SND-S | COPENHAGEN | SEPTEMBER 3, 2004 | TONY SUTTON, NDA INC
WHY ARE YOUR
NEWSPAPERS
SO DULL
AND
BORING?
There’s a simple – and logical
– answer. And, if it’s correct,
we can stop right here
and head straight to the bar …
They’re run by dull and boring
people! And Scandinavian
readers are as dull and boring
as the people who make their
newspapers?
A bit harsh? Perhaps, but
here’s a quote that seems
to support that statement …
“What readers want in the
morning is not a heart attack.
They need to know that nothing
has happened – or at least
nothing potentially dangerous.
[Newspaper name] tells
them that in a calm voice,
by keeping the size of
headlines and photos down …
“One format for all occasions.
The front page uses the
same grid, day after day.
Easy to produce, easy to read:
saving the paper money
and the reader time.”
The paper? Metro, the one
with the biggest circulation
in Denmark. And Sweden and
perhaps a few other countries
as well.
The writer? My pal Pelle
Anderson, who said that in his
contribution to a report, Shaping
the Future of the Newspaper,
produced for a recent WAN
conference in Istanbul.
I hope Pelle is not being too
serious when he says readers
need to know that “nothing
has happened” … because I
think we read newspaper’s for the
opposite reason - we want know
what HAS happened
Yes, using the same template
every day does save money and
is faster to produce. But I’m
not sure why readers of Metro
need to save time.
The paper’s exists purely to
occupy a 20-minute ride to work,
time that would probably be
spent staring blankly into space,
pondering the joy of another day
in the same, dull and boring job.
Perhaps readers - half at least -
would prefer a verbal and
visual kick in the pants, a
rush of adrenaline to wake
them up, a strident voice to
engage their brain and make
them think.
I certainly don’t want to read
a summary this morning of
what I saw on the TV news
last night.
If Metro isn’t going to provide
that kick, other papers should
be doing it.
But they aren’t …
Instead I see frightened, paid-for
papers copying the Metro format
… hence the tendency to convert
to tabloid – sorry, compact –
full of quick hits of snippets
of news and recycled showbiz
features, with increasingly
less space devoted to hard news,
analysis and interpretation.
If readers aren’t bored before
they start reading our papers,
they will be by the time
they’ve finished …
But most of the newspapers
I’ve seen in Scandinavia are
easy to read and probably
save the owners money.
2.
TECHNOLOGY
IS NOT
THE ANSWER
Another quote, from a different
presenter at that same Istanbul
conference:
“It is probably possible to build
a simple piece of software which,
if a layout journalist fed in the
relevant data, would instantly
produce the ideal layout …
Templates are the designer’s –
and the news editor’s – best
friend.”
Best friend?
Best friend?
Best friend?
Sure. Just as the introduction
of Macs into the newsroom
was the best friend of the
guys who did the paste-up!
Remember them?
Just as the introduction of
paste-up was the best thing that
happened to the Linotype
operators! Remember them?
Let’s get things into perspective
– the day someone produces
a layout machine, we can
begin the countdown to
extinction for 90% of our
sub-editors and designers.
Publisher’s best friend?
Certainly. It’ll be a great day
for managers and accountants
who - like their brothers in
every other industry - would
welcome the opportunity
to remove as many bodies
from their operation as they
can. Then they can concentrate
on improving their return
to shareholders.
Vive la Template 1
Vive la Template 2
Vive la Template 3
Vive la Template 4
These templated front pages are
neat and attractive; one of them
is the BEST IN THE WORLD!
But, there’s something wrong …
surely the shape of the front page
should be dictated by the shape
of the NEWS.
If not, we might as well put the
ads back onto Page 1.
The paradox is that the better
the quality of print and
production, the less readers
seem to value the paper.
Perhaps we’re paying too much
attention to image and branding.
And ignoring more important
things …
Like CONTENT …
An example: Andrew Jaspan,
editor of Glasgow’s bold,
innovative, campaigning and
loss-making Sunday Herald,
recently quit to become
editor-in-chief of The Age
in Melbourne, Australia.
Why?
Not because he was forced out
or tired of editing the paper
that he founded almost
six years ago …
… but the owner Newsquest, part
of the Gannett organisation,
decided the Herald company’s
profits should be £20million this
year - 40% more than last.
