PagePlane.com

Ideas 101

Can design save the newspaper?

Our local newspaper (The Richmond Times Dispatch) laid off 59 employees yesterday. One in a long series of recent reports that would have you believe that nothing can save the newspapers.

Nonsense. To my way of thinking, the reason this and so many other newspapers are struggling is not simply from "a loss of advertising revenue," "changes in the classified market place," and "the difficult economic environment." What is killing newspapers is an extraordinary lack of creativity. Extraordinary because unlike other institutions that continually reinvent themselves to remain relevant to their audiences, city newspapers (generally speaking) seem to be paralyzed by their legacy.

The lords of news and knowledge need to wake up. We are in the midst of a fundamental shift in the control and distribution of knowledge. A kid with a computer in a remote corner of the planet can monitor a lecture at MIT. And I can sit in my chair and navigate my way, block by block, through the streets of Paris. To imagine that a publication, designed, written, produced, and delivered in much the same way it was 20 years ago, can continue to flourish, is not short sighted, it's blind.

Shutting down creativity is a destructive reaction to success. Instead of continuing to innovate--the very thing that lead to our initial success--we often cling to our original notions. Instead of devoting the research and resources necessary to take the next step we opt to carefully, cautiously, incrementally dabble around the edges of the old ideas--at times, beyond all good reason.

I have no doubt innovators in the newspaper business will survive and thrive. The resulting product may have little resemblance to the newspaper of today but a reinvented model that capitalizes on what works and lets go of what doesn't will surely emerge. It will come from those who, rather than fight the profound technological shift we are witness to, recognize how lucky we are to be living at such a seminal time in history and jump in head first.

The pursuit of making the world a better place is what makes life such a blessing. I find a real glimmer of hope in discussions such as these:

From a recent talk at TED: Can design save the newspaper?...

About reinventing newspaper classifieds...

The local story. Could this web site be any more nondescript?

Visit the Ideabook.com Store  |  Find this useful? Subscribe here