Chicago Tribune eliminates Bears game stories

Fucking cool — I may try to find a way to do that.

 

No, that means it's my opinion and therefore true to me. You may feel otherwise and that's fine. But it seems silly to me to suggest that packaging (i.e. design) has NOTHING to do with what a reader reads. That's contrary to the entire concept behind the way companies package their goods. Either there's a ton of people wasting their time, or someone's onto something. I'm not saying design is everything, but it has to have some impact, right?

 

Not to, you know, speak for DyePack and all, but ...

Bingo.

Spend half the time coming up with better reporting, better stories, better ideas (that, instead, newspaper companies spend coming up with "reader-friendly" packaging) and you've got a product worth your investment. Whether it's a million-dollar investment for the company or a 50-cent investment for the reader.

As it is -- and Frank_Ridgeway, et al, has argued extensively for this on this board -- a lot of time is being wasted on solutions that do not work. The Trib's watered-down product is one of those "solutions".

We need more quality in the paper. We need more depth. That's what we're best at. But we continue to experiment with less quality, less depth -- in the form of "reader-friendly" design -- and consequently we're dumbing down the product. That's what the Trib is doing here. That does not work.

 

I didn't see what was on pages 4-5 in the package, but 2-3 don't work for me.

Seems like the Tribune has substituted opinion for reporting. Everything in that package is someone's opinion. Now, I like having some opinion even in game stories, but opinion is forced into the four things we learned, the Haugh column, the four-quarter recap and that's before you get to the columnists.

You know who I would like to hear from? The players and coaches. Is that too much to ask.

Also, I love notebooks. I want information that I could not get from TV or radio. That's what a notebook provides. Plus fun nuggets and insider information. Where is that in all this stuff?

Finally, page 1 wasn't nourishing, as advertised. It was more of an appetizer. I was still hungry after I read it.

 

My only argument with that ... and it's always been my only argument ... is this.

Isn't the ideal to have BOTH? To make the newspaper more intelligent, and STILL make it easier to navigate?

You're always going to have wordsmiths, and you're always going to have two-hour story meetings. And that's fine; at newspapers, that's the way it should be. Why those people would thumb their noses at the folks putting thought into design and presentation, that's what vexes me.

 

You mean, shot, you want the product to be a good read and to look good as well?
Unpossible!

 

(While the design-bashers glare at their shoes and mumble dark oaths...)

 

I'm not sure why you still need this spelled out for you, but here goes:

It doesn't work to keep straddling the fences. More time is spent on visuals WITH FEWER PEOPLE.

The stuff that should be getting done isn't. We keep hearing people say: "What good is it to do (whatever) if the paper can't get out the door on time?" Or "What good is it to do (whatever) if NO ONE will buy it/read it?"

What needed to be said was: "What good is it to do those other things if we can't put out a product that reads like it's been read by more than one person before it was puffed up and rushed out the door?"

 

Doesn't change a thing I said, sir. If it goes out the door with one read, that's wrong. Terribly wrong. But you can't automatically make the connection that the other four people who should have had their eyes on it were working the design desk. Get it?

Straddling the fence, as you put it, is the PERFECT way to look at this. It's certainly better than blindly dismissing one side of the production or the other.

 

Sorry, Dye. It is not straddling the fence.
There actually are newspapers in this country (I work for one, and I'd say shotty does, too) that value well-written, well-edited stories that also are well-packaged in a well-designed section.
We are not big on gimmicks but we care very much what it looks like and what it reads like.
And yes, we usually have enough staff (OK, my SE doesn't agree with me here) that the editing and design fucntions are mostly separated -- only 1 or 2 people are likely to have to do both on the same night.

 

And then you have the dozens (at least) of other places that waste time on visual voodoo while not reading, not fact-checking, etc.

It. Doesn't. Work.