And Jaspan told me it was the
last straw - this drive for extra
profits meant a huge slashing of
his editorial budget.
“How can I - or any editor -
make my paper more interesting
to more readers if I don’t
have enough resources to do
my job properly.”
These linked issues – predictable
design, boring content and
budget slashing – are part of
the reason why newspapers
are in such a crisis.
How can we compete with
other media when we set
the wrong priorities?
3.
BEING TRENDY
IS NOT
A VIRTUE
You want another reason why
newspapers the world over
are so confused?
Here’s another quote from
that WAN report on design …
“The new generation of readers
are more brand aware than ever
before. They have never been
more alert to the fact that what
they buy, what they carry, says
much about them.
“Don’t under-estimate the impact
of the newspaper as a fashion
statement …
“In 2004, you are what you
consume, and people still
consume newspapers in huge
numbers. Your choice reflects
your status …
“From a design perspective, it is
safer to say that you will not fail
by overestimating your readers’
design sensibilities.
Underestimate them and you
may well fail.
“The message is simple:
If your product has low design
standards, it will not survive
in the coming years.”
Fine. But an important point is
missing from that equation …
Hardly anyone on this
planet buys a daily newspaper
because it looks trendy.
Look at the fate of trendy
magazines? If you can’t read
them (anything from America’s
David Carson), or if they don’t
have anything to say, or if they
lose their spark (Britain’s The
Face), they are useless – no
matter how smart the design
or how wonderful they look
on the reader’s coffee table.
Newspapers are different in
another respect – one that
many designers fail
to appreciate:
A magazine has longevity.
It will hang around the house
for a month or more …
A daily newspaper, on the other
hand, has immediacy …
We – me you, our readers –
pick it up, glance through the
headlines, read a bit of it …
Then we THROW IT AWAY.
We don’t leave it on the
coffee table for a week
so our friends can admire our
taste or marvel at our intellect
– or our design skills.
If we acknowledge that fact, we
must understand that our job as
designers has nothing to do with
making fashion statements.
Our task is to project
IMPORTANT news and
INTERESTING features
in a manner than gets readers
to the first paragraph of each
story quickly, makes the text
easy to read, and makes them
want to read more.
Excessive white space, full-page
section fronts that are all image
and no sense, headlines that are
too light or too small to attract
attention, and – worst of all –
pages that look exactly the same
every day are NOT the answer …
To be fair, some Scandinavian
newspapers do communicate
well. They’re the TABLOIDS –
not the compacts.
Yes, they have a daily formula …
but they’re stimulating, exciting
and enticing - the layout makes
me want to read the stories.
Of course, if I could read them,
I’d probably be less enthusiastic,
but visually they are strong and
stimulating, although perhaps
a little less screaming type
and a bit more white space
would be an improvement.
Even the business tabloids -
which usually look much duller
than their news counterparts -
are becoming brighter and
more accessible than many
mainstream dailies.
4.
FIND YOUR
OWN
SOLUTIONS
How do we make the change
from dull to stimulating?
Let’s escape from trendy
and simplistic solutions.
Analyse what the experts are
saying, by all means, but
let’s be self-critical, too, and
try to create unique solutions
to our own unique problems.
Recently Mario Garcia
expounded about his work
with the Miami Herald:
“The reader who reads his news
on the web becomes more
impatient when he comes to
read on print . . . Now readers
want complete indexes with
some summaries of stories …
… Many newspapers, such as
the Miami Herald, have started
interesting approaches to
navigators, such as the Five
Minute Herald, which allows a
supersonic reader to get a sense
of what is in today’s edition
without having to flip through
the newspaper.”
I have three comments …
1. What the hell is a supersonic
reader?
The Garcia web site defines
one as, “The supersonic-speed
reader … has barely five minutes
in the morning to get a glimpse
of the news. The 5-minute
Herald will satisfy the needs
of this reader.”
Really!
2. Why bother with the paper if
we assume that readers have no
time to read it - Let’s just give
them a single sheet with a few
heads and 20 words of type
and they’ll be happy.
It’ll save money on newsprint,
although it’s a bit hard to make
revenue from advertisers.
3. Didn’t we drop indexes and
summaries from the front page
10 years ago? Aren’t we going
in circles, recycling old ideas
as trendy solutions to capture
each succeeding generation?
