With the Tribune newspaper redesigns taking place this summer (Orlando, Chicago, Baltimore, Hartford . . .) and the just-debuted redesign of The Times of London, it might be a good time to share a recently published chapter of the top Newspaper and Newspaper Web site redesigns published by the World Editors Forum - Trends in Newsrooms 2008.
The in-depth report by the World Editors Forum presents the most important developments in today’s newsrooms with detailed case studies of some of the world’s most innovative newsrooms. I was asked to be part of a panel that included world-class editorial design colleagues Ally Palmer (U.K.) , Lucie Lacava (Canada), Jördis Guzmán Bulla (Germany), and Peter Ong (Australia).
We all nominated the top efforts over the 2006-2007 time period and the World Editors forum staff reported, researched further and produced this excellent report.
No telling which of this year’s Trib makeovers might make a future list, but as you can see - the world standard for excellence in newspapers is very high - both for original content and consistently excellent presentation, page-to-page.
A few demonstration video reports from the APME Newstrain video and new media training seminar I was teaching at for the last two days. We went over the fundamental techniques for shooting and editing films. We covered a lot of ground in a short time and got people out shooting early and often. Video training demands immediate hands-on practice. The journalists were given assignments in phases; to tell visual stories with B-Roll, how to conduct interviews and these films represent some of the surprising things newspaper journalists found when turned loose with video cams on the streets of Harrisburg.
Jacobson, new media professor at Temple University, talks with Robb Montgomery at Newstrain about digital journalism. The Pennsylvania Newspaper Foundation hosted the event in their headquarters in Harrisburg. The podcast was produced as a live exercise by Robb Montgomery in the classroom using an iPhone and the Utterz service.
Bonita Burton, AME of the Orlando Sentinel explains that this first draft of the Orlando Sentinel redesign style book was designed as a “quick-and-dirty guide to what’s new - just something to tide folks over while we update the full style book.”
Sentinel designers Nick Masuda and Wes Meltzer get credit for producing it.
Sam Zell appears to be serious about redesigning the Tribune company this year and he has the editor of the Chicago Tribune, Ann Marie Lipinski, writing memos to her troops to follow the general’s marching orders about making dramatic changes to the paper and the newspaper company.
This is serious. When editors want fast action - they write memos. And form committees.
History tells us (And a visit to the shrine at Cantigny will verify) that The Chicago Tribune was once led by a Colonel (Col. Robert R. McCormick) with grand visions and the pecadillos that seem to accompany wealthy media barons - so issuing memos should come naturally to lieutenants like Lipinski who are now charged with drawing up rapid redesign battle plans under the shadows of the Colonel’s famous flying buttresses at 435 N. Michigan Avenue.
It has been a long time since I have talked to Ann Marie Lipinski - we once worked together a LONG time ago in the Tribune newsroom editing the paper’s Sunday Perspective section. So much time has passed (I don’t have her current phone number) but I’d love to talk with her and get her take on the company’s direction. I am currently on the road but easily reachable all summer. I even plan on being in Chicago the entire month of July so there’s no reason we can’t do a sit-down interview soon.
Via Romenesko and Beet.tv comes this crisp interview with Chet Rhodes, Assistant Managing Editor for News Video at the washingtonpost.com. He is a former TV news guy and it is interesting to hear him say that up until now the paper has focused on training reporters and only now has issued five consumer-grade VJ cams to stills shooters.
I like how how he is thinking three years out and understands how Web VJ differs from broadcast TV news in many significant ways. What I don’t hear here in his comments is how the paper and Web site plan to integrate web video reportage from it’s users and readers. Certainly you can have a lot more Web video if you allow your audience to contribute to clips of burning cars on the freeway rather than dispatching staffers to cover these events exclusively. Thoughts? This works in other markets with extraordinary success (24sata in Zagreb, for example is full of reader-submitted video clips of such spot news events and has quadrupled its Web traffic over the last year)
Here’s to the Web VJ future in all of its rich story-telling and social narrative engagement potential.
Robb Montgomery produces new media workshops to train journalists and media professionals in more than 20 countries in writing for the Web, multimedia reporting, and Web video journalism.
His hands-on seminars include interactive learning techniques, live demonstrations and expertise in teaching new media concepts to professionals.
