Jack Shafer: “Whatever you do, don’t mistake the decline of newspapers with the decline of journalism. Much of what we’re witnessing is the delayed right-sizing of newspapers and newspaper publisher and editor egos in the multimedia age.”

>The Incredible Shrinking Newspaper: Newspapers are dying, but the news is thriving [Slate]

Jeez, Indianapolis Star, for a newspaper that speaks with the Voice of God, you're being a real downer!

(Thanks, Mark!)

Seattle Weekly says: "Do journalists in New York do any original thinking at all?"

Business Week says: "I ... was unaware of the Seattle Weekly headline, story or cover art."

Me, I just think it's funny (on several levels!) that on a cover about Bill Gates, Seattle Weekly used, not Microsoft's Comic Sans, but Apple's, er, homage to it.

The Guardian is solidifying its spot as one of the most innovative news organizations out there. Later this summer the paper will begin offering a free downloadable PDF of content from the Guardian Unlimited website. It will be eight to 12 A4-sized pages (about 8.27×11.69 in) and will be updated every 15 minutes. Readers will be able to choose from five areas: general news, international, economics, sports and media.

"G24 will be yet another way for Guardian readers to consume their paper," said Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian.

"Increasingly, readers are demanding editorial content tailored to the time and place of their choosing, rather than to artificial deadlines dictated by old print production schedules.

"G24 — which will draw heavily on the continuously updated website — will be a perfect quick read for the journey to work, or home in the evening."

Two weeks ago, The Guardian announced a "web first" strategy that will put news from foreign and business correspondents online before it appears in the paper. They also said they will expand their print and online presence in the U.S.

Update: Josh points out that Spain's El Pais is already doing this.

>Guardian offers downloadable news digest [The Guardian]

(Thanks, Jim!)

Rob Schneider, sports design editor of The Dallas Morning News, has been named presentation director. Huzzah! More details TK.

Update: Here's the staff memo from AME Keith Campbell:

Everyone:

I’m pleased to announce that Rob Schneider has agreed to become our nextpresentation director. His extensive design skills and proven accomplishments as a design team leader, coupled with his immense energy and determination, will raise the quality of presentation across theentire paper.

Rob’s been with The News since 2003, when he joined the staff as the design editor for Sports. He’s coached and supervised designers, designed daily centerpieces, special sections and projects and helped plan and implement the design vision for the department. His results have been most impressive, including a truckload of Society of News Design awards.

While he also worked in sports at his previous paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he’s experienced in news, business and features design. He worked as a Page One and Sunday designer at the Omaha World-Herald, and he has worked on various special news projects here in Dallas.

He’s won numerous design awards, including honors from the Society of News Design, Malofiej, APSE and Texas APME.

Rob was one of three very strong internal candidates for the job. After we posted the position in late April and conducted interviews, critiques and presentations, the selection committee was struck by how much leadership and presentation talent resides in news art and design. Our goal now is the same as Rob’s: To make the most of that talent.

Please join me in congratulating Rob on his promotion.

Keith

The New York Times is planning to put ads on its Business section fronts, Executive Editor Bill Keller says.

“It’s a competitive world out there,” Mr. Keller said in response to a question from a staff member. He said he was hesitant about the practice, but if given the choice between running such ads and losing reporting positions, he would keep the reporters.

>Times to Sell Ads on Front of Business Section [The New York Times]

Karl Gude, Director of Information Graphics at Newsweek, is leaving the news mag to take a teaching job at Michigan State University, and he’ll be blogging about the transition at Visual Editors.

Reggie Myers, Graphics Director at the Boston Globe, will head the graphics department at the Orlando Sentinel. Sentinel staff memo after the jump.

Also, Josh Gillin moves from the Philadelphia Inquirer to the St. Pete Times to work on tbt*, and Doug Jessmer heads north from Sarasota to the Detroit News.

From: Burton, Bonita
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:40 PM
Subject: New graphics editor

Gang, an official announcement will be going out on this soon. But since the word is already starting to spread, I wanted you to be the first to know.

I'm delighted to announce that Reggie Myers, Graphics Director at the Boston Globe, is coming to the Sentinel to lead our graphics department. If all goes well, his first day with us will be July 31.

