News-Record.com

How can I miss you when you won't go away ?

Writing like that is why I continue to read.

I firmly believe that most, if not all journalists want to stay -- and are dying to make changes to make it all work.

The problem is that no one really seems to know what to do to make it work.

The changes need to be significant and will actually make the newsroom more enjoyable because a clear and consistent plan will be in effect. Success will be measured!

The groping for "THE answer" in one single sentence keeps eluding newspapers -- because they have always thought that way.

"Let's redesign"
"Let's focus on community news"
"Write shorter stories"
"Let's do more blogs"
"Let's have a platform for groups to build community sites"

Everything is sold as a magic bullet.

The change instead needs to be systemic and clear.

When that is done and the results are measurable -- which they would be online -- everyone will perk up and the changes will accelerate by virture of the momentum.

It can work, but it won't be easy -- and it will take some real significant change. Egos will -- for the first time -- have to take a back seat.

A leap of faith is what it will take.

thank you for your column today...I really enjoyed it. In a time of "half empty, half full, or I can't even find the glass" during this upheaval of everything, quite honestly..I appreciated your point of view, which is shared by many creative spirits like me. There are no easy answers to anything, at anytime, especially if it is worth doing-passion for what we love keeps us all going, though I struggle with the "fun" part of change occassionally. Happy Everything!

"Of course, I could do this kind of journalism in lots of places".

I would have to agree. I bet there are thousands of municipalities all across the country whose police depts are full of pimps and scoundrels, overseen by boob city mgr's, who'd love to have their local press' help getting rid of a troublesome crusading police chiefs and continuing support.

I'm glad you're still here. It's inspiring to have someone who cares so strongly about journalism, our staff and our community at the helm of our news department.
It makes the challenges ahead a bit less scary.

Rodney Overton hits the nail on the head.

The newsrooms keep trying to find solutions that always lead to less copy and dumber stories.

Likely they do this to soothe the hurt feelings of the ever-dumber employees and their alleged supervisors. Years ago, a bunch of morons masquerading as journalists decided to redefine the work because it was too hard for them.

Newspapers need to rid themselves of the design dolts and the pseudoeditors of presentation. Then they can get real journalists, writers, and editors back. It's probably too late now, but at least that would be a step in the right direction.

This entire piece is the very definition of "out of touch."

Great column. Makes me miss newsrooms, and I've only been out of the industry a few weeks.

Wenalway, do you really think designers are the downfall of the industry? That somehow, by trying to present info in a visually engaging manner, newspapers are taking something away from it? It's strikes me as tough to argue that a wall of unorganized text is going to relay a message and grab readers better than a well-designed page.

I would say that designers are important at this stage, but they can -- as everyone can -- create some problems.

I have seen places -- like the Miami Herald -- where a disproportionate amount of time and energy is expended trying to figure out the minutae of some design such and such...

I see the value in designers, but at a time when the print product is essentially "devalued" by the consumer, I *could* see how those who add small, incremental (and invisible to others) value can be overlooked.

Obviously design is important, but I can't think of time that any real person I met said anything specific about the design of a paper being good or bad, which makes me wonder what the value is myself...

I think -- perhaps -- a good designer is someone who creates a product that the consumer does then not even realize how good it is.. the audience so consumes the product that the design is not appreciated. The design leads to effortless enjoyment of the content, taking emphasis off the design? One theory maybe...

You should have let the readers vote...:)

Chris does the usual: He redefines the argument rather than refuting it.

(People with points refute arguments. People who don't have points try to redefine.)

No response to the stories being shorter and dumber. No response to the staff being dumber. That lack of response speaks volumes.

And the Herald is FAR from alone in obsessing about tiny design details.

Wenalway: I don't think I redefined anything. I asked you to explain a particular aspect of your argument, "Newspapers need to rid themselves of the design dolts and the pseudoeditors of presentation." I didn't refute your main argument, "newspapers are dumb," because you didn't present anything to base a reasonable argument on. I'm not sure how to measure "dumbness" objectively.

