L.A. Times redesign

[ballscribe]

Most publishers will probably buy pretty newspaper talk from the consultant, because they understand how the paper looks better than they understand what the paper contains.

The design people have no objection, obviously, because they get to let loose on the creativity a bit and also justify their jobs.

However, the clueless managing editors are being paid to know what the paper contains. They aren't doing their jobs when they cower in their offices and do next-day critiques.

The vast majority think their job is to keep their job. Given the current state of our business, I'm not sure they err too much in that goal.

 

[Gold]

On Monday, that used their editorial page to introduce their philosophy and have their columnists each describe their column. They also moved the editorial page to the back of the first section; it had been in the back of the metro/regional section. So it appears there are changes there.

 

[TigerVols]

The redesign is terrible -- far too many fonts and sizes per page.

It's clearly a poor attempt to camouflage the shrinking news hole.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

For most newspapers, a cut in space is a terrible thing because the news hole wasn't all that big to begin with. But in its heyday I thought reading the L.A. Times was like trying to machete my way through the Amazon jungle. Even for someone who likes newspapers, there was way too much, much of it jumping not just once, but two or three times into ad-packed pages. There was lots of good stuff there, but readers had to work hard for it. I understand the concept of "something for everyone" and that lots of people's special interests have been cut and you lose some readers that way. But also I think you lose people when the thing is thick as a phone book and hard to navigate. I'm not sure everyone's going to be displeased with a cleaner, less cumbersome paper. Even intelligent, curious people have only so much time to read a paper.

I though The Miami Herald in its prime (and a few others) had the right idea about what to do about tight news holes -- put a premium on tight editing. They still covered everything, and there was enough common sense to let a writer have some room when the story was worth it, but on everyday stuff the stories were cut ruthlessly to make every inch count. In other words, if you were told 15 inches and you wrote a great 15 inches, you got 15 inches. If you wrote a shitty 15 inches, you got eight inches so the space could be put to better use. That required desk people who were not only willing to make tough decisions, but to rework pages throughout the night to trim fat and get in more good stuff. You can put out a highly interesting, complete product with tight space, but you need a different mind-set to do it. I remember the SE telling us that if we ever did magically get more space, we were going to run more stories, not longer ones.

I think at a lot of papers we've been lazy with our resources and often indulgent when carving up the news hole to keep writers from bitching about being cut and to keep copy editors from bitching about having to read a story four times in order to make surgical cuts through tightening. Smart newspapers are going to start spending more money on copy editing -- they have to. The consolidation of major advertisers means we will never have the news holes we had a decade ago. The Internet, with no space constraints, can be flabby and long-winded, but who has time to read it all? Leaner, better-edited newspapers can save intelligent, busy people a lot of time by doing the heavy lifting for readers. We'll still be printing more than the average person can and will read, but hopefully we'll be doing it smarter.

 

[DyePack]

I think at a lot of papers we've been lazy with our resources and often indulgent when carving up the news hole to keep writers from bitching about being cut and to keep copy editors from bitching about having to read a story four times in order to make surgical cuts through tightening.

Then let the copy editors be copy editors, not designers, paginators or clerks. I'm even stealing this line from a memo I watched someone else write 10 FUCKING YEARS AGO.

Damn -- is this industry ever going to get a fucking clue?

Not trying to go off on you, Frank, but for fuck's sake, when the copy editors are busy paginating, designing, toning photos and fixing printers in their spare time, when in the hell are they going to do this surgical tightening that a good metro editor (if there is such a thing these days) should have already done?

 

[Columbo]

Kevin Drum, the political blogger for Washington Monthly and OC resident, hated the new design.
Does anyone get the following? Newspaper reading is a habit. Readers are creatures of habit. They don't like changes. Management likes changes because it's a substitution for figuring out how to make money off Internet readers, which no one has yet.
A prediction: The Times will lose three readers for every one attracted to the new design-AT A MINIMUM.
The executives who oversaw the change will receive substantial bonuses for their work.

I just don't think that people who still read the paper are going to toss it. Many of them are in that scared-as-fuck-to-jump-on-the-technology-boom bandwagon.

Second, I like the ditching of that simulation of the LA freeway gridlock that was their 1A design.