Chicagoans awoke Monday morning to find that their beloved newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, had put on a new outfit. "It's a whole new day," announced the paper's website. This is the 150 year old paper's first significant reformatting...ever. And despite the Tribune's optimism, one has to wonder if the changes aren't merely on par with a lightbulb replacement in an already condemned house. The alterations come in response to several rapid and radical shifts in the news industry. Simply put, people get their news differently than they did five years ago. The availability of online news sources has grown exponentially. The blogosphere has been born. Less and less people are buying papers because they're inconvenient, bulky, and above all expensive.
Amongst other things, the Tribune is more colorful, bolder and easier to read. The articles are shorter. The sentences are shorter. Even the words are shorter. Pictures seem to be important. Some take up over half of the page. Glancing through the new Tribune, it's easy to notice that the paper is attempting to ride the wave of online journalism that seems to be the only sort of journalism thriving right now.
A quick look at the editorial section will tell you what Chicagoans think of the Tribune's new suit. From Grant Park to Cicero, the reaction seem be the same. They don't like it. They don't like it one bit. The new Trib is gimmicky, dumbed-down, even shameless. Perhaps this comes as a result of historical Chi-town stubbornness, but one has to wonder what the late Tribune writer Mike Royko is doing in his grave right now. I asked my mother, a Chicago-native for 30 years, and she seems to have an idea.
"He's rollin' in it," she said in our phone conversation last night. "I can't even read it anymore. It makes me too depressed." It could be that Chicagoans just need time to adjust to the big pictures, short-sentences, and colorful pages, but I'm starting to think that perhaps the Tribune's latest attempt at salvation may be the paper's final SOS. And one has to wonder exactly what the paper is accomplishing by alienating a reader-base that has always been a constant.
It's a hard fact for editors to realize, but what's killing the newspaper industry isn't anything that can be fixed in print. The internet is changing every aspect of society and most industries have adjusted. Banking is done online, for free. Shopping is done online, for free. If the media wants to survive in the 21st century, it has to move accordingly.
Ben Gucciardi.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-tribune-redesign-htmlpage,0,7090729.htmlpage
http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/002913.php
http://www.publishaletter.com/readletter.jsp?plid=4680
I think it is really unfortunate how the Chicago Tribune changed their layout. They've had a certain style for the past 150 years, and all of a sudden change it? I think this is their attempt to try to keep up with contemporary times and have a lot of color and pictures to attract readers. It is also like they are dumbing their journalism down so we the readers understand it, but that shouldn't be the case! You read the newspaper to learn more, not to look at all the pretty pictures.
ReplyDeleteIt is also surprising that the Chicago Tribune of all newspapers would do this. Chicago is a mainstream city with a lot to offer and considered to be a successful city. In that respect, they shouldn't make the articles and their sentences shorter! If they're not getting positive feedback now about the new layout, then I suggest they change it because the readers' opinion is not likely about to change. I read the newspaper to learn, not to get the news sugar coated to me.