger and lamenting the past:
The Future of Newspapers
Newspapers of the future will not be so much a change in product as it will be a change in attitude throughout the industry. Being forced from the Throne of Complacent Monopolies into the Scramble Pit of Commodities, newspapers will come to realize that for a company to make money, one must spend money. It will come to bear that branding, innovation and customer service will be the key to survival, expansion and dictate the business model of The Newspaper of the Future. Today's newspapers and it's methods of gathering and distributing news will become a new, renamed concept, rather than one, singular physical product. The entire news industry will realize the strength in numbers and converge to form a union, The Syndicate, will be the collector of all information (past/present/future) which will be available to all people by utilizing all mediums (Television, PDA, print). The total collection of all information gathered will be OmniPedia. As newspapers, in the past, have focused on the presentation of world, national and/or community news. Omnipedia will subplant that concept be providing information, intuitively, that is relevant to an individual within any one particular moment. The Syndicate will move beyond providing the one singular product that is "news" and diversify by entering the retail/commercial/production markets that are utilized in order to provide all information to all people by all mediums. Accomplishing this by producing and retailing digital devices, among other information-bearing products, utilized to receive information transmitted from OmniPedia®. The Syndicate will be the controller of all end-to-end supply chains for which all OmniPedia® products and services are created. For example, servers, networks and hubs used to distribute information from OmniPedia will be created and run by The Syndicate.
As opposed to connecting to an "internet" through a single location, such as home or work, individuals will be assigned a portion of OmniPedia® to be their personalized Always-On Geo Wi-Fi Network™. OmniPedia® will learn from direct customization as well as previous interactions in order to provide custom, direct information flow. All digital devices, will seamlessly interact, and be able to receive any information at all times. For all information will be automatically formatted for the device that is receiving. And, since information is gathered from one singular entity, no upload and transferring of information will be necessary. For example, someone enrolled in college Architecture courses will be, automatically, provided with information, potentially with RFID, about buildings that person encounters throughout the day. Whether they are carrying their laptop, PDA or cell phone. Since all information is delivered from one "point," For those that prefer to not constantly wield digital devices, information kiosks will be provided throughout cities for inpromtu information gathering.
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