Readers stop buying newspapers
because they have increasingly
less relevance, not because the
stories are too long or they
don’t look like the internet.
What Mr Garcia and others
seem to be saying is that
to compete with the internet,
we must copy it; we must,
in effect, become a print version
of the internet.
Well, we shouldn’t and,
anyway, we can’t …
(A generation ago, USA Today
was launched in TV-shaped
boxes because of a need to
capture a different market.)
Instead, we ought to be
more concerned with finding
better ways of being what
we are – NEWSPAPERS.
If we can’t do that, we might
as well acknowledge the
ultimate extinction of our old
media and begin looking
for jobs where our talents
are appreciated.
5.
PLEASE STOP
STEALING
MY IDEAS
25 years ago the SND was
born and a year later, design
plagiarism was born –
copying without understanding
from the design annuals.
Now we’re copying from
other media.
Why bother? It doesn’t work.
Let’s use our intelligence and
find our own solutions to the
problem of producing
newspapers that people want
to spend more than a five
minutes with.
We’re not going to compete
with the internet and television
by continuing to do what
we’re doing now - big,
multi-sectioned newspapers
that try to be everything to
everybody. Pelle Anderson is
right: They don’t work any more.
Here’s why . . .
Last Saturday, my copy
of the Toronto Star contained
200 pages.
My first task after walking 100
yards down the drive to collect
it was to dump it onto the dining
table and make two piles.
The first, smaller, one contained
the sections I and my wife, Jools,
look at - News, Insight, Local
News, Entertainment, Travel,
Life. Total 84 pages.
The second heap: Motoring,
two Homes sections, Classifieds,
TV book, Shopping, Sports
- 116 pages – was thrown away,
unopened. We NEVER
read them.
The Toronto Star sells more
than half a million copies
each Saturday. I wonder
how many trees die so that
we can put this stuff straight
into the recycling bin.
And then our daily papers
have the audacity to run
regular patronising articles
telling us how to avoid waste.
A thought: Perhaps a good
start would be to cancel
my subscription to the
Saturday Star …
After I subtract the ads,
the Star’s two news sections -
main body and local - fall
from 32 pages to 16 pages of
information – and most of
that stuff I’d already seen in
the previous evening’s TV news.
In any case, the major newspaper’s
perception of local news is only
of marginal interest (local news
is only readable if it’s truly
LOCAL – if you know the people,
or if the decisions made affect
your life or cost you money.)
In fact, local only has real
significance if there are 20,000
people in the paper’s circulation
area, not three million. Other
people’s local news is boring.
That’s why big papers have
so much trouble fighting small
weeklies who understand
their market much better.
What value is a 200-page
newspaper if Jools and
I can get all the information
we need in 10 to 20 minutes.
It’s a frustrating and wasteful
experience.
How does the Star - and any
other major daily paper -
think it is going to continue
to compete with other
media …?
TV gives me news as it happens.
The internet’s specialist web sites
give me much better background
and analysis: solid information,
with with no waste.
And I get better-written and
more detailed feature material
from magazines.
The Toronto Star’s answer
to the problem is more of the
same: they just gave us a new
Shopping section (and we
thought the whole of the paper
was a shopping section)
to join the other unread parts
of the paper.
6.
FACE UP TO
THE REAL
CHALLENGES?
Our prime task as journalists
- visual or otherwise - is NOT,
and never has been, to produce
pretty, well-branded newspapers
that have nothing to say and
challenge no one.
It is to produce bright, lively,
opinionated and interesting
papers with a vision, a soul
and a voice, preferably
representing readers,
NOT delivering readers
to advertisers.
Let’s give readers something
that diverts their attention from
the ‘messages’ from advertisers,
who are busy trying to get
them deeper into debt by
persuading them to buy
things they don’t need.
Alternatively, we can continue
doing what we’re doing now
- pouring news into templates,
producing newspapers
that look pretty, but are
dull and boring …
And dying?
On that note, I’ll end as
I began, with a quote from
Pelle Anderson:
“Design never saved a sinking
industry. Not even good design.
Maybe good ideas could, but
I’m not sure this industry wants
to be saved. In fact, I’m not
even sure it knows it’s sinking.”
LAST WORDS:
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