Reggie brings 21 years of newspaper graphics experience to the Sentinel, an impressive history of producing and directing award-winning work.
During his distinguished career, he's received several Malofiej medals and dozens of SND awards. And he knows his hurricanes: his graphics were a major component of the Miami Herald's Hurricane Andrew Pulitzer, a ground-breaking explanatory effort that also won Best of Show and a JSR from SND. Last year, SND singled out that achievement as one of the 25 most influential moments in the history of newspaper design.

More than a graphics specialist, Reggie is also a gifted illustrator with strong multimedia skills. Artists who've worked for him in the past describe him as a dedicated coach with a cool head, a steady hand and a creative heart. He's going to be a terrific addition to our visual leadership team.

Reggie and his wife, are parents of a 14-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter. They're both accomplished musicians, and Reggie has a special affinity for building and playing bass guitars.

Soon, the Visuals band will be ready for our world tour! In the meantime, please join me in helping Reggie feel welcome in Orlando...

A piece in the American Journalism Review chronicles how newspapers are experimenting with their front pages in an effort to respond to the realities of the cable news/broadband age and stanch the circulation bleeding. Even the New York Times and Washington Post are scaling back the story count, tweaking the story mix and promoting the rest of the paper more.

Like the Post, the New York Times has reduced its front-page story count. Richard Berke, assistant managing editor for news, says that makes the page more reader-friendly. The refer box, meanwhile, “gives people a sense of the assortment of stories inside the paper.” Those are probably the biggest cosmetic changes on page one, he says, “but we also struggle every day to deal with the Web, and how our stories are already on the Web site.”

Newspapers, Meo says, “are trying a million things, but in terms of growing readership in the core paper, we just don’t see it.” At best, he says, such efforts “are slowing the decline” of newspapers.

Also in AJR, editor Rem Rieder gives the NYT some grief for its first-day approach to the Zarqawi news.

>Remaking the Front Page [American Journalism Review]
>Pre-Internet Thinking [American Journalism Review]

In honor of their World Cup victory over Poland, some Ecuadorean front pages to feed your futbol jones.

In the comments of the last post, Josh referenced the NY Post's inside Zarqawi spread. That would be this one:

Also, the headline on their editorial? "Abu Musab al-Corpse."

When putting that big news story on your front page that happened early enough in the cycle that all your conscious readers know about it, you’ve got several options.

You could go straightforward, telling people what they already know:

You could whoop it up:

You could try to spin the story forward:

You could ask one of the burning questions:

You could focus on how it happened:

Or you could just recognize that, really, it’s all about the Brangelina:

Al-Zarqawi’s obviously the big news today. Bulletins started moving between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Pacific, so a few Western papers were able to get the news on A1 this morning. Here’s who made it (The Normal Caveat: Some other papers may have been able to replate, but did so after they sent the Newseum their page):

In addition, West Hawaii Today and the Eugene, Ore., Register-Guard got teasers on A1.

I guess that, well, the devil made them do it.

Update: And this illo by Chris Morris that ran downpage A1 in the Las Vegas Sun is just awesome.

More pages from today’s redesigned Kansas City Star:

(Thanks, Charles!)

The World Editors Forum is well under way in Moscow. Much posting is going on at the Editors Weblog and our pal Robb Montgomery is taking pictures and video blogging.

The Kansas City Star’s much-anticipated redesign, which hit some of the features sections a couple weeks ago (see here and here), reached the front page and the rest of the paper today.

Star Editor Mark Zieman has a Q&A here.

Aren’t you just using color and glitz to attract people who don't like to read?
No. If you hate Pepsi, putting it in a pretty can won’t make you drink it. It’s the same with non-readers and newspapers. Instead, we're trying to make the paper more useful - and easier to use - for people who already read us. We already have more than 1 million readers every week - but not every day. We're working to make our paper more relevant, enticing and informative for our occasional readers. We actually believe that comes from better news content, not a prettier design. But if we can give you both, why not do it?

There’s a Web page about the redesign here, with links to, among other things, a Flash slideshow of new pages, a list of the Top 10 changes, an audio slideshow of the new press operations and some PDFs of pages from the 20-page special section on the redesign.

