Last week I watched this video on the Tribune's Web site about their redesign and their reasoning of why they did what they did. The video says that they "were given the mandate to make the paper much bolder, more colorful." The paper is supposed to bring the newspaper into the 21st century, with smarter and better editing, more visual story telling and more stories that affect the reader.
This video tries to cover up the fact that the paper is and has been downsizing and mentions nothing about the reduction of the physical size of the broadsheet. Like we learned in lecture, this is something that a lot of people have lost their jobs over and many people are going to think that this is the 'dumbing down' of the newspaper to try to salvage what is left of the declining industry. But as much as the editors were beat up on Chicago Tonight, the Trib's redesign is not that drastic compared to what is going on in newspapers throughout the country.
This summer, I went to a workshop about alternative story forms (or ASFs), which introduced many of the concepts the Tribune is using in their redesign. An ASF is meant to tell the story in a way that is clear, edited tightly and in a way that the reader is able to take something from it immediately, as opposed to reading a 20-inch story about the same thing.
Some people may not like the idea of an ASF because they think it is 'dumbing down' the newspaper. But it's in fact, the opposite. When editing an ASF, everything has to be tight. The only facts and quotes that get through are the ones with importance. It really is editing for the reader. I don't want to say that editing for an ASF is tougher than editing for a regular story, but there is no doubt that it takes skill to edit a story in that way.
The page at the top of this post is Tuesday's front page from the Sun Sentinel from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The entire front page is devoted to the bailout problem we saw on Monday. The graphic on the top explains what happened throughout the day on Wall Street and the text is a Q & A about what this really means. Both of these are techniques presented at the workshop I attended and I think both of them work well. It may not have as much news as a typical front page, but it does attack the questions that were on everyone's minds Tuesday morning.
The Tribune may receive a lot of criticism about their new look, but it is nothing groundbreaking. Some people may not like the idea of ASFs, but the truth is that it they make the paper look better and this is the way a lot of newspapers are now trying to present information. For these reasons, I think the redesign of the Tribune is going to be here to stay.
1 comment:
I think ASFs are great. I think they're an easy way to tell the reader important information while making that information visually appealing. I know when I look at a newspaper or magazine my eyes are drawn to the pictures and graphics first. If a paper can draw my eyes to the graphic AND tell me useful information, I think they're doing a good job because maybe that graphic or visual will convince me to read the rest of the story.
As Sue says, the redesign is simply a cover up for the downsizing of the paper, but I think if you have to downsize, this is a great way to do it. The paper is using less space without sacrificing the content.
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