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Gene Weingarten on the current state of print journalism and its bastardization online.
Call me a grumpy old codger, but I liked the old way better. For one thing, I used to have at least a rudimentary idea of how a newspaper got produced: On deadline, drunks with cigars wrote stories that were edited by constipated but knowledgeable people, then printed on paper by enormous machines operated by people with stupid hats and dirty faces.
The article skewers the online practice of writing headlines for machines, rather than readers. A good headline will likely garner just as much attention after being picked up by a human, and subsequently blogged, liked, retweeted and carrier-pigeoned, as it would from being a top search query.
LA Times redesign
The Los Angeles Times has redesigned their website to make it cleaner, crisper and more innovative. I’m liking the new look, finding that it’s more newspaper-like and ties into the print aesthetic better.
Happy moon landing
It’s the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon. Kottke has created a giant Apollo 11 post with links to photos, videos and loads of other information related to the event. In related news, I have an copy of the Globe and Mail’s moon landing issue, which I’ve been meaning to scan for awhile. The interesting thing about it, is the front page headline which was printed in large green type.
Newsprint for all
Newspaper Club is developing a service to help people print their own newspapers. It doesn’t necessarily mean a traditional newspaper per se, but anything with ink on newsprint. It sounds like an amazing idea to me, hopefully they can make a successful go of things.
Bad quarter for newspapers
The American newspaper industry had its worst quarter in modern history, with advertising sales declining almost thirty percent. Not that anyone didn’t see it coming. We’ll see which organizations can adapt to different models with professional and grass-roots journalism, in a combination of print and electronic media.
Saving newspapers with design
Can design save the newspaper?
Give power to designers. You can work for a small company, in a boring branch. You can have no budget, no people, but still can put your work to the highest possible level. Everyone can do it, you just need inspiration, vision and determination. And you need to remember, that to be good, is not enough.
A short, but inspiring TED presentation.
