What The Ideal Newspaper Would Look Like
Richard J. Tofel is the author of
oryankim: Here's my weekend think piece: Ambient video and the changing face of communication http://t.co/erOg2191
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Well, gee.. that sounds a lot like USA TODAY, right?
wait until he sees rakedin.com. this site is really pushing the envelope
No, not at all like USA TODAY! Read the piece again. He's proposing that newspapers to concentrate it's valuable resources to producing reads with more depth, "…analytical, interpretive and distinctive". USA TODAY hardly fits that description. Newspapers can never compete with the internet for news of record or with television for breaking news announcements, but with the years of credibility many papers still enjoy, they can offer perspective and analysis that most blogs and cable talking heads can't. Most reporters would rather focus their time on this anyway. Fewer pages would be an acknowledgement of reality. Either manage that reality on your own terms or continue to allow technology dwindling readership do it for you.
I do agree that shortening the length of newspapers, while improving the quality would help increase the success of print media. However, I also believe it would be extremely wise for newspapers to focus more on how to monetize online content rather than fret over the decline in the popularity of print news.
Journalists have the ability to produce great content. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo love to rank great content. So why not train journalists on how to write search engine friendly articles for high traffic key phrases regarding relevant and timely events and thereby vastly increasing the volume of traffic to your site. Then use that to increase advertising revenue.
As for the closing remark about readers wanting to use today's events to make better decisions for tomorrow, I believe it is a brilliant concept, but easier said then done. Using contemporary events and historical data to figure out a likely trend for the future is a skill that not all journalists have and no one can get this technique right 100 percent of the time.
Great article – thanks. Newspapers must focus on their strengths to survive. Print does long-form, analytical content better than the web, but breaking news has been a web-native content form for years now. One question though… if a newspaper cuts news, and focuses more on opinion and analysis, and on creating a print experience, what then is the difference between a newspaper and a magazine?
Andrew– Your question is spot-on, but I think the answer is that the differences between newspapers and magazines have been blurring for a long time, and need to continue to do so. The Journal, for instance, has long competed primarily with magazines for advertising. Thinking abut the print newspaper of the medium-term future as a daily magazine may actually be helpful in conceptualizing this.
Do you think that modern newspapers don't follow your and Kilgore's guidelines? I think they do, however they are dying like dinosaurs. Hope I will see here your thoughts about transition from print to online, and the business model for online itself.
To answer Eldar, newspapers are doing a bad job of it. We are loathe to give up being the “newspaper of record” in print. We print all kinds of stories written like breaking news or straight news stories without analysis built in. We run daily game stories that nobody cares much about anymore. I’d say half the content is not “second-day content.” We even run incrementally developing stories day after day after day, rehashing all of the background each time. Talk about a time waste and resource waste and waste of print!