If you don't think I have a point, allow me to state it upfront: Smart, engaging presentation is equally as important as smart, well-researched and timely content. Clear enough?

Rodney: You're right that design can be emphasized to the point it consumes too many resources: I think USA Today is the most blatant example. But I also think copy can be over-long, under-formatted and difficult to follow i.e. a magazine like The Nation. It's a balance.

It's often true that the best design is like a window - if it does it's job you don't see it. But just because you don't always realize it's there, doesn't mean it isn't working.

Smart, engaging presentation is equally as important as smart, well-researched and timely content. Clear enough?

Clear. But wrong. It's just the same tripe the design folks trot out again and again, in a misguided attempt to feel like real journalists and to try to gain equal footing in failing newsrooms. There's no way to measure it objectively. But people read newspapers. They don't look at them and admire the design. This was covered already in previous comments, but as we said earlier, people without arguments redefine, rather than refute. Thus, for years, designers have tried to redefine reading.

Let's put aside the new definitions and the chanting. Can you cite numbers and facts that show design lures readers consistently over time? I'm not just talking about a brief bump after a redesign. I'm talking about a steady increase over years.

I'm sure the answer is no. That's because this approach has been a colossal, across-the-board failure. Yet we still have people clinging to it as they try to keep redefining terms.

And those terms: "You don't realize it. but that doesn't mean it isn't working"; "The copy is too long"; etc. are another indication of the dumbing-down of the newsrooms. This stuff should have been shredded as B.S. years ago. Today's newsrooms lack the capability to do so.

Dumber newsrooms mean shorter, dumber stories. Editors who cling to these failed policies are dumber, and they hire dumber people. Those dumber people hire even dumber people. It's a vicious cycle that's gone on for far too long.

The solution is obvious: Get rid of the people who thrive on chanting and redefining terms. Those people are the designers who can't/don't/won't read text and the AMEs of presentation who allow the problems to continue.

Let me know if that's too confusing. But let's try to stay within parameters that fly among normal people. Reading = following an article. Reading is not glancing at a front page and saying: "That works for me!"

I am not interested in what you claim people don't notice but yet is somehow superimportant. I am interested in facts -- hard numbers that back up your argument. If you can't provide them, then admit defeat.

Well, Wen, I don't have the time to do a research paper for you right now, but I'll point out your only "hard numbers" are that less people read newspapers than in years past. True, but how does that prove why they aren't reading them? You haven't offered up a shred of evidence that an emphasis on design is depriving newsrooms of resources and thus driving away readers, and yet you're demanding nothing but cold hard facts from me.

You're also falsely accusing me of saying stories need to be shorter. I'm not. I'm arguing, as any good old-school reporter or editor would, that stories should be as long as they need to be. Often that's way, way shorter than the writer realizes at first, and leaves plenty of room for good design. Don't forget that good design includes readable fonts and descriptive imagery, all things that "fly among normal people," but that don't always make you shout "Damn, that's a good font!"

Garrison Keillor once wrote, tongue-in-cheek, that a good newspaper is never good enough, but a bad newspaper is a joy forever. When I read that sentence I immediately thought of the gang that hangs around the N&R blogs, waiting to turn each post into a chance to complain about how evil the paper is. If this publication were ever to be everything you guys wanted it to be, I think you'd end up on Zoloft.

I think people have been arguing about the impact design on newspapers since... well, since USA Today came out. And, the N&R did some big redesign back in the early 90s that was supposed to be the end-all be-all.

Every single time since then a newspaper has redesigned (and taken the MONTHS, if not a year, to do so) the outcome is the same: no increase in readership (or, more accurately, penetration). Numbers might go up, but that is only because of a growing population.

I think arguing about design right now is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
This is really like people in Detroit trying to figure out the best place on a key fob for the unlock button while the entire industry is going downhill.

Really.

Design at this point should just be as SIMPLE as possible. Here is why:

1) Fancy do-dads and such don't help with readership. Nothing done in the last 20 years has stemmed the flow from people not reading papers. So, why do we think all of a sudden an over-designed, tricked out page is going to reel people in? It won't.

