The Indy has a great sit down with the maverick editor of the The Sunday Times who wrote the book on newspaper design 35 ears ago - Sir Harold Evans.
An excerpt:
Harold Evans: ‘These grand designs must have stories to back them up’
“Here’s a thing about innovation,” says Evans sagely. “Nobody has ever predicted the next innovation.” In one respect though he did clearly lay claim to having seen the future: that design would have to take the lead. “Newspaper design cannot go on being so insular if the newspaper is to fulfil its role,” he wrote in Editing and Design.
Evans was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981 and first published his five-volume tome Editing and Design in 1973. He was knighted for services to journalism in 2004.
In the interview he talks powerfully about the impact and value of visual journalism.
He also critiques The New York Times design at length and finds it greatly lacking, adding “The New York Times desperately needs to rethink its whole design.”
I wonder if you might know how I might reach Sir Evans? Do you have his address or email address?
I’m am scouring the net and coming up with everything but…
I am very interested in getting in touch with him about something which I believe could interest him about the current meltdown on the press.
Basically, what I want to get his views on is this idea:
Separating “News” from “papers” is the first half of the problem..
That would cut the costs of reporting “news” to the barest minumum.
Google indexing of news is a non-issue. It can definitely be handled without a problem by co-opting them while hanging onto the “news” and letting go of the information when its the “olds”.
RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds can let people know that there is some new information file somewhere while keeping that file hidden from Google. The generation of the RSS feed can be automatic and consist of an alphabetical list of the words of interest in the information and a snippet of the content after which a person can decide whether it is of interest or not. The information file itself is instantly accessible, but on a subscription or a one-time-charge basis.
The other half of the problem is finding a partner to handle the money aspect.
Someone who:
• nobody expects to work for free,
• is quite used to small sums,
• can act as a non-lending bank,
• can issue small denomination pieces,
• has the required international agreements,
• has the necessary IT infrastructure to handle RSS requests,
• is already in the business of information distribution for “franking” or FOR MONEY.
That someone sounds an awful lot like “The Post Office,” doesn’t it?
If you want the “news”, you pay for it, from your “news” provider, paid for through the Postal Service.
If you just want the “olds” you can use Google to search for it.