After Layoffs: Newspapers Get Smaller, Pew Sudy Finds

From Editor and Publisher

U.S. daily newspapers aren't shrinking just their newsrooms, an extensive study released Monday finds. Stories, page count, sections, international and national news are all smaller, too -- and only a minority of editors think online journalism will save their papers.

In the study by journalist Tyler Marshall and the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, editors by big numbers think their papers are actually improving their coverage, even as they lament that their staffs have lost their most veteran journalists in waves of buyouts and layoffs.

That's not to say that editors are feeling very confident: Just 5% of the 259 top editors of newspaper big and small said they were "very confident of their ability to predict what their newsrooms would look like five years from now," the report said.

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Al-jazirah applies for BPA audit

Saudi daily newspaper Al-jazirah announced it has applied for audit under internationally recognised BPA Worldwide standards. The newspaper has received numerous awards including Best in Print prize in Asia by IFRA and the Arabian Journalism prize in Dubai for three successive years.

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ELYSIA SMITH
The National

Internet to overtake newspapers ad spend in 2009 (UK)

From Brandrepublic

   The internet will become the UK's single largest advertising medium next year, overtaking both TV and newspapers, according to the latest ad spend forecast from ZenithOptimedia. Internet ad spend is projected to grow by 32.3% this year and 28.2% next, to reach £4,055m in 2009

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EVOLUTION OF NEWSPAPER DESIGN IN INDIA

From Mutiny

     Despite its illustrious history, Indian newspaper industry’s design counterpart never really ‘evolved’ but merely followed cosmetic trends.
     The New Indian Express‘ latest redesign effort of its faltering product only emphasizes that point. In what looks like a Gulf News inspired design, throwing in what is possible the world’s worst masthead, this is one newspaper that is begging to fall apart.
     A huge ‘i’ (which looks like ‘1', thanks to using a typeface you would avoid like plague in such cases) and and an ‘e-Godzilla’ gobbling the news highlights completely throws you off balance, not to mention the page itself.
     There are definitely a few good touches here and there, but newspaper design is more than just using some contemporary font with a dash of colour in a layout. It should reflect the newspaper’s character, which in Indian Express’ case can be atttributed to ‘the Goenka brand of journalism’ for which which they have been once famed for. Unfortunately, a tacky line like ‘100% steel, 0% Gas‘ (Headlines Today can do better, don’t you think?) is an indication of the editorial quality they possess which spills over to the design as well.

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TIME TO REMEMBER

FOREWORD

At a glance, as we in the newspaper business are fond of saying, this book contains the best of newspaper design from the Spring of 1986 to the Spring of 1987.

Designers have the ability to control how a message is transmitted, and thus, thow the message is received.
Every stepa a designer takes, consciously or unconsciously, says something to a reader.

These pages show us the outsanding efforts of the clearest-thinking, most creative mindes in our business, using state-0f-the-art technology to present information and chronicle history as the decade of the '80s winds down.

Beyond the selection of type, the choice of photographs, the style of illustration, the use of color, what we see is designers at work in the on-going effort to better explain the news to readers.

As you look through these pages, you will se the range of human experience transmitted through the minds and skills of some of our most talent journalist.

We hope you enjoy this book because what we are really looking at ourselves- from the Spring of 1986 to the Spring of 1987

Maggie Balough
President,
Society of Newspaper Design