2) Simplicity allows for more people to be involved in the role of layout person or "designer." The more newspapers have people who do specialized tasks that NO ONE else can do, the more problems they will have.
"Well, it's 10 p.m. but Joe has left for the night, so we can't change the page for this big fire."
Design pages so a remake of a page can be done by any copy editor and large heavily-designed pages don't stay the way they are simply because the paper is too "invested" in that design. It makes changing the paper at the last minute too hard.

3) Simplicity is proving to be the case for design on the web. This might a stretch to apply to newspapers, but utility and basic design is what makes sense online. Take that concept and apply it to newspapers. One of the "best designed" web sites is the Drudge Report. Why? It's simple.

4) Newspaper designers unfortunately fall into the category of employees who do their work "over the top" or to the extreme so they can impress other journalists. This is a problem. A real problem. The designers don't care what the feedback is from the public (largely because they never get any), but instead what gets shown on the Poynter site or on design websites as a "great design." We're learning -- unfortunately the wrong way -- that doing work FOR other journalist's consumption is wrong.

OK. Destroy me...

They aren't reading them because, in their words, "There's nothing in them any more." All you have to do is go to threads about papers that have closed or slashed personnel to see those responses.

And too many papers have no idea what "good design" really is. One paper hated doglegs. Another loved them. One paper wanted big photos. Another wanted more photos.

Most of what's considered "good design" today really is not.

But thanks for showing you have no numbers to back up your points. Your admission of defeat can come later.

And you can take comfort in knowing that as long as designers continue to spin and deny and redefine, nothing will ever have to change. Newspaper circulation can plummet to negligible levels, and the people who allowed it to happen can still close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and say: "No one knows why people stopped reading newspapers."

Wen: Okay, I was silly to bother trying to start a discussion with you. Don't know why I ever bother. You can call that an "admission of defeat" and thump your chest or whatever; I won't lose any sleep about it.

Rodney: No interest in destroying people. You make some valid points, and I'm actually a huge fan of simplicity in design (I disagree about Drudge, but I think something like Twitter is a good example, although not a news site).

I also agree that arguing about design is silly when talking about the sinking industry. That was actually kind of my point to Wen: It's silly to blame designers. Good design won't bring readers back if good content isn't also there - but it's a terrible idea to ignore design entirely.

And I can give one example of a paper redesign increasing readership. My college paper. I helped do a complete overhaul and reformating to a tabloid size, and readership shot up. Nothing on the scale of a proffesional paper, but I think it shows that people - especially young readers - do care.

As a designer and illustrator, I do like to wow the pants off people as much as I can, but I think there's room for that. Too much can make things inaccesable, and in a utilitarian format like newspapers caution is needed. People need to learn that balance, though. There are no easy answers - I'm just arguing against extremes.

That was the worst response yet.

So because the industry is sinking, we shouldn't look at what's clearly not working and dump it?

And in a time of declining resources, we shouldn't make decisions about what's important?

Clearly people are going to just keep trying to justify what they think should continue, even if it has posted no results. All that tells me is newspapers have no intention of trying to improve or to raise the ship from the depths.

I was about to reply to the comments here with logic and examples, until I realized who was stirring the pot. I should have recognized Mr. Knilands right away from my encounters with him on other forums; I'm not going to bother replying to him because it's not worth my time for someone who has demonstrated no ability to listen to what others have to say.

I'll just say this: I'm a designer, and I believe Mr. Overton to be correct in his assertion that good design is invisible. The problem with the idea of simple design being a solution is that simplicity can be more difficult to accomplish than overdone, splashy designs. It's easy to keep adding bling to a page -- it takes a good designer to know how to declutter a page and present the information in the clearest manner. I firmly believe what we do is just as important for the readers as every wordsmith who touches a story.

"Well, it's 10 p.m. but Joe has left for the night, so we can't change the page for this big fire."
Design pages so a remake of a page can be done by any copy editor and large heavily-designed pages don't stay the way they are simply because the paper is too "invested" in that design. It makes changing the paper at the last minute too hard.