Garcia Media consulted on the job, with Kelly Frankeny as the art director. Jeanne Meyer, Managing Editor for Visuals and New Initiatives, and Tom Dolphens, AME for Art and Design, led the team from the Star.

Mario Garcia penned a column for the special section.

Foremost in our thinking:

1. Catering to readers in a hurry, like you and me. So we have worked hard to create navigational systems that start on Page One. We know that you may have time only to scan the headlines in the morning, so Page One eases that process. We also know that readers appreciate when we alert them to related stories or coverage online, so we will systematically do that as well. The Star, like all modern newspapers, moves into an era for readers who are tech savvy and live in a multimedia world.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the first documented case of AIDS. Some papers marked the moment in Sunday’s paper. Beautiful job by the Chron (and some good stuff online, as well, including groundbreaking reporting from the archives by the late Randy Shilts).

But can we please call a moratorium on cramming a bunch of images into headline words? Please?

(Thanks, Bo!)

The San Jose Mercury News has named Rachel Wettergreen Wilner as sports editor, replacing Craig Lancaster, who resigned last week. Wilner started at the Merc in 1996 as a copy editor and designer. In the past she held, among other positions, sports design director, Sunday sports editor and deputy sports editor. Romenesko has the Merc memo here.

>M.N. names first female sports editor [San Jose Mercury News]

Advertising Age has an interview with Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz on the WSJ’s upcoming redesign.

Changes will include versions of the front page’s “What’s News” feature in other sections, more articles on “what it means” and fewer on “what happened” and more themed content.

Their plans are still evolving — 20 focus groups have been conducted, and another 60 are scheduled to take place once the next Journal prototype arrives in June. But one thing’s for sure: Journal 3.0 will take its cues from the Internet. The newspaper has run The Wall Street Journal Online for 10 years, and the new print edition takes into account how the Web version continues to change consumers’ expectations.

<snip>

“Navigation and being able to benefit from content in context are very much themes of the digital age,” said Mr. Crovitz, who is also exec VP at Dow Jones, The Journal’s owner. “There is a great opportunity for the newspaper to help us overcome information overload by helping us, once a day, put the content in context.”

Of course, not all papers, especially smaller ones, can spend whatever the Journal is laying out for [Mario] Garcia and a parade of focus groups on a redesign, but all papers can take an unflinching look at their story forms, their design and their content mix with the purposing of asking the question: Is this serving the needs, desires and expectations of today’s web-conditioned readers?

There is, at last, a growing sense of urgency in the newspaper industry that change is inevitable not only to maintain social relevance but to preserve financial viability. Well-heeled papers like the Journal may lead the way on some sorts of change (although much of the most creative innovation is being done at smaller papers), but every newspaper now has the chance, and the excuse, for unlimited reinvention.

Incidentally, since we’re all about the minutiae of design around here, note for the record that about three months ago the Journal started putting skyboxes above the nameplate on its front page.

>L. Gordon Crovitz Ushers in Journal 3.0 [Advertising Age]
>Print 3.0: Lessons from the Web [First Draft]

Like Britain, a similar exhibition is travelling around Spain, looking at the last 40 years of the country’s history — a period in which Spain moved from dictatorship to democracy — as shown on the nation’s front pages. El Mundo has a story and an online gallery of 40 pages. (Interestingly, the page El Mundo picked for 1975 is not Franco’s death but the country’s first nude beach).

>Lección de Historia [El Mundo]
>La Historia a través de la prensa [El Mundo]

(via Maquetadores)

The British Library has a new exhibit (opened by the Queen!), “Celebrating 100 years of the British Newspaper.”

This new exhibition looks at the growth and development of the last 100 years of the British Newspaper through a selection of 200 front pages. You will discover how the stories which make the front page are reported on, and how and why they are selected by editors and journalists. You will also appreciate why newspapers, throwaway items by day, are a treasure-trove of social history.

Also, the BBC’s Newsnight held a vote on the most memorable front page of the last century. The Daily Telegraph’s front of Sept. 12, 2001 was the winner.