Charles Apple

Strong words in the Columbia Journalism Review from Society for News Design president Scott Goldman:

You see a different attitude toward newspapering in other parts in the world. And I think that must have to do with them not dealing with the bottom line issue as much as American newspapers are. Most American papers are cutting at all costs and then sitting back and wondering why advertisers and the readers aren’t coming. There is not yet even one leading newspaper chain willing to say that if we put our resources into building a better newspaper, making something that you can’t miss, that is irreplaceable every day, then the readers will come and the advertisers will come. There’s no doubt though that in these economic times, it takes guts and it takes someone really stepping forward to be a leader.

Scott, of course, is also the AME/Design of The Indianapolis Star. The Gannett-owned Indianapolis Star.

Scott Goldman (Photo by Matt Mansfield/SND)

AJR’s Gal Beckerman digs further:

Q: When I look at the board of SND, it is all people working for American newspapers. It must be discouraging to see that consistently these are not the papers chosen as the most innovative, as the best.

A: Sure. It is discouraging.

Q: There is a bit of irony to it.

A: Yes. But it also shows that this isn’t us sitting over here saying that this is purely a U.S.-focused society. We want to serve the cause of design all over the world. One of the points of pride in our general competition is when we have entrants from even more countries.

But we do see less and less American papers. It is happening. When you see something like this, is it a surprise? Sure. Is it disheartening? Absolutely. Because we all want to say that we are doing it right. We want this to be the gold standard that every newspaper aspires to.

Q: In a way, it seems like you all might be sending a message to your owners.

A: There’s no question that we are. It doesn’t even have to say, “Did you notice there’s no American newspapers on here?” It’s obvious.

Wow. Scott Goldman, fighting the good fight.

If there’s a must-read out there today, folks, this one is it. Find it here:
http://www.cjrdaily.org/behind_the_news/want_a_welldesigned_newspaper.php

During the judging for the World’s Best contest back in February, Martin Gee of The San Jose Mercury News posted at VizEds:

have we run out of innovating ideas? have we done all we can do? have we pushed the medium to its limits? i sure hope not!!! is the hot-L the pinnacle of newspaper design? i’ve seen too many guardian and bakersfield knockoffs this year. are we limited to new things from a handful of consultants? so what’s next?

of course, i have to remember world’s best sets the bar pretty high. but do we even come close? is this the best we can do?

To which Joe Kirby, AME of The Albuquerque Journal responded:

Wasn’t USA Today pretty much the last major newspaper innovation? It seems to me that Baltimore and Bakersfield are just updated approaches to the things started in USA Today. I don’t know, but everything is starting to look the same to me.

Is that it? Is innovation dead at U.S newspapers? Are we taking what little innovative spirit we have left and channeling it away from our print products?

What do you think?

Read the aforementioned VizEds thread about the Worlds Best judging here:
http://www.visualeditors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6118

Read a lengthy — and, at times, downright uncivil — reaction of some U.S. designers to the 2007 Best-Designed newspapers here:
http://www.visualeditors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6190

I found out about the Goldman interview in AJR in Romenesko:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Charles Apple, Industry woes, News design, Newspapers, VizEds Blog, snd28. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.