I'd like to point out that I'm here past our last deadline every night; indeed, we are the last journalists in the building every night. We never hesitate to tear up a design for breaking news -- I can name a number of "heavily-designed" pages that have never seen the light of day because of some fire or big-name death or deadly storm. And while my "specialty" is design, I, and every other designer here, was hired for a multitude of talents, editing and writing among them.

Speaking as a hiring officer here, Mel is exactly right about why she was hired.

"I was about to reply to the comments here with logic and examples"

In other words, you have none to offer.

And I will listen to people when they can offer facts and logic. Designers continuously offer neither. Instead, they keep chanting about vague concepts that never held much promise even when newsrooms were better-staffed. There is simply no way most understaffed newsrooms can continue to put PFADs first without sacrificing critical editing components, yet they continue to cling to their tiny-minded taboos.

That was the original point: Newsrooms and the products they produce have been dumbed-down. Readers don't want these watered-down editions. Flawless, immaculate designs won't change that.

Perhaps people like Mel need to spend more time listening to readers and less time deciding who they won't listen to. In the end, it's just more of the same ignorance -- designers saying: "We HAVE to do these things" as the product suffers.

And to John Robinson: I've seen far too much bad hiring at newspapers to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Even as newspapers slash their staffs, the dimmest bulbs and the dullest blades still hang on. The allegedly professional writing is often pathetic at the unedited level. Newspapers have long ignored their most serious problems, and their inability to hire people with the right skills is near the top of the list.

But you just keep right on proclaiming you're right while all the measurable numbers show you're not. Readers are fleeing in droves; you seem to have no solutions. Perhaps you should have taken that buyout.

"The world only spins forward." Just not in today's dysfunctional, dumbed-down newsrooms.

You keep saying that newsrooms are putting PFAD first. I'd like to know where you are getting your information from -- do you have actual stats to back that up? Because I'm willing to bet that if you broke down each designer's day, you'd be surprised at how much of it is actually spent on design.

In other words, you have none to offer.

Let me edit that for you:

"In other words, you have none to offer me because I don't listen when examples have been offered in the past."

There, that's better.

A logic puzzler:

Given: Readers abandon "dumbed down" newspapers.

Given: The New York Times remains the least "dumbed-down" newspaper in America.

Given: USA Today remains America's most design-driven newspaper.

Yet: The NYT has, along with the rest of the industry, lost about 4 percent of its print subscriber base during the past year.

Yet: USA Today has increased print subscribership during the same period. (And the Wall Street Journal, which has lowered the story count, increased the use of color and adopted a somewhat modular approach to its A1, also has increased print subscribership.)

Neither of these outcomes should be possible if the premises are true.

The New York Times is the only paper that posted Sunday circulation gains the last time those were measured.

Also, as I have said countless times in these discussions, I often buy USA Today myself. Using it as some sort of example of how "dumbing down" works is truly ludicrous.

Of course, your whole puzzle is stilted and flawed from the start. Let's fix it:

Given: Readers abandon "dumbed down" newspapers.

Evidence: Circulation has plummeted at almost every newspaper (except for the two (2) examples given previously).

Evidence: Newsrooms have dumbed down. A lack of transparency on their part conceals the evidence, but one need look no farther than the raw, unedited copy submitted by allegedly professional writers.

There's the proof in three steps.

Also, we can keep playing semantic games, but in the end, we have people in newsrooms clinging to design taboos and failed approaches simply because they know nothing else, and they hope desperately they haven't been wrong about everything so far. All tangible facts -- circulation, credibility, mistakes in the paper -- point to them being wrong.

This argument is always fun because the design side NEVER offers much of substance. It makes one wonder how some of these people got hired to begin with.

Then we return to our original points: Magic bullets. Dumbing down. Chanting. Concocting. Lying. And we have our answer.

Just to add a couple of points:

The "Cite an extreme as proof of all" argument is entertaining, but there's a big world of papers outside NYT and USA Today.

