As Alan Mutter points out, the first of the Sam Zell-era redesigns of Tribune newspapers, for the Orlando Sentinel, appears to have leaked into the wild. (Credit for the leak goes to the Zell-watching blog TellZell.com.)
Truth be told, it's not really that radical—or bad. It's a bit tabloidy, and you have to wonder whether this sort of design-intensive look can be sustained in daily production. But know what? That's not the point.
As Steve Yelvington and Pat Thornton wisely argue in the comments on Mutter's post, redesigning the print edition really isn't what's needed. It's a very 20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. Fact is, the Sentinel, like every other metro newspaper (and, hello, their web sites!), needs to be radically reimagined. One size fits all doesn't fit anybody anymore.
Zell and the Tribune Co. should be devoting their resources to exploring how to build multiple, smart Web and print products that address specific audiences and their needs. In Orlando, that might mean strong individual products for seniors, young readers, Hispanics, tourists and Disney employees, just to name a few off the top of my head. Maybe it means breaking the Web site and paper into multiple local editions, focused on specific geographic and/or demographic communities. Maybe it means finally acknowledging that readers have multitudinous ways to get national and international news, business, entertainment and professional sports information, and concentrating resources on much harder-to-find local coverage. It definitely means creating products that engage the readership by actively soliciting and featuring user content, comments, photos, videos, and more. It means understanding that classifieds, as newspapers know them, are dead, that display advertising is dying, and it's time to get very smart about understanding how Google and others are making money with search and contextual advertising.
But redesigning the home page? Yawn. Zell & Co. might as well go out and rearrange the deck chairs.
Hi Mark...yikes! that front page is ugly!
and it's not just that they need products that engage readership--but they need people to help first engage the readership. One thing I've noticed in all my community development stuff is that people don't just show up at sites and get all enthusiastic and add content. Sometimes there needs to be a person there--and that person has to be someone that is known, in an f2f way, to them. Online is often most effective when there are humans behind it, and we know who the humans are. Sadly, too much money is put into the engineering and little into the person who will make the community. That may be changing in the near future though...
Posted by: tish grier | June 17, 2008 at 09:08 AM
A spot on post about the real problems at newspapers. In my case, the zoned "neighbors" edition of my daily paper had not one story that actually related to the community where I live because they have made their zones so large that there is nothing really local about them. And on Mondays - when there is nothing but left over news - they put in the daily articles about communities 50 miles away - I could care less.
Posted by: Scbuck | June 26, 2008 at 11:02 AM