Kill the McPaper
I was no ordinary child. I loved newspapers.
My family would go on road trips throughout the country when I was little. From Detroit, we would venture out to Texas, Oregon, Florida, California, Manitoba … and at every stop I would buy a copy of every newspaper available.
I collected hundreds of them, and kept them in my bedroom closet, where I would read them on cold winter nights. It was like reading an adventure. Each paper had a unique look and personality. Some were staid and polished. Some were amateurish but endearing. Some were printed on colored newsprint. Some called famous politicians by only their first names in headlines. Some had folksy local columns at the top of the front page.
Regardless, I loved every one of them. I can’t imagine a child doing that today. With very few exceptions, newspapers everywhere across America are bland, lifeless corporate clones of each other.
So I read the hue and cry about the redesign at the Orlando Sentinel and think “Is this really so bad?”
At first glance, I don’t like the design. It looks like it puts form before function and trivializes the news. Not only that, but it’s being pushed by the buffoons running Tribune. There are plenty of reasons to dislike it.
But I think there is one big reason to like it: It’s different. It might actually catch the eye of someone (let’s say a young person) who otherwise ignores newspapers. If it can deliver on its visual promise and offer a unique view of its community, it might even hold someone’s interest.
Oldtimers won’t like it at first. Oldtimers don’t like any change at first. Some oldtimers might even drop their subscriptions, although the core readership rarely does that. Compare the risk of that against what’s costing papers their readers today - lack of change - and it seems like a gamble worth trying.
There’s a big risk here for the industry. If the redesign fails to attract new readers, and this particular one just might, papers will become even more hesitant to change, if that’s possible.
Of course, there’s another much bigger problem in this redesign. If folks in Orlando actually like the changes, it probably won’t trigger innovation elsewhere.
We’ll start seeing bland, lifeless corporate clones of it popping up all over North America.