The Tribune Co., for example, has been slashing its newshole and running much larger photos. In other words, dumbing down. The crazies running the place issue nonsensical memos justifying these changes. In other words, dumbing down. The dimmest bulbs and the dullest blades are elevated to new positions at these papers. Dumbing down.

Regarding "design-driven" newspapers: USA Today still has good content. But many smaller newspapers that try to copy its strategy do not. They rely on tricks but no substance. In other words, dumbing down.

Regarding the PFAD-first approach: Too many newspapers treat the news meeting as a design meeting. The entire focus is on making a PFAD so the designers have "something to do" after the meeting. No copy has been read. Few photos have been seen. Yet somehow we are supposed to believe intelligent decisions about coverage and judgment can be made at this stage. More dumbing down.

Shall we continue?

Wen,

I'll continue, but plz lose the smugness. we're trying to arrive at truth here. Your tone is off-putting.

I note some equivocation on your part. Suddenly, Sunday circ seems to be all that matters re NYT? This appears to be a shift of definitions. Perhaps we should establish (and justify) the parameters: total ave circ, or Sunday only? (and last time I checked, our paper, too, posted Sunday circ gains).

I'm struggling to understand how your personal regard for USAT is at all relevant to whether it belongs as one of the premises. Heck, I buy USAT, too. So where does that leave us? Is it, or is it not, a dumbed-down newspaper? Seems to me that it is, if one defines USAT as a design-driven paper. Yet you argue USAT has "good content." So what separates USAT from other papers that also are design-driven yet lousy?

Your "evidence" of dumbed-down newsrooms will need much more exposition before I entertain it. What data do you have regarding the status of "raw copy" of American newsrooms? What evidence do you have to indicate it has deteriorated? And even if it has, what relation, if any, does "raw copy" have to the final publication readers see?

I understand that using the NYT example can be weakened because of its use as a "many from one" argument, but it is you, not me, that framed this entire dialog in terms of the entire industry. Now, however, we seem to be uncovering layers of nuance: NYT's Sunday circ is down but (supposedly importantly) up on Sunday ; USAT is design-forward yet has "good content." Seems to me the state of our business can't be boiled down to sweeping pronouncements so easily.

Chanting? Concocting? Huh? Specifics, please.

speaking of raw copy, the previous post should say "NYT total circ is down . . ." not "Sunday."

You can claim "definitions are being shifted" all you like, but the original argument you made was so silly that indulging it at all was a mistake.

There's a whole big world of newspapers out there that doesn't include NYT or USA Today. I gave you an example of what the Tribune Co. has been doing. You choose to ignore it entirely.

Hence, there's little point in my continuing to cite examples that you will ignore or obscure with the hodge-podge, "throw things at the wall and see what will stick" mentality of your last post.

Also, your "raw copy" argument needs to be smacked down. For one thing, that issue has become more relevant as more awful, unedited copy is posted directly to the Internet.

My "data" was gathered starting with the first time I "line edited" a story in 1991 and stretches over a dozen years-plus of seeing allegedly professional writers be unable to write coherently. Others have relayed the same experience.

Chanting and concocting -- these are the "skills" of the design crew who keep trying to claim they somehow have produced something on a daily basis that attracts readers. When they are asked to produce some numbers to back this assessment, we hear crickets chirp. This is usually followed by some crazy response like: "Prove we don't." Newsroom managers have failed to eliminate this shortcoming from their workplaces. In other words, dumbing down.

Dumber managers hire dumber employees, and the cycle repeats. In summary, the dumbing down of the newsrooms continues. Readers flee from weaker products.

We've covered this ground.

Finally, regarding the "off-putting" tone: Good. That's the intention. People who are in newspapers but who aren't for improving the quality of the writing and editing should be smacked down. People who make ridiculous claims like "Readers don't read" and so forth should be treated rudely. The people in newsrooms who aren't journalists should have these shortcomings pointed out on a regular basis. They shouldn't be there to begin with.