So the student of a journalism teacher friend of mine asked me to be a source for her research paper about the re-design of the Sacramento Bee, the major-metro daily I read religiously and where I do some (increasingly rare) on-call copy editing. The Bee didn't ask for my input on its recent print redesign, but for what it's worth, here it is ...
Did the Sacramento Bee serve as inspiration for the Granite Bay Gazette's design? What did you like most about the previous design and organization of the Bee?
Not really. I have a long history with broadsheet newspapers as a designer and editor. I'd say most of the inspiration came from the Columbia Missourian, where I was the assistant sports editor and sports editor back in the dark ages about 25 years ago. But we've taken inspiration from the Bee, the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Fresno Bee and lots of other broadsheets over the years.
And here's the thing about design. People get used to whatever you throw at them. Soon, they don't notice the design, except for when some kind of design glitch makes it more difficult for them to access content. So what I liked about the old Bee was what all Bee readers liked about the old Bee -- it was familiar, I knew where things were, the only surprises tended to be pleasant ones ... a spiffy cover page, for example, or an amazing photo.
If the Bee was an inspiration for your paper, do you plan on updating your paper?
Nope. We're always considering small tweaks, but nothing major. Like I said, readers like what's familiar. Plus, I'm an old fart, and I'm pretty set in my ways.
How do you feel about the new changes to the Bee? (For example: How do you like the use of white space? The length of the news stories? The toplines/summaries at the beginning? The new approach to reporting?) Are there any specific changes you really like or don't like?
So far, I'm more of a critic than a fan. (But like I said, ask me in six months and see if I actually can distinguish more than a couple of changes without pulling out this old email.) I think the white space is creative, if jarring. My teacher friends who are not journalists and yet still read the printed version of the Bee (maybe three people, total -- a different story there altogether) feel like they're getting ripped off. The page is already super narrow, reduced a few years ago to save paper costs. And now they're running a bunch of "empty space," in the vernacular of my non-journalist friends, that means they're getting even less news than before. They hate that.
I totally understand the concept of "breathing space" in design, using "nothing" to create "something." But the fact that the Bee is doing this on every story now takes away the potential for white space to powerfully attract the attention of readers. So ... too much white space, IMHO.
Length of stories is probably something readers notice least. Most readers don't finish stories anyway. The research is quite clear, for example, that only a small minority of readers complete stories that jump to a new page. (But we're jumping stories anyway on the Gazette, because not doing so will kill design creativity faster than almost anything else you can do.) I haven't been especially bothered by shorter stories. I see they're shorter on the inside A-section pages, in particular, but the whole A section, after page A3, was a skim for me and most readers anyway. So now, the Bee editors are doing my skimming for me and actually getting more short summaries into the paper than they did before. So you can actually argue that there is more news in the A section than there used to be, although it's more summaries and fewer full stories.
Toplines and summaries aren't a big problem for me, although as a copy editor, I can tell you they're a pain in the butt to have to create. I haven't worked any Bee copy desk shifts since the design changes went into effect, but I'm expecting my summer shifts at the Bee will be filled with a certain amount of dread over having to write the equivalent of five or six headlines/deckheads/subheads per story instead of the two or three we used to write.
I don't really sense a huge change in the way the Bee is reporting stories. I actually asked two of my teacher friends this question at a dinner last night, and they also said they didn't sense any significant changes in story-telling technique. The exception is sports, because the whole shooting match is wrapping up earlier, so they can't get late games into the newspaper and they've decided to go with a much more feature-focus approach. Which frankly works. Everyone gets their results on ESPN anyway, so why waste ink on scores that are 12-15 hours old by the time I pick up my newspaper? Instead, tell me something I don't already know, in an engaging, interesting way.
On that note, my favorite change so far at the Bee (and it's not design, but it happened at about the same time) is Andy Furillo as the new Bee sports columnist. I used to love to copy edit Andy's crime stories, because he was a creative guy, and they gave him a lot of rein to be clever and compelling. Switching him to sports has been a breath of fresh air. He's a hell of a writer, and he's an excellent reporter. That's a combination the Bee has been missing since Mark Kriedler left nearly a decade ago. Since then, the Bee sports section has been boring me with Ailene Voison's overwrought prose, and with an occasional Marcos Breton return to sports that is inevitably designed to somehow make me feel guilty about something.
Furillo, on the other hand, has just been terrific. Check out his piece today, for example, on Barry Zito -- a wonderul column highlighting Zito's struggles in his major-league baseball comeback attempt that is just beautifully constructed and executed.
Sorry ... got sidetracked. The one design change I like least is the huge color splash, with reverse text for the name of the section. It reminds me of USA Today, and that product is one I hold in especially low regard. The color is disjointed, disconnected and distracting to me. I think it shouts "Seventh Grade Newsletter," not major metro for the capital of the largest state in the country.
The sports coverage is a lot different than before. What are your thoughts on that?
I noted some of my sports thoughts above. I will say that my son, who is a varsity baseball player, is irritated by the lack of box scores for major-league baseball. But again, that's information you can get elsewhere. He's adjusting. So am I.
What do you think about the readability of the paper? Is it harder or easier to navigate?
It's probably harder for me and everyone now, because it's new. But we'll all get used to it. I told Joe Davidson, the prep writer for the Bee and a friend of mine, that newspaper redesigns result in lots of vocal opposition from a few critics, a smattering of vocal support ... and mostly silence. But ask readers six months from now what specifics they'll remember about the redesign, and they won't be able to come up with anything. (Except for the color. Because that really sucks.)
Do you think that the redesigned paper is geared toward a different readership than the original Bee? (print vs online reader, younger vs older generations)
I know that's what they're trying to do. You youngsters don't pick up the printed version of the Bee. Maybe you'll get enticed by the color. It's sort of like Sunny the Wonderdog on my living room floor ... she's not paying much attention as I write this, but if something catches her eye -- "Squirrel!!!" -- she's up and at 'em. Maybe a giant splash of red spot color is your generation's "Squirrel!"
Do you think that these changes are going to be beneficial in the long run for the Bee?
In terms of getting and keeping readers? No. The Bee, and all print newspapers, have a much bigger problem with readership that tweaking design is not going to solve. Readers are jumping overboard in droves, and the industry has not figured out how to monetize online content to the degree it needs to to be able to pay for the costs of serious newsgathering. I mean, it's nice that you get a byline in your school's newspaper, plus camaraderie with your peers, and academic credit, and the opportunity to exercise your critical-thinking skills in ways that are much more engaging than the typical five-paragraph literary analysis you are often asked to write. But some day, you're going to want to rent an apartment, make a car payment and eat something other than cat food for dinner. The Huntington Post model -- "Hey, people will write for us for FREE!" -- is unsustainable. But people are used to getting content for free online, and newspapers made the mistake of providing that content for free for many years. Now, as some newspapers try to get readers to pay for online access to help pay for the high costs of newsgathering, they're finding their readers simply won't take the bait.
My best friend is a history teacher at Oak Ridge (where I used to teach a long time ago). Like me, he was a HUGE Bee reader. Every day he'd devour the newspaper, and we often had arcane but incredibly satisfying conversations about all kinds of topics because we'd both read the same stories in the Bee (and elsewhere).
Today, he's killed his subscription and only reads the Bee online, and he doesn't pay a dime for the privilege. He gets full access with a school-based subscription intended to get students to read the Bee online, but teachers can also take advantage of the deal.
I told him last night at dinner that they'll have to pry my printed newspaper out of my cold, dead fingers ... and he just smiled.
Because that's exactly what he